EDITORIAL: There should be no double standards in dealing with offence

Two eye-opening events happened in the last few days. A British communications regulatory body, Ofcom, criticised the BBC for putting on air a British national who went to fight for the ISIS, the jihadist group that has left a trail of terror in its wake in both Syria and Iraq. Logically, exhorting the group’s actions to a radio audience that includes adolescents is recipe to bad influence. BBC accepted the admonition but lamely argued that they got it from a third party and played no part in its production. It said “appropriate measures have already been introduced to prevent similar breaches in the future”. Sounds familiar? So much for “editorial guidelines” that it claims to uphold. A Russian private television station was next on Ofcom’s hit list. Russia Today (RT) was accused of bias and breaching the impartiality clause because of a series of programmes on Ukraine. While it might seem that Ofcom is alert on editorial missteps, RT pointed out a number of incidents that the body had kept silent about and wondered whether “other British broadcasters would be able to pass the monitor’s impartiality test, or if other broadcasters will stick to the same rules and conditions, which is currently hardly the case”. One might wonder whether RT was referring to the recent controversial BBC documentary on Rwanda, which like the jihadi broadcast Ofcom found was “capable of causing a significant degree of offence”. Were Rwandans not offended, or are they of no significance in world politics?

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EDITORIAL: There should be no double standards in dealing with offence