British media in Russia have been warned to prepare themselves for the consequences after Ofcom fined RT £200,000 for a breach of impartiality rules.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it is “closely monitoring the development of the situation” in response to the UK watchdog’s decision over the Kremlin-backed broadcaster on Friday.
Ofcom ruled that news channel RT failed to preserve due impartiality in seven news and current affairs programmes between March 17 and April 26 2018.
The programmes were mostly in relation to major matters of political controversy and current public policy – namely the UK Government’s response to the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury, and the Syrian conflict.
We have fined RT £200,000 for serious failures to comply with our broadcasting rules – and required the channel to broadcast a summary of our findings to its viewers:
https://t.co/PevBEbeAAE— Ofcom (@Ofcom) July 26, 2019
In a statement on social media, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it will “remind British media working in Russia that they should be ready to face the consequences” following the actions from London.
They said that the actions from the broadcasting watchdog were part of an “anti-Russian campaign in the UK”.
In December, Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor launched an investigation into the BBC’s websites and World News channel over alleged violations of Russian law.
It came the day after Ofcom warned it was considering sanctions against RT for breaching its impartiality rules.
Two of the seven RT programmes ruled to have breached impartiality featured former MP George Galloway.
An Ofcom spokeswoman said: “RT’s failings were a serious breach of our due impartiality rules, which protect public trust in news and other programmes.”
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Topic: Unlicensed UK 'Radio Operators' - Programme Content - Beware, Ofcom Has Teeth! (Read 2365 times)
