GB News has been slapped with an Ofcom notice after the watchdog deemed it had broken broadcasting rules on five occasions.
Two installments of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s State of the Nation, two episodes of Friday Morning with Esther and Phil, and one episode of Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil that aired between May and June 2023 were found to be “impartial” in an investigation.
Ofcom states that under broadcasting code, “news, in whatever form, must be presented with due impartiality. Additionally, a politician cannot be a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter unless, exceptionally, there is editorial justification.”
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GB News, which prides itself as the so-called ‘home of free-speech’, was still reeling from another complaint this month – after Ofcom determined the channel’s sacked presenter Laurence Fox’s comments about journalist Ava Evans on Dan Wootton Tonight were “misogynistic” and broke broadcasting rules too.
(Image: PA)
A statement from Ofcom on Monday morning (March 18) read: “After careful consideration of the facts in each case – including forensic analysis of the content and detailed representations from GB News – we found that two episodes of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s State of the Nation, two episodes of Friday Morning with Esther and Phil, and one episode of Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil, broadcast during May and June 2023, failed to comply with Rules 5.1 and 5.3 of the Broadcasting Code.
“All five programmes in question contained a mix of news and current affairs content. We found that host politicians acted as newsreaders, news interviewers or news reporters in sequences which clearly constituted news – including reporting breaking news events – without exceptional justification. News was, therefore, not presented with due impartiality.”
(Image: GB News)
It continued: “Politicians have an inherently partial role in society and news content presented by them is likely to be viewed by audiences in light of that perceived bias. In our view, the use of politicians to present the news risks undermining the integrity and credibility of regulated broadcast news. We therefore considered it was necessary and proportionate to find a breach of Rules 5.1 and 5.3 in these circumstances.”
Ofcom went on to add that a sixth broadcast – another Jacob Rees-Mogg’s State of the Nation offering – avoided punishment after Rees-Mogg was deemed to be an “eye-witness, in situ-news reporter” during the live report of a security breach at Buckingham Palace.
(Image: PA)
A GB News spokesperson hit back in a lengthy response to the ruling, which it described as a “chilling development”. A statement read: “We are deeply concerned by the decisions Ofcom has made today. We will raise this directly with the regulator in the strongest possible terms. Ofcom is obliged by law to promote free speech and media plurality, and to ensure that alternative voices are heard.
“Its latest decisions, in some cases a year after the programme aired, contravene those duties. Extraordinarily, Ofcom has determined that a programme which it acknowledges was impartial and lacking in any expression of opinion, still somehow breaches its impartiality rules just because an imaginary viewer might think otherwise.
“This is a chilling development for all broadcasters, for freedom of speech, and for everyone in the United Kingdom. These decisions go against established precedent and raises serious questions about Ofcom’s oversight over its own regulations. It appears that Ofcom is trying to extend the regulations, rather than enforcing definitions which have been settled for many years.”
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