GB News Shows Presented by MPs Broke Rules: Ofcom

Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg delivers his keynote address during the National Conservatism conference at the Emmanuel Centre in London, on May 15, 2023. Leon Neal/Getty Images

Five episodes of GB News programmes that were presented by Conservative MPs broke broadcasting rules, according to Ofcom.

On Monday, the regulator said it found that two episodes of “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 Ofcom rules.

Esther McVey and Philip Davies, two Conservative MPs who are also married, presented “Esther and Phil,” while “State of the Nation” is presented by former House of Commons leader Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Under Rules 5.1 and 5.3 of the Broadcasting Code, news in whatever form must be presented with due impartiality and a politician cannot be a newsreader, news interviewer, or news reporter unless, exceptionally, there is editorial justification.

‘Chilling’

GB News said that the rule was “a chilling development for all broadcasters, for freedom of speech, and for everyone in the United Kingdom.”

Ofcom said that it found that GB News hosted politicians that acted as newsreaders, news interviewers, or news reporters in sequences that clearly constituted news—including reporting breaking news events—without “exceptional justification.”

“News was, therefore, not presented with due impartiality,” it said.

“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,” it added.

Ofcom also said that it is putting GB News put on notice that any repeated breaches of the same rules “may result in the imposition of a statutory sanction.”

Impartiality

In a statement, GB News said that it is “deeply concerned by the decisions Ofcom has made today” and that it will continue to feature serving politicians hosting programmes “just as other Ofcom regulated services have in the past and still do.”

“We will raise this directly with the regulator in the strongest possible terms,” it said.

“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,” it added.

GB News said that “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.”

It claimed that Ofcom has “now arbitrarily changed the test so that it is no longer ‘Was it impartial?’ but ‘Could someone think it might not be?’”

GB News said that these “decisions go against established precedent and raises serious questions about Ofcom’s oversight over its own regulations” and that it is “trying to extend the regulations, rather than enforcing definitions which have been settled for many years.”

Scrutiny

The channel has been under scrutiny by Ofcom for freedom of speech issues related to vaccine harm claims.

One investigation concluded that an episode of “Dan Wootton Tonight” on GB News broke broadcasting rules designed to protect viewers from offensive content made by Lawrence Fox about the female journalist Ava Evans.

Reacting to the news on Monday, Mr. Wootton wrote on social media platform X: “What the hell is the difference between Jacob Rees Mogg on GBN and [Labour MP] David Lammy on LBC?”

In response to Mr. Wootton, an Ofcom spokeswoman told The Epoch Times by email: “As the decisions make clear, if a broadcaster chooses to use a politician as a presenter in a programme which includes both news and current affairs content, then the broadcaster must take steps to ensure that it complies with the requirements of Rule 5.3, bearing in mind the overarching standards objective that news in whatever form is presented with due impartiality.”

She added that “broadcasters have editorial freedom to move between news and current affairs in a programme, and to decide how they manage this. The decisions make clear that the relevant parts of these programmes constituted news—in some cases breaking news.”

The TV channel was previously reprimanded by Ofcom for breaching impartiality rules when Mr. Davies and Ms. McVey interviewed the chancellor of the exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, last year, ahead of the Budget.

The channel was also investigated and deemed “potentially harmful” after journalist and academic Naomi Wolf made claims on the “Mark Steyn” programme about the COVID-19 vaccine, including that its rollout amounted to “mass murder” and was comparable to the actions of “doctors in pre-Nazi Germany.”

The watchdog recently cleared Scottish presenter Neil Oliver’s comments about “turbo cancer,” ruling they were his personal opinion and allowed under freedom of expression rules.