Ofcom: BBC breaking broadcast rules by showing foreign propaganda
Tue Aug 18, 2015 1:30PM
File picture showing the BBC headquarters in London. ( AFP photo)
The British Broadcasting Corporation, or the BBC, has been accused of repeatedly breaching broadcast rules by showing propaganda content.
According to an investigation by the media regulator, Ofcom, the BBC, along with a number of other international mainstream media outlets including CNN and CNBC, has been screening propaganda programs funded by foreign governments and organizations.
The probe has found 20 breaches of sponsorship rules by BBC World News, The Independent reported.
It has also been revealed that the British broadcaster has failed to inform viewers that they were watching propaganda programs funded by foreign governments and companies.
Ofcom has said that it plans to draw up new guidelines for broadcasters to make sure that “viewers can continue to be confident in the independence of factual programming.”
A London-based political analyst says the BBC has indeed been taking “propaganda from dubious regimes” for a long time.
“In the case of the BBC, it is being exposed, as taking propaganda from dubious regimes and then not even telling the public that these are programs which have not been independently made. They are sheer propaganda by dubious regimes,” Rodney Shakespeare told Press TV’s UK Desk on Tuesday.“The BBC is part of the structure of the mainstream media controlled by Zionism. What that means is either they tell straightforward lies or much more significantly they fail to tell the truth, that is to say they leave all the important things out,” he said.
He also described the alternative media as a “counteracting power” which can “get the truth out to counteract lying propaganda of the BBC and the mainstream organizations.”