GB News has hit back against Ofcom’s decision to uphold complaints about shows hosted by Tory MPs Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey and Phillip Davies after the media regulator found five episodes breached broadcasting rules. The broadcaster has more on its website.
Ofcom announced the five episodes broke set rules due to politicians “acting as news presenters”.
However, GB News stressed the media watchdog’s ruling is based on arbitrary changes to how Ofcom determines impartiality.
A GB News spokesman said: “We are deeply concerned by the decisions Ofcom has made today.
“We will raise this directly with the regulator in the strongest possible terms.
“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.
“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.
“Ofcom has now arbitrarily changed the test so that it is no longer ‘Was it impartial?’ but ‘Could someone think it might not be?’
“This is a chilling development for all broadcasters, for freedom of speech, and for everyone in the United Kingdom.
“These decisions go against established precedent and raises serious questions about Ofcom’s oversight over its own regulations.
“It appears that Ofcom is trying to extend the regulations, rather than enforcing definitions which have been settled for many years.”
He added: “GB News is a regulated broadcast channel and takes its obligations very seriously.”
Worth reading in full.
The issue, apparently, is that politicians may host current affairs shows but are not allowed to host news programmes – and Ofcom claims the MPs’ shows would be understood by viewers as news programmes.
All five programmes in question contained a mix of news and current affairs content. We found that host politicians acted as newsreaders, news interviewers or news reporters in sequences which clearly constituted news – including reporting breaking news events – without exceptional justification. News was, therefore, not presented with due impartiality.
Stop Press: Jacob Rees-Mogg has responded to the ruling: “Old fashioned is usually good but Ofcom is antediluvian.”
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Indeed.
“Don’t Be Fooled by the Faux Apologies From the Lockdown Fanatics”
I don’t think there’s much danger of that here
I have no idea what this is or which country/countries it was filmed in, but I’ll leave it here regardless. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of the footage we saw on TV was fake. In fact, as I recall, wasn’t there photos and news early on that training dummies were used as pretend patients in hospital beds in news footage?
https://twitter.com/DrEliDavid/status/1624884190981378050
Yep, it’s important to blame the editorial team *after* you’ve been rumbled.
https://tnc.news/2021/10/15/cbc-apologizes-for-using-fake-patients-and-training-facility-in-covid-19-story/
That’s brilliant!
I liked the two Chinese photos of a women lying dead in the street …..in two different places!
“The media, the greater part of our political establishment and our bureaucratic and academic institutions all had a hand in these crimes. They’ll never accept blame as long as they’re still in power.”
Ditto for the climate emergency fibs.
Complicity is collaboration.
These authoritarians think that if they admit a small mea culpa, the people they terrorised will cut them some slack and say “well they were doing their best in a very difficult situation ….. we’ll forgive and forget.”
They have NO IDEA how much they are loathed.
There are still a lot of people who accept the “we were only doing our best based on what we knew at the time” stuff. Many people would gladly return to mandatory mask wearing. Health passports seem a good idea to a surprising number and vaccinations are, of course, what is needed to allow people to travel abroad safely… These opinions are hard to shift.
COVID-fascist Sturgeon has quit so that’s another 2020 scalp.
“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve.”
H.L. Mencken
Too true. Also, the saying ‘Beware false messiahs’ comes into play. We’re all so desperate to have someone in power more like ‘us’ we forget that if they’re seeking power, they aren’t like us and will ultimately let us down. What we really need is less government.
Now the truth is coming out I’ve seen calls by many of the lockdown-jabbing fanatics clling for tolerance and a ‘covid amnesty’ about their over-reach.
The *******s didn’t show any tolerance, nor any amnesty, for anyone opposing their diktat, claiming they were terrorists..
.
Very true.
Lauterbach was a major driver of the pandemic narrative. Sars-CoV2’s chief press officer, so to say. Granted, he didn’t abolish the German constitution by decree overnight, that was Angel Merkel and her council of first ministers. But without his constant wailing about the terrible dangers of the pandemic, that would have gone less smooth. He basically swindled himself into his present position. And he more than deserves to be ousted from it in disgrace. The dominoes must start to fall somewhere.
I’m not fooled. I’m just so sad that every single policy from Covid to Climate to Woke has been designed to destroy us.
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near Everyman Cinema & play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE