Ofcom opens four new investigations into GB News

Ofcom’s HQ

UK media watchdog Ofcom has opened four new investigations into right-wing news channel GB News’s compliance with its due impartiality rules.

The first investigation concerns an episode of Friday Morning with Esther and Phil, which aired on 12 May.

During the programme, there was discussion about a range of issues including relating to a teenager who was being sentenced for terrorism offences.

Ofcom’s investigation will determine whether the programme broke Rule 5.3 of the Broadcasting Code that prevents politicians from acting as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified.

The regulator is also investigating two other programmes under the ‘politicians as presenters’ rule – Jacob Rees-Mogg’s State of the Nation, 13 June, which covered a stabbing incident in Nottingham, and Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil, 13 May, featuring an interview with Howard Cox – the Reform UK Party’s candidate for the London Mayoral Election – speaking live from an anti-Ultra Low Emission Zone demonstration.

In addition to the politicians as presenters rule, Ofcom is also assessing the latter programme’s compliance with Rule 5.1 of the Broadcasting Code which requires that news, in whatever form, must be presented with due impartiality.

Ofcom is also investigating an episode of Laurence Fox which aired on 16 June,which was guest presented by Martin Daubney in Laurence Fox’s absence.

This probramme included a discussion about immigration and asylum policy, particularly in relation to the issue of small boats crossing the English Channel, and featured an interview with the leader of the right-wing political party Reform UK, Richard Tice.

Ofcom is investigating this programme under Rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the Broadcasting Code which require that due impartiality is preserved on matters of major political or industrial controversy, or those relating to current public policy, and that an appropriately wide range of significant views are included and given due weight.

The latest probes follow multiple other investigations into the channel’s conduct, including most recently one on its ‘Don’t Kill Cash’ campaign and one on Jacob Rees-Mogg’s involvement in a report on a civil trial verdict involving Donald Trump.