Thread by @benimmo

BREAKING: UK telecoms regulator @Ofcom finds Kremlin broadcaster RT guilty of violating the rules on due impartiality seven times in six weeks, post-Salisbury.

"Serious failure of compliance." Sanction being considered.

ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/…

For context, RT violated the rules on due impartiality and due accuracy with 10 programmes between 2014 and 16, so 7 in 6 weeks is a major escalation.

Violations concerned reporting on Ukraine, Crimea, Turkey and Syria.

Background: medium.com/dfrlab/ofcom-a…

Important to note that over the same period, @Ofcom found at least eight RT programmes +not+ guilty of violations.

In case anyone fancies trying to argue that Ofcom is biased...

Also worth remembering RT's editor-in-chief compared it with the Russian Army and Defence Ministry, and talked about it "waging the information war against the entire Western world."

Which gives context for the latest violations.

medium.com/dfrlab/questio…

On the detail of the report: it's huge.

190 pages, all for RT. An entire bulletin, out of sequence (they're usually published on alternate Mondays).

Seven shows in breach, three not guilty, in case anyone still wanted to suggest bias.

So much of this boils down to:

RT: "We tell it from a Russian viewpoint, so what do you expect?"

Ofcom: "We expect you to give a fair hearing to alternative virewpoints too."

This says so much, too.

RT: "Everyone else was covering the mainstream narrative, so we didn't need to."

Ofcom: "No."

Surely, surely this was tongue in cheek?

RT on George Galloway: Highly controversial, and if you hadn't spotted it, you soon will.

And here we have the killer line: "RT must be able to broadcast a Russian perspective as a +counter to the western narrative+."

Confirming RT's essential purpose as geopolitical information warfare. Just as its chief editor said.

The questions "primarily had the effect of encouraging or reinforcing" the interviewee's views.

A familiar pattern in past RT violations. Get an interviewee whose views match the required narrative, and draw them out.

Plausible deniability.

RT keeps on tripping up on this one.

If you can't find interviewees, you +have+ to find another way of getting their point of view across.

The same comment came in earlier RT findings too.

And living up to its own standards, here's Ofcom finding RT +not guilty+, because the interviewer challenged the interviewee, rather than egging him on.

Compare that with this especially ugly episode, where a pro-US interviewee was invited on, and then repeatedly shouted down - unlike the other ones.

"Viewers would not have been able to hear his perspective articulated fully."

On that note, it's telling how often, in this very long Ofcom finding, RT points out that it can't get pro-Western voices on its shows any more.

"Dozens of declined invitations."

Which still doesn't remove the obligation to preserve due impartiality.

Start by calling the Syria strikes a "gross violation" and "needless."

At no point does either guest challenge that.

Due impartiality...?

Hilarious. RT's owner argues that the U.S. policy on Syria strikes was so incoherent they couldn't find it.

Ofcom looked on... the White House website. And found it.

Particularly interesting: one guilty finding concerned RT's coverage of Russian accusations that the US would get rebels in Ghouta to stage chemical attacks.

RT failed to give the US a fair hearing.

Broadcaster as amplifier of state narratives.

Another one here: Ukrainian government accused of glorifying Nazism.

Ukrainian government's opinion on this specific question not shown.

Glorifying Nazism is always bad.

Giving those accused of doing so the right to reply is an obligation.

And the punch: Ofcom considering sanctions.

Possible sanctions are:

- order not to repeat a show;
- order to broadcast a correction / statement of findings;
- fine;
- shorten, suspend, or revoke licence.

Watch this space...

(See ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/…)