Russia is waging a ‘blatant disinformation’ war using Kremlin-funded channel RT, warns culture secretary Jeremy Wright in wake of novichok interview
- Jeremy Wright QC will warn that the country’s ability to peddle fake news
- Media secretary says Kremlin-backed state broadcaster RT is a ‘major concern’
- RT is already being investigated by Ofcom over 10 alleged breaches of rules
- Critics have slammed their ‘partial’ and ‘shameless’ interview of assassins
Russia is behind a ‘blatant disinformation campaign’ in Britain and the Kremlin-backed state broadcaster RT is a ‘major concern’, the Culture Secretary will warn today.
In one of his first speeches, Jeremy Wright QC will warn that the country’s ability to peddle fake news on UK TV and online must be stopped.
And ‘high quality’ British media outlets should come together to fight back, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will say.
Mr Wright will tell the Royal Television Society (RTS) conference in London: ‘High quality journalism is the best possible weapon in our battle against disinformation, so the sustainability of our media is something that should concern us all.’
The Conservative MP’s comments come as communications regulator Ofcom confirmed yesterday that it was investigating whether an RT interview, which aired last week, with the two men behind the Salisbury novichok attack had breached its guidelines.
RT is already being probed in ten separate investigations over alleged impartiality and faces more criticism of its interview with Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov
Jeremy Wright QC (left) will warn that the country’s ability to peddle fake news on Putin-backed RT must be stopped
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Ofcom is already investigating RT over ten alleged breaches of impartiality rules
Ofcom has opened investigations into ten RT shows this year after complaints they were not impartial.
Sputnik, March 17 2018
• George Galloway and Gayatri Pertiwi who had a discussion with the former Russian Government advisor, Alexander Nekrassov about the Salisbury attack that may not have been ‘sufficiently balanced’
News, March 18 2018
•Investigation assessing whether this programme offered sufficient balance in a report about Syria.
News, March 30 2018
Investigation assessing whether this programme offered sufficient balance in a report about Saudi Arabia
Worlds Apart, April 1 2018
• Discussion with Walter Litvinenko, the father of Alexander Litvinenko, about the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal.
Crosstalk, April 12 2018
• Assessing whether this segment about US foreign policy in Syria was sufficiently balanced.
Crosstalk, April 16 2018
• Investigation assessing whether this segment about US, French and UK foreign policy in Syria was sufficiently balanced
Sputnik, April 17 2018
• George Galloway and Gayatri Pertiwi who had a discussion with independent researcher, David Morrison, about the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia that may not have been sufficiently balanced.
Crosstalk, April 20 2018
• A segment about US foreign policy in Syria and whether it was sufficiently balanced.
News, April 26 2018
• News item discussed the Ukranian Government’s position on Nazism and the treatment of minorities.
News, May 4 2018
• Reported treatment of anti-fracking activists by the UK authorities, and included interviews with Bob Dennett, Co-founder of Frack Free and an anti-fracking activist Joseph Corre.
In the interview, the men, who the Prime Minister has said are Russian military intelligence officers, claimed they were visiting the Wiltshire town as tourists when former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned.
Mr Wright’s comments also come after it emerged that Russian cyberattackers had tried to sew lies on social media during the Brexit referendum and the American elections.
Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT has repeatedly flouted rules by Ofcom, the regulator which sets rules for the broadcasting industry in Britain.
RT is currently being investigated for 10 potential breaches, all which relate to impartiality.
The broadcaster has repeatedly broken Ofcom’s code since the Salisbury nerve agent attack in March, which Russia has denied any involvement in.
Mr Wright will say today: ‘Following the Salisbury incident, Russia has begun a blatant disinformation campaign with misleading procedural questions and over 40 different official narratives – all false. Many of these were carried and promoted on Kremlin-backed media.
‘Russia Today, funded by the Russian state, is a major concern. Ofcom currently has 10 investigations into the impartiality of RT’s news and current affairs programmes. I welcome these investigations and I await their conclusions with great interest.’
Ofcom’s investigations are ongoing and the regulator aims to deliver its findings as swiftly as possible.
As the Government investigates how it can support the media and its future through the Cairncross Review, Mr Wright will today throw his weight behind the industry, telling the conference: ‘A strong media means a strong democracy and a strong nation’.
‘And we cannot be complacent. Those sowing discord want to undermine this trust and the institutions upon which our liberal democracy relies. Trust is a precious commodity and bolstering it is vital to our future,’ he will add.
He will also back public service broadcasters, such as the BBC, but call on the Corporation and others to do more the battle to fight fake news.
Through ‘high quality journalism and reporting’ the public service broadcasters can build trust in news, he will say.
The former Attorney General will also echo repeated warnings that the BBC is failing to appeal to younger viewers, who are instead watching sites such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
‘I want to see them doing more to reach a diverse and younger audience, exploring innovative ways to reach the public and providing opportunities for under-represented groups both on and off screen,’ he will say.
Interviewer Margarita Simonyan of RT conducted the interview with the two men which raised many more questions than answers
There has been fury over RT coverage shown in the UK with Ofcom told to shut it down for good
Fact vs fiction: How the novichok spies’ claims fall down each time
Claim
‘We came to Salisbury on the 3rd [of March], we tried to walk around the city, but since the city was covered in snow, we were able to only for a half an hour, we got wet. On March 4, we went back there, because the snow melted in London, it was warm. But again, by lunchtime, there was heavy rain with snow’.
Truth
The Russians hail from a country that deals with snow for most of the year – with one from Siberia, one of the coldest places on the planet. The Met believe that on March 3 they found Skripal’s home knowing they would return the next day to attack him. There is no way they could cover that distance in the 30minutes they claimed to be in Salisbury for.
Claim
On the day the Skripals were poisoned – March 4 – the men said they went to see the cathedral. Boshirov said: ‘The cathedral is very beautiful. They have lots of tourists, lots of Russian tourists, lots of Russian-speaking tourists’
Truth
CCTV shows them a mile away from the cathedral near Sergei Skripal’s home. After arriving in the city at 11.48am they were at their target’s house within ten minutes. An hour later they appeared in the city centre and caught a train 45 minutes after that, giving them no chance of any sightseeing. The Bishop of Salisbury confirmed today they appear to have no footage of the men at the cathedral.
Claim
‘Of course, we went to visit Stonehenge, Old Sarum, the cathedral of the Virgin Mary, but it didn’t work out because there was muddy slush everywhere, as we’d say in Russian, total slush. We got wet, returned to the train station and went back on the next train.’
Truth
Photos, TripAdvisor reviews and social media posts prove others were able to visit these historic sites without being hampered by the weather.
Claim
The men admitted they may have stumbled on Skripal’s home by accident. Boshirov said: ‘Maybe we passed by it, maybe we didn’t pass by it, I don’t know, I hadn’t heard. I hadn’t heard this surname, I didn’t know anything about them before this situation, this nightmare with us, started.’
Truth
The house was in completely the wrong direction away from the cathedral and Sergei Skripal’s defection to Britain was one of the biggest spy stories in Russia of the past 20 years.
Claim
The poison came to Britain in a high-tech perfume bottle designed not to spill, especially when sprayed. The men said: ‘Isn’t it silly for a normal man to carry women’s perfume? Even just passing through customs. When you pass through customs they check all your things, or just any police officer can look through them, I think if we would have had something, they would have had questions. Why does a man in his luggage have women’s perfume?’
Truth
A small bottle of perfume in hand luggage is not remotely strange, especially as many men buy it as a gift in tax free.
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