Ofcom has the right to investigate broadcasters who are suspected of violating the code; this is usually done on the basis of complaints from the public. In the two years from July 2014 to July 2016, RT was found to have violated the standards of news reporting for programs covering Ukraine in November 2014 and September 2015 and Turkey in July 2016.

These findings led to repeated criticisms by RT’s supporters. On October 29, 2016, for example, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ofcom of “clear bias” against RT. In 2015, an opinion piece by RT presenter Afshin Rattansi claimed that Ofcom’s task is to “hound mainstream UK broadcast media.”

Headline of RT’s 2015 opinion piece about Ofcom. (Source: rt.com)

In 2014, Lavrov himself accused Ofcom of “censorship,” while RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan accused Ofcom of “an attempt to influence editorial our policy.”

The recent invocations of Ofcom are therefore all the more striking.

RT’s defense

On July 5, the BBC interviewed RT’s London bureau chief, Nikolay Bogachikhin, and asked him about RT’s relationship with the regulator.

Bogachikhin said: “We have a very productive relation with Ofcom, but sometimes we have a different view on what this amount of dueness is in the ‘due impartiality’ rule so… but we are working on it, so that’s not something unusual. I’m pretty sure that all the other broadcasters were found in breach many more times than us.”

The final sentence does not match the facts. A survey of all Ofcom broadcast bulletins from January 2014 to July 2017 showed that RT had had ten programs found guilty of violating the rules on accuracy, impartiality, and “materially misleading” audiences, in four different bulletins (November 2014, September 2015, July 2016, December 2016).

Only one broadcaster had more programs found in violation of the code over the same period: the Indian outlet Times Now, which had twenty programs listed in two rulings (February 2017 and April 2017).

Among other broadcasters, NTV Mir Lithuania, which shows programs in Russian, had six programs in violation (June and July 2015, March and December 2016, June 2017). China’s CCTV had four programs found guilty in a single judgement in February 2015; Fox News had three violations in September 2015 and August and November 2016; the UK’s Channel 4 had three violations in February, April and December 2015.

RT’s record, as far as Ofcom’s findings on accuracy and impartiality go, is therefore unusually poor.

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s claims

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s two latest references to Ofcom, and Lavrov’s remarks, differed in the detail, but made the same basic argument: it is wrong to accuse RT and Sputnik of fakes, violations or propaganda (all three terms were used), because Ofcom has checked them.

Part of this argument can be dismissed immediately. Ofcom’s mandate is limited to broadcasts made on the airwaves. Since January 2017, Sputnik, which formerly aired on digital radio in London, is an internet-only outlet, and, as such, is not subject to Ofcom.

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s claim that Ofcom cleared Sputnik of violations cannot, therefore, be accurate.