Ofcom closes barn door, points at the horse in the distance.
GB News has breached the rules again and the regulator is really, really going to do something about it next time.
Apologies for the paucity of editions recently. I’m just finishing up writing my first book — Breaking News: How the Media Works and Why It Doesn’t — which I’m due to submit on April 1, and should be out next year.
There will be more editions this month but we’ll be back onto the usual twice a week schedule + bonuses from April onwards.
Previously: TalkTV’s broadcast shutdown isn’t about money…
… it’s about influence and ageing. Rupert Murdoch simply found it too embarrassing.
If Ofcom was a person, the broadcast regulator would be fed entirely on liquidised food. It is so toothless that its gums slap as it talks; so entirely without bite that it resembles an old man flailing around for his missing dentures. When it announced yesterday that it had found against GB News in five cases when the broadcaster used serving Tory MPs as newsreaders and reporters, the punishment was… asking the channel not to do it again. And really, really, really meaning it this time honestly.
Ofcom’s sanctions against GB News over five breaches of the broadcasting code in 2023 included twice reminding the channel to take “careful account” of its decision — “You have to listen to us this time.” — and requiring executives from the station to attend a compliance meeting — the regulatory equivalent of the head teacher calling you in to ask if you’re having ‘problems’ at home — after ex-presenter Mark Steyn platformed and pushed anti-vax conspiracies.
After scarf-addicted bullshit peddler Neil Oliver claimed that “turbo cancer” — which does not exist — is killing young, healthy people and linked it to Covid-19 vaccines, Ofcom declined to issue a ruling, claiming that Oliver’s comments were his “personal view and did not materially mislead the audience”. Yes, there’s nothing misleading about inventing a kind of speed-running carcinoma that’s gunning for your kids, and you’d be a fool to suggest otherwise.
Ofcom’s latest judgements covered Jacob Rees-Mogg presenting news coverage of the jury verdict in Donald Trump’s rape trial (“We’ve seen a constant witch-hunt of this man!”"); Philip Davies and Esther McVey — the Tory Party equivalent of Terry and June - interviewing GB News reporters about rail strikes and phone hacking court cases while interjecting their personal opinions; McVey and Davies interviewing Reform’s London mayoral candidate from an anti-ULEZ protest (McVey said Cox was “starting the fightback for them motorist!”); Rees-Mogg interviewing a GB News reporter about murders in Nottingham; and McVey and Davies interviewing a GB News reporter about a hike in mortgage rates and the Tory government’s response.
A sixth occasion, where Rees-Mogg was used an on-the-ground reporter when there was a security alert in parliament, was deemed not to be a breach.
Rule 5.3 of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code states that: “No politician should be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified.” That last clause — “editorially justified” — gives channels like GB News wiggle room and the opportunity to make jesuitical distinctions.
The regulator ‘clarified’ things in a blog post last year that seemed entirely designed to help GB News out. It reiterated that serving MPs can’t host news shows — where presenters directly address an audience and follow a running order of short-form stories delivered by reporters — but can anchor current affairs output, which is long-form, features ‘balanced’ discussion, analysis, and interviews. There’s was more hair-splitting going on than in a poorly run branch of Toni & Guy.
Last year, Ofcom ludicrously ruled that GB News did not breach Rule 5.3 when Lee Anderson, then still a Tory MP and, in fact, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, interviewed the sitting Home Secretary, Suella Braverman. That was a current affairs show, Ofcom said, staring at the barn door whipping back and forth on its hinges.
The latest ruling sees the number on the ‘How many times has GB News breached the broadcasting code?’ ticker move up to 12. The ‘How many times has GB News faced formal sanction?’ totaliser remains resolutely stuck on 0. There are another eight investigations ongoing.
Back in January, Trevor Barnes, a former Ofcom legal director, who’d probably make a good candidate for wallet inspection, told Deadline that he’d be very surprised if the regulator didn’t impose sanctions if more than one investigation was upheld. He must look like the shocked face emoji this morning. Ofcom rules say serious and repeated branches can lead to fines and broadcasters having toe read the regulator’s findings on air. But GB News sails on, enabled by Ofcom’s intransigence.
Rather than show any kind of contrition — ha! — GB News put Nigel Farage on air to howl that Ofcom is “becoming overtly political” and bowing to “pressures that have been put upon it by the established media”. Remember, scrappy upstart GB News is only funded by a salt-of-the-earth billionaire hedge funder. Farage continued, like a nicotine-stained Churchill impersonator who’d have you asking for your money back:
GB News is posing a threat to the other broadcasters, a challenge to British politics… Ofcom are responding to pressure. But what I do know is that GB News are going to fight like hell. Like an ineffectual nanny, Ofcom has warned GB News that any future breaches of the same rules “may result in the imposition of a statutory sanction”. For all its blethering and belching about being silenced by the establishment, GB News is delighted. The Ofcom rulings allow it to posture as a put-upon rebel while facing no consequences. It’s using the decisions as a fundraising hook to encourage viewers to back its membership scheme.
Inevitably, GB News frames mild chastisement from Ofcom as “a chilling development for all broadcasters, for freedom of speech, and for everyone in the United Kingdom”. It’s a perfect situation for a channel that treat compliance as at best an inconvenience and at worst a total joke. Ofcom is designed to deal with broadcasters who at least pretend to care about being seen as trustworthy but GB News is more interested in creating a kind of multiverse of misinformation to satisfy its viewers’ prejudices.
As I was writing the paragraph above, Jacob Rees-Mogg was on the radio being interviewed in his role as a Tory backbencher and reanimated Victorian ghoul. That was, of course, an entirely different Jacob Rees-Mogg to the one who presents a show on GB News, commenting on the politics of the day. Thanks to Ofcom’s very reliable barrier between news and ‘current affairs’ content there’s no possible way to get confused between the two.
GB News is riding roughshod over broadcasting rules and Ofcom is letting it. In the general election, the slow moving regulator will be outpaced by a channel that is willing to do what it likes now and not bother asking for forgiveness later.
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A lot of these regulators seem to have been taken over by the systems they are supposed to regulate. It's designed that way so that we can show we have tough regulations without any meaningful enforcement.
Everything the regulators should regulate turns into a crock of guano.