UPDATE: GB News begins ‘formal legal process’ to challenge Ofcom rulings
Broadcast regulator Ofcom has said it is considering a statutory sanction against GB News for “serious and repeated” breaches of due impartiality rules.
Ofcom’s potential sanctions can include: telling a broadcaster not to repeat certain content or to air a correction or statement of its findings, a financial penalty, and ultimately shortening, suspending or revoking a broadcast licence.
Ofcom said it aimed to make its initial decision on any potential sanction within 60 days and then give GB News a chance to make its case in response.
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The regulator decided to begin the sanctions process after finding that an hour-long live Q&A programme fronted by Rishi Sunak was in breach of due impartiality rules.
It said Sunak “had a mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his Government in a period preceding a UK General Election”.
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GB News has responded by telling its audience “don’t let them silence you – GB News is under threat – support us here”, referring to its paid membership programme. (Scroll down to see its response in full.)
People’s Forum: The Prime Minister, which aired on 12 February filling in for a time slot usually held by fellow Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, led to 547 complaints being sent to Ofcom.
Ofcom said it had “no issue” with the editorial format of the programme in principle, including the fact that it would mainly focus on the Conservative Party’s policies and track record, but said it was incumbent on GB News “to ensure that an appropriately wide range of significant views was given due weight in the programme or in other clearly linked and timely programmes”.
The regulator found that although some audience questions criticised and challenged the PM, they were not able to challenge his responses and presenter Stephen Dixon “did not do this to any meaningful extent”.
It said Sunak was able to set out policies his Government planned to implement if re-elected in the upcoming general election and no significant alternative views on these were mentioned.
Sunak was able to criticise Labour’s policies and performance without that party’s side being included, Ofcom added.
And GB News did not mention during the programme any future follow-up show that would provide different points of view, although it told Ofcom the programme was intended to be the first of a series and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had already been invited to appear.
GB News said it “only proceeded with the programme once we had received clear encouragement from both of the country’s leading parties that they would participate, as this was an important consideration for us in the context of being able to ensure due impartiality due to the fact that each programme would necessarily be focused on that particular party”.
However Labour did not allow GB News to announce that Starmer was set to appear and after the Ofcom investigation was launched his office told the broadcaster his potential participation was “on hold”.
However Ofcom highlighted that GB News had said it was deliberately not aware of the questions the audience would ask Sunak, that it had made an editorial decision that Dixon would not intervene or challenge his answers, and that no editorial means for alternative views to be included had been planned.
Ofcom’s finding came two months after it ruled five GB News programme presented by Conservative MPs breached due impartiality rules as none of them had “exceptional justification” for the politicians acting in a newsreader or reporter role “in sequences which clearly constituted news”.
Other impartiality breaches last year included sitting Conservative MPs Esther McVey and Philip Davies interviewing Chancellor Jeremy Hunt days before the Spring Budget and a discussion between Martin Daubney and Richard Tice about immigration policy.
In March, Ofcom said it had “significant concerns” about the editorial control GB News had over its live output after ruling that former host Laurence Fox made “unambiguously misogynistic” comments about a female journalist on Dan Wootton’s show in September.
GB News response to Ofcom finding in full
A GB News spokesperson said: “Ofcom’s finding against GB News today is an alarming development in its attempt to silence us by standing in the way of a forum that allows the public to question politicians directly.
“The regulator’s threat to punish a news organisation with sanctions for enabling people to challenge their own prime minister strikes at the heart of democracy at a time when it could not be more vital.
“GB News is the People’s Channel. That is why we created a new broadcasting format, The People’s Forum, which placed the public – not journalists – firmly in charge of questioning Rishi Sunak.
“Our live programme gave an independently selected group of undecided voters the freedom to challenge the Prime Minister without interference.
“They did this robustly, intelligently, and freely. Their 15 questions, which neither we nor the Prime Minister saw beforehand, kept him under constant pressure and covered a clearly diverse range of topics. These were their words on the issues that mattered to them.
“Among many other challenges, the Prime Minister was criticised over the ‘chronic underfunding’ of social care, the housing shortage, the likely failure of his government’s Rwanda plan, the betrayal of those injured by the Covid vaccine, and asked why the LGBT community should vote for him.
“We cannot fathom how Ofcom can claim this programme lacked the ‘appropriately wide range of significant views’ required to uphold due impartiality. It did not.
“We maintain that the programme was in line with the Broadcasting Code.
“Ofcom is obliged by law to uphold freedom of speech and not to interfere with the right of all news organisations to make their own editorial decisions within the law.
“Its finding today is a watershed moment that should terrify anyone who believes, as we do, that the media’s role is to give a voice to the people of the United Kingdom, especially those who all too often feel unheard or ignored by their politicians.
“We are proud to be the People’s Channel and we will never stop fighting for the right of everyone in the UK, whatever their political persuasion, to have their perspective heard.”
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