GB News host’s Covid claims broke Ofcom rules

THE GB News host Mark Steyn breached broadcasting rules after wrongly claiming there was a link between the Covid vaccine and higher death rates, regulators have ruled.

Television watchdog Ofcom said that Mr Steyn had broken its regulations when he suggested there may be a link between the vaccine and “higher infection, hospitalisation and death rates”. Ofcom said Mr Steyn, who has since left GB News, “presented a materially misleading interpretation of official data without sufficient challenge or counterweight, risking harm to viewers”.

The ruling is a fresh blow to the opinion-led news channel, which was founded in June 2021.

GB News’s launch was marked with technical difficulties and on-air bloopers as inexperienced staff grappled with studio lighting. Weeks later the channel went through a damaging public split with the broadcaster Andrew Neil, its founding chairman.

A GB News spokesman said the channel was disappointed by Ofcom’s finding and suggested that Mr Steyn was using the Government’s own data to highlight inconsistencies.

The spokesman said: “We support [Mr Steyn’s] right to challenge the status quo by examining the small but evident risks of the third Covid booster. In our 20 months and more than 11,000 hours of live broadcasting, this is Ofcom’s only finding against our television licence. It has not imposed a sanction.”

GB News’s Ofcom sanction was handed down yesterday after the misleading claims were made during an episode of The Mark Steyn Show in April.