Ofcom ‘overreaching’ with GB News inquiry
Station attacks Sunak show investigation as Tory MP says media watchdog at risk of appearing biased
GB NEWS has accused Ofcom of “excessive intervention” in its affairs as the broadcaster opened a public spat with the regulator over a show centred on Rishi Sunak.
It came as a Conservative MP expressed concern in Parliament that the watchdog was “in danger of looking biased and political” with its constant targeting of the Right-leaning news channel.
Ofcom launched an impartiality investigation after the Prime Minister faced questions directly from an audience of undecided voters in a programme called The People’s Forum on Feb 12.
It brings the total number of open investigations by Ofcom into GB News to 13, and GB News bosses believe that Ofcom has overreached with its latest.
For the first time since the channel was launched in 2021, it has issued a public statement about a live Ofcom investigation, defending the programme with Mr Sunak as “an important contribution to democratic debate in the UK”.
The broadcaster said that the latest investigation “indicates a worrying trend towards a selective, narrow interpretation of Ofcom’s rules and excessive intervention in purely editorial matters”.
Ofcom launched its investigation earlier this week after receiving around 500 complaints about the People’s Forum programme.
The investigation is based on rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the Broadcasting Code, which apply additional due impartiality requirements for programmes dealing with major matters relating to current public policy and require that a wide range of significant views are included and given due weight.
In a robust defence of The People’s Forum, GB News said that the panel of 100 voters who took part in the programme were selected by Survation, an independent polling specialist, and that GB News did not have any prior knowledge of the questions that were asked during the live broadcast.
It said that Mr Sunak was challenged on a broad range of topics, and was confronted and criticised by a number of audience members.
Other party leaders, including Sir Keir Starmer, have been invited to repeat the exercise with exactly the same format.
Sir Michael Ellis, a Conservative MP and the former attorney general, suggested in Parliament that Ofcom was in danger of having its decisions scrutinised by a judge.
He asked Lucy Frazer, the Culture Secretary, yesterday whether she shared his concern “that the large number of inquiries Ofcom have launched against GB News for conducting itself in exactly the same fashion as other channels routinely do, is in danger of looking biassed and political, and Ofcom are in danger of putting themselves in judicial review territory?”.
Ms Frazer replied: “I am, and the Government is in favour of, media plurality. And it’s really important that we have different channels that express different views across our vast political landscape.
“I’m very pleased that GB News has chosen to be regulated by Ofcom and I know that Ofcom carries out its job appropriately.”
Downing Street has said that Mr Sunak does not regret taking part in the show and that he regards such events as “an important part of the democratic process”.
In its statement, GB News said it believed “very strongly” that the programme complied with all rules on due impartiality, and that by putting voters centre stage “the result was a very robust and challenging question and answer session which has been widely recognised by other media and audiences as a positive development in the political discourse”.
Mr Sunak was not given any advance notice of any of the questions or topics, which included the NHS, social care, the Rwanda plan, housebuilding, private schools and energy security.
GB News insisted that Mr Sunak’s “policies were criticised to his face” and that the programme “credited both the audience and those at home as being able to judge for themselves the qualities and success, or otherwise, of the politician being questioned”.
‘It indicates a trend towards a narrow interpretation of Ofcom’s rules and excessive intervention in editorial matters’
‘The result was a very robust and challenging question and answer session seen as a positive development in the political discourse’