Here comes yet another example of conservatives hating law and order, at least those laws that seek to do anything other than protect their in-group.
GB News - a horror show of a TV channel that was Britain’s thankfully lackluster take on Fox News which an unholy number of our serving government are nonetheless much too fond of - continues to get in trouble with the regulators.
In case you’re curious about what kind of shows you’re almost certainly missing given that at times it’s been so unpopular with viewers that some of its broadcasts attracted literally zero viewers
Johnson, who was tapped to join GB News radio in December, is a presenter, programme maker and commentator. Farage presents a daily primetime show on the channel, while Rees Mogg hosts a State of the Nation programme.
Several advertisers also dropped out of the channel as soon as two days after the channel launched and they saw what kind of dross their products were being shoved in between. In a fit of pique, thin-skinned chairman-at-the-time Andrew Neil threw his toys out of the pram and decided he’s going to ban the brands who withdrew their adverts from advertising. I’m sure they were devastated at this classic “you can’t quit, I’m firing you!” tantrum.
So the channel does little but lose vast amounts of its investors' money, which is probably its main contribution towards a fair and just society. Although a fair whack of said cash unfortunately goes towards six-figure salaries for the likes of Lee Anderson, the ex-Conservative deputy Chairman who managed to say so many stupid and offensive things during his £100k side-job that even today’s Conservative party saw fit to withdraw the whip.
Anyhow, the big names mentioned above provide a clue as to their latest infraction of regulations. The regulator Ofcom recently censured the channel for breaking British rules on news impartiality.
Under the Broadcasting Code, news, in whatever form, must be presented with due impartiality. Additionally, a politician cannot be a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter unless, exceptionally, there is editorial justification.
Dodgy biased news from people that should know better (not to mention be focusing on their primary jobs) is only one way in which GB News fails to respect GB rules. Just a couple of weeks ago Ofcom ruled that the channel had broadcast misogynistic comments made by the inane presenter(?) Lawrence Fox unchallenged and uncontextualised. The comments had generated almost 9000 complaints.
We found that Mr Fox’s comments constituted a highly personal attack on Ms Evans and were potentially highly offensive to viewers. They reduced her contribution to a broadcast discussion on mental health - in her professional capacity as a political journalist - to a judgment on whether she, or women like her who publicly expressed their political opinions, were sexually desirable to men.
As such, we considered that Mr Fox’s comments were degrading and demeaning both to Ms Evans and women generally and were clearly and unambiguously misogynistic.
Towards the end of 2023 it was noted that Ofcom had 14 open investigations into the channel. So to be honest you could just scroll through Ofcom’s news page to get a good idea of how often this particular channel likes to break the rules so overtly that the regulators get involved.