The boss of GB News has said the channel is the victim of a “coordinated” attack by the far Left after Ofcom launched yet another investigation into one of its programmes. The Telegraph has more.
Angelos Frangopoulos, the Chief Executive of GB News, said the channel had been “subjected to a coordinated political campaign by far-Left pressure groups” that he claimed were threatening free speech.
It came after Ofcom, the media regulator, opened an investigation into an episode of GB News’s newspaper review show Headliners, hosted by comedian Josh Howie.
The episode, which aired in January, is thought to have attracted tens of thousands of complaints after Mr Howie suggested that the LGBTQ+ community included paedophiles.
Ofcom previously said it was assessing the episode after receiving more than 1,200 complaints. This number is thought to have risen after the Good Law Project, a political charity founded by lawyer Jolyon Maugham, presented a petition with more than 70,000 signatures to the regulator.
The charity said: “GB News is no stranger to spouting hatred and toxic lies. They take pride in it, and pretend the rules don’t matter. It’s clearly illegal to stir up hatred by broadcasting a poisonous myth.”
If Ofcom were to count each complaint individually, it would set a new record for broadcasting issues, usurping the 58,000 people who complained about Piers Morgan’s infamous monologue about Meghan Markle on Good Morning Britain.
The Headliners episode also triggered a backlash from the campaign group Stop Funding Hate, which branded the comments “toxic and dangerous”. The group is urging Sky, which handles advertising for GB News, to cut ties with the channel.
Mr Frangopoulos said: “It is important to appreciate that this programme has been subjected to a coordinated political campaign by far-Left pressure groups. Their actions and direct lobbying of Ofcom should concern all of us who believe in free speech in our country.
“These groups shamelessly masquerade as being for the ‘good’, but their words and actions are filled with hate.
“It’s time to call out this anti-democratic behaviour which includes our staff being falsely accused of homophobia – nothing could be further from the truth. We will not be silenced by these self-serving attacks; and we will vigorously defend the channel and our presenters’ freedom of speech rights.”
The row relates to a debate over a sermon given by an episcopal bishop, who urged Donald Trump, the US President, to “have mercy” on gay, lesbian and transgender children “who fear for their lives”.
During the programme, Mr Howie quoted a statement from the bishop’s church that referred to the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people. The presenter added: “I just want to say, that includes paedos, if you’re doing the full inclusion.”
In a long statement on social media, Mr Howie said the comments were intended as a joke, adding: “It’s a comedy show. Where three comedians make jokes as we review the next day’s newspapers.”
GB News said Mr Howie’s comments had been “misrepresented”.
The fresh investigation comes despite a climbdown by Ofcom over other alleged breaches of the broadcasting code by the upstart channel.
Worth reading in full.
You can watch Josh Howie make the complained-of joke in this clip.
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As a member of the LGBTQ+ and whatever else community, I would be amazed to learn that it doesn’t include any paedophiles at all. Such individuals can be found in any “community”, not just among those who identify as “straight”, and that is actually what the guy was saying. Some people need to grow up, put what’s said into context, and stop acting like total snowflakes.
As someone pointed out in Another Place:
“Given that our adversaries had this multi-trillion dollar worldwide propaganda machine at their disposal, it makes it all the more remarkable that they are now losing the narrative war. I guess when everything they broadcast was a lie, no amount of funding could save them.”
Sooner or later anything built on lies is guaranteed to collapse.
Not just might collapse.
No, it will collapse.
A good example is the Soviet Union.
A world power. Massive resources. Manpower. Total lack of internal opposition.
Then, within a few years – gone.
You are right. The money will run out. Netard zero is an example. ‘News’ is just propaganda, always has been. Never watched it, never will. If you don’t play, the money supporting their lies will eventually run out. At the very least you retain your sanity and connection to reality.
The whole purpose of this agenda is to normalise the idea of sex with minors. Just look at it dispassionately and where it leads. There was a similar tendency fifty years ago. The idea that children are sexual beings and therefore to inhibit their rights represents an illegitamte form of authority. This is far worse. It seeks to confuse them, chop them up, and then make them easy meat. This is not the way. Neil Postman argued that the very notion of childhood is predicated upon literacy. Allowing this time of growth allows for the flourishing of the imaginaton. When childhood ceases to be important this means something is lost.
Hmmm
There is no need to sexualise a child. If you want to do that then what are you saying exactly? It is a form of vampirism where a fat bloated sickened group of adults decide that they can reinvigorate themselves with congress with children. We don’t accept vampirism. We don’t suck the the energy from a youngster to feed some sick dying geriatric. This is the opposite of the natural order of things.
The process is the punishment do OfCom will ensure they always have a complaint or three under way against GB News.
It will be necessary to close OfCom.
Ah, the ever malign ‘kind’ Left.
PIE were associated with the Leftwaffe in the 70s and 80s. That nasty taste has never gone away. The + in that alphabet soup covers a lot of ground.
God bless GB News. I don’t agree with everything they say but why should I?
At least unlike the BBFuckingC I know I’m not being lied to and taken for an idiot.
Of course the left will use their left wing implants in the tax payer environment to attack opponents and support co-conspirators.
i wonder how many people and how much cash is devoted to this. It has long since ceased to be trivial.
This will prove to be counterproductive for the far left, as it will only serve to push the debate further into the public domain.
Ofcom should be abolished. If people do not like what a TV channel says, they can switch it off and never watch it again. They can also write letters of complaint directly to the persons responsible instead of to a taxpayer funded bureaucracy.
You always know who the tyrants and dictators are. They are the ones who want to silence you. They do this by sitting in their little castles on top of the moral high ground and indulging in intolerance in the name of tolerance.