FOR a decade she had the ear of the Governor of the Bank of England; now she is one of the international faces of the increasingly authoritarian Russia of President Putin.

Liz George, whose father, Lord George, ran the Bank of England for ten years until 2003, is to be a news anchor for Russia Today, a controversial Kremlin-backed English language news channel that was launched last weekend.

The former CNN business and sailing correspondent is one of several British and American reporters working at the channel, which critics say is a Kremlin propaganda tool designed to buff its tarnished international image. It is a far cry from her previous work, which included presenting Business International, a daily CNN financial programme, and covering sailing competitions from Southampton to Singapore.

Just weeks after it was announced that Sir David Frost was joining al-Jazeera, Ms George, 38, takes her place at the centre of a Kremlin campaign to counterbalance what it sees as negative coverage in Western media as it prepares to take over the presidency of the G8 on January 1. Some Western critics have questioned whether the G8 leadership should pass to a government that has silenced independent media, suppressed its political opponents and banned direct elections for regional governors.

Media freedom activists say that the Kremlin, which controls all national television networks, intends to use Russia Today as a mouthpiece and is enlisting respectable British faces to give it legitimacy.

But Ms George told The Times that she was attracted by the technical and ethical challenges. “It’s just got that fascination value — to have an English language network being set up in Russia when questions are being asked about media freedoms here,” she said.

She said that her father was intrigued by her venture and that he was used to the ups and downs of a journalist’s career.

Ms George, who took part in the Fastnet yachting challenge, said that she and many of the foreign staff did not speak Russian. But she said that she had seen no evidence that Russian officials were interfering in the choice of news stories or in the way that they were reported.

She said: “I have not had any pressure at all to run a story any differently from how I would for the BBC or CNN. There would be a big discussion if I felt that I was being censored. Like any reporter, I’d be extremely unhappy and fairly strong about my position. But at the moment, I can’t see it happening.”

She is one of six news editors, but plans to return to presenting soon.