British media regulator fines Russia's RT news channel $250,000
© Zurab Javakhadze/TASS
LONDON, July 26, 2019 - British media regulator Ofcom has fined Russia’s RT news channel 200,000 pounds ($250,000) for breaking broadcasting rules, Ofcom said in a statement on Friday.
"Ofcom has today fined the news channel RT 200,000 pounds for serious failures to comply with our broadcasting rules - and required the channel to broadcast a summary of our findings to its viewers," the statement reads.
"Ofcom has rules in place requiring broadcast news to be presented with due impartiality. Our investigation found that RT failed to preserve due impartiality in seven news and current affairs programs between March 17 and April 26, 2018," the regulator added.
"Taken together, these breaches represented serious and repeated failures of compliance with our rules. We were particularly concerned by the frequency of RT’s rule-breaking over a relatively short period of time. The programs were mostly in relation to major matters of political controversy and current public policy - namely the UK Government’s response to the events in Salisbury, and the Syrian conflict," the statement adds.
Following the 2018 Salisbury poisoning incident, Ofcom launched ten investigations against RT, as many as in the previous 11 years.
Britain fines Russia's RT for breaking broadcast rules over Skripal and Syria
LONDON July 26, 2019 - Britain’s media regulator fined Russia’s RT 200,000 pounds ($248,740) for breaching broadcasting impartiality rules in its coverage of the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal, the policies of Ukraine and the conflict in Syria.
Relations between London and Moscow sank to a post-Cold War low over the 2018 poisoning of Skripal, a mole who betrayed hundreds of Russian agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service. Britain blamed that attack on Russia which denied involvement.
Britain’s media regulator, known as Ofcom, said it had “imposed a £200,000 fine on ANO TV Novosti in relation to its service RT for failing to comply with our broadcasting rules.”
The regulator said the fine related to RT news and current affair programs broadcast between March 17 and April 26 dealing with issues such as the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, the conflict in Syria, and the Ukrainian government’s position on Nazism and its treatment of gypsies.
RT said the fine was wrong.
“It is very wrong for Ofcom to have issued a sanction against RT on the basis of its breach findings that are currently under Judicial Review by the High Court in London,” an RT spokeswoman said.
“And while we continue to contest the very legitimacy of the breach decisions themselves, we find the scale of proposed penalty to be particularly inappropriate and disproportionate.”
Russian officials say RT is a way for Moscow to compete with the dominance of global media companies based in the United States and Britain, which they say offer a particular view of the world.
Critics say RT, which broadcasts news in English, Arabic and Spanish, is the propaganda arm of the Russian state and aims to undermine confidence in Western institutions.
Russia’s RT TV channel to keep broadcast license in Britain, says media regulator
Back-dated May 13, 2019 -
Russia’s RT TV channel will not lose its broadcast license in Britain over the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, as the channel "is fit and proper," The Sunday Telegraph wrote with reference to the UK’s media watchdog Ofcom. Earlier the broadcasting regulator conducted seven investigations into the due impartiality of the RT television channel over its news reporting on the poisoning of ex-GRU colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.
"Should the UK investigating authorities determine that there was an unlawful use of force by the Russian State against the UK, we would consider this relevant to our ongoing duty to be satisfied that RT is fit and proper," the regulator said.
Ofcom's announcement follows calls by several British MPs for RT to be taken off air, in the wake of the attack. Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, called it a "hostile agent" carrying out "information warfare". The British government later confirmed its conclusion that the attack amounted to "an unlawful use of force by the Russian State".
"In our judgment, it would be inappropriate for Ofcom always to place decisive weight on such matters in determining whether state-funded broadcasters were fit and proper to hold broadcast licenses, independently of their broadcasting record," the regulator said.
"If we did, many state-funded broadcasters (mostly those from states which may not share UK values) would be potentially not fit and proper. This would be a poorer outcome for UK audiences in light of our duties on plurality, diversity and freedom of expression," Ofcom added.
On March 4, Sergei Skripal, 66, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain, and his daughter Yulia, 33, suffered the effects of an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury. Claiming that the substance used in the incident had been a nerve agent allegedly developed in Russia, London rushed to accuse Moscow of being involved in the case without presenting any evidence. The Russian side flatly rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations, saying that a program aimed at developing such a substance had existed neither in the Soviet Union nor in Russia. On April 12, the OPCW released a report confirming London’s findings that former Russian military intelligence officer-turned-British spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia had been poisoned with a nerve agent, but did not provide any information on the name or origin of the toxin in question.
