Nadine Dorries, the Culture Secretary, has written to Ofcom urging it to keep the situation with Russia Today ‘very carefully under review’ given events in Ukraine. At PMQs, Keir Starmer called for the government to ask Ofcom to review RT’s license.
But if RT lost its broadcast license in the UK, then Putin would use this as an excuse to kick out the BBC and other British broadcasters. Just look at how Russia closed the Moscow office of Deutsche Welle, the German public service broadcaster, and ended the accreditation of its journalists after a German-language version of RT was taken off air in Germany.
The least-worst option would be for guests to refuse to go on RT given the credulous way in which it reports Kremlin propaganda. As a democratic society with a vibrant broadcast media and a sceptical public, we should be confident that one blatantly biased channel has no hope in distorting our national debate.
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