Is Ofcom on collision course with GB News?

Ofcom is investigating the prime minister's controversial appearance on a GB News Q&A show, highlighting the media watchdog's ongoing battle to regulate the right-wing TV channel. 

"People's Forum: the Prime Minister", which aired on 12 February, resulted in more than 500 complaints related to bias being sent to Ofcom. Rishi Sunak took questions from 100 undecided voters, and presenter Stephen Dixon said the questions had not been seen in advance by the PM or by GB News. 

Ofcom requires political and news shows to maintain impartiality, fairness and accuracy – especially in the run-up to elections. In a statement about the investigation, the regulator highlighted parts of its broadcasting code requiring that "an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in such programmes, or in clearly linked and timely programmes". 

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The prime minister's spokesperson said Sunak did not regret taking part, adding that media appearances "are an important part of the democratic process".

What did the commentators say?

The impartiality requirement "does not mean that the same amount of time needs to be given to opposing views", said Sky News. But the issue of political figures such as Jacob Rees-Mogg presenting topical programmes is "increasingly becoming contentious as more MPs take these jobs".

The problem, said Politico's London Playbook newsletter, is that it's "not at all clear what Ofcom is investigating". Complainants accused Sunak of answering only "selected questions", and criticised the timing of the show, which aired just days before two by-elections (both of which the Conservatives lost). Questions were also raised about the presence of two "so-called 'vaccine-damaged' participants" in such a small audience. Ofcom "wouldn't say whether those issues were the subject of the probe". 

But GB News "emphasised on the night of the broadcast" that Keir Starmer had been invited to take part in a programme with the same format, said The Telegraph. 

The Labour leader's decision not to do so is perhaps explained by the five occasions that GB News has been found in breach of Ofcom guidelines since launching in 2021, said Left Foot Forward. These occasions included Ofcom ruling that potentially harmful content related to the Covid-19 vaccine had been shared by presenter Mark Steyn, who "wrongly claimed figures from the UK Health Security Agency data provided evidence of a third booster causing hospitalisation and death". 

The network is also under 12 ongoing investigations, many related to impartiality issues. But Ofcom last week rejected 70 complaints about GB News presenter Neil Oliver linking the Covid-19 vaccine to "turbo cancer". It appears that Oliver's "freedom to express misleading or indeed outright deranged ideas trumps Ofcom's mandate to prevent harmful or offensive content", said Jane Martinson in The Guardian.

This "odd decision" helps to "sum up where Ofcom is failing". Despite a "constant bombardment of extreme content from GB News", lately the watchdog has "fetishised free speech above all else" – even above protecting the public from harmful content, despite its newly expanded remit as the formal regulator for online harm in the recent Online Safety Act. 

Quite right, said Andrew Tettenborn on Spiked. "We should be reducing, not increasing, the power of regulators to police what we can see and hear."  The British people "should be trusted to decide which news broadcasts to trust or not", rather than being treated like "schoolchildren".

What next?

Ofcom's investigation into Sunak's appearance on GB News "serves as a good get-out for Starmer not to appear", said Politico.

But surely the best way to balance Sunak's televised Q&A would be for the Labour leader to accept the network's invitation, said right-wing news blog Guido Fawkes. In any case, Ofcom "urgently needs to clarify their regulations as the political broadcasting landscape changes". It's clear that "channels are still in limbo about what exactly will be allowed during the election campaign".

Yet GB News "shows little concern about Ofcom", said Martinson in The Guardian. The investigations into Rees-Mogg's shows have not stopped him persuading the prime minister "to take his place presenting on the channel on Monday".

"Ofcom is in a challenging position in the face of wily new operatives and politically motivated bad actors," she wrote. "Yet it would do well to remember that the dangers of misinformation, like pollution or disease, are often difficult to spot until it's too late."