The Daily Sceptic recently reported that GB News won a “landmark” victory over Ofcom after a High Court judge ruled the watchdog was wrong to accuse Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg of breaking the broadcasting code on his show.
Readers will probably be aware that the communications regulator has been extraordinarily diligent in ensuring the upstart TV broadcaster GB News was kept well under official control.
In March 2023 Ofcom announced:
Ofcom has today found the Mark Steyn programme, which aired on GB News on April 21st 2022, in breach of our broadcasting rules.
We have been consistently clear that, under our rules, broadcasters are free to transmit programmes which may be considered controversial and challenging, or which question statistics or other evidence produced by governments or other official sources. It can clearly be in the public interest to do so. However, with this editorial freedom comes an obligation to ensure that, when portraying factual matters, audiences are not materially misled.
In this case, our investigation found that an episode of the Mark Steyn programme fell short of these standards – not because it exercised its editorial freedom to challenge mainstream narratives around Covid-19 vaccination – but because, in doing so, it presented a materially misleading interpretation of official data without sufficient challenge or counterweight, risking harm to viewers.
Specifically, the programme incorrectly claimed that official UKHSA data provided definitive evidence of a causal link between receiving a third Covid-19 vaccine and higher infection, hospitalisation and death rates.
This was materially misleading because the way the data was presented to viewers during the programme did not take account of the significant differences in age or health of people in the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups studied. We also took into account the definitive way in which the misleading interpretation of the data was presented, and the absence of adequate counterweight or genuine challenge.
Then in October 2024, Ofcom announced another action against GB News:
Ofcom has today imposed a £100,000 financial penalty on GB News for breaking due impartiality rules.
Ofcom’s earlier investigation found that an appropriately wide range of significant viewpoints was not presented and given due weight in People’s Forum: The Prime Minister – a live, hour-long current affairs programme broadcast on February 12th 2024 – nor was due impartiality preserved through clearly linked and timely programmes.
As a result, we concluded that the then Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, had a mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his Government in a period preceding a UK General Election, in breach of Rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the Broadcasting Code.
Given the seriousness and repeated nature of this breach, Ofcom has imposed a financial penalty of £100,000 on GB News Limited. We have also directed GB News to broadcast a statement of our findings against it, on a date and in a form determined by us.
GB News is challenging our original breach decision in this case by judicial review, which we are defending. Ofcom will not enforce this sanction decision until those proceedings are concluded.
I don’t follow these matters particularly closely. But I’m not aware of Ofcom being quite so active against other broadcasters. For example, when the BBC reported, in a story which I assume was thoroughly checked by the BBC’s world-respected BBC Verify, that the Israelis had bombed a Gaza hospital killing around 500 people. The story turned out to be complete nonsense. In fact, a misfiring Hamas missile had landed in the hospital car park slightly injuring around 10 people. Not only was the BBC’s report nonsense, it was dangerous nonsense as it could fuel violence against Jews around the world. But I don’t remember Ofcom leaping into action and fining the BBC. It will also be interesting to see how Ofcom reacts to the latest BBC scandal, the deceptive pro-Hamas documentary featuring the son of a senior Hamas figure and BBC licence-payers’ money being allegedly funnelled to terrorist organisation Hamas through the bank account of the boy’s sister.
Seeing what a cynic might believe is Ofcom’s biased regulation, I thought it might be fun to do a little test of Ofcom’s supposed impartiality. I had noticed that broadcasts by Times Radio had started to become increasingly virulently anti-Trump in their reporting of Donald Trump’s 2024 Presidential campaign. I did a quick search on YouTube to find all the videos released by Times Radio in the three days leading up to the November 2024 US Presidential vote. In spite of the fact that the opinion polls supposedly showed a dead heat between Trump and Harris, here are the titles of the Times Radio’s videos:
- Trump will lose the election by 5%
- Trump loses voters
- Trump in worst state ever
- How Trump alienated swing voters
- Trump will lose these key states, exclusive poll shows
- Democrats optimistic that polls put them ahead of Trump
- Why Trump will lose
- Trump veers off script with clumsy comments in Pennsylvania
- Trump has alienated swing state voters with Madison Square Garden rally hate speech
- Trump limps to finish line in disastrous final week
- Trump in trouble. Trump loses election momentum
- Millions of ‘angry and motivated’ Americans will be final nail in Trump’s coffin
- Trump’s huge mistake
- Republicans turn on Trump paving way for a crushing defeat
- Trump spiralling: ‘unprecedented’ numbers of Republicans are turning on Trump
- Trump’s overconfidence will cost him the election
- Trump is ‘a nasty individual’ and a threat to the world
- Trump HQ terrified
And every one of these Times Radio videos featured one or more Trump-haters being interviewed venting their bulging-eyed fury at Trump and anyone ‘stupid enough’ to vote for him. In its main article about the US election on election day, the Times newspaper was still attacking Trump by calling him: “a twice impeached convicted felon” while making no mention of the fact that neither of the impeachments were successful and the ‘felonies’ were only achieved by Democrat judges stretching their interpretation of US law well past breaking point.
I then looked at Times Radio’s reports around the time of Trump’s inauguration: :
- Trump’s overpromising has set him up for failure
- Some of Trump’s executive orders won’t survive legal challenge
- Trump ‘oligarchy’ set to fail
- Trump’s blizzard of executive orders are ‘constitutionally impossible’
- US economy will collapse under Trump’s deportation policy
- Trump sets ‘terrifying tone’ for second term
- ‘Weak’ Trump’s economic plans will ‘fail’
This isn’t journalism. It’s more like mentally-unhinged, foam-flecked anti-Trump ranting. There is no attempt to provide any balance. There’s certainly none of the balance and impartiality required by our beloved Ofcom.
I have now made two complaints to Ofcom about Times Radio’s apparent anti-Trump bias. I will leave it up to Daily Sceptic readers to imagine how Ofcom will treat my complaints. Will our £187 million-a-year Ofcom leap into action against Times Radio with the same alacrity and enthusiasm as Ofcom displayed when repeatedly sanctioning GB News? Or will my complaints just be ignored and Ofcom will continue its apparent crusade against GB News for even the most minor possible infringements of Ofcom rules while completely ignoring much more egregious offences by other more establishment-friendly broadcasters?
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
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