Ofcom has fined GB News £100,000 ($130,000) over impartiality during its People’s Forum: The Prime Minister live show with Rishi Sunak just prior to the UK general election, with the head of GB News calling the move a “direct attack on free speech and journalism.”
The regulator concluded that the prime minister had a “mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his Government,” which breaks the code around impartiality.
“Given the seriousness and repeated nature of this breach, Ofcom has imposed a financial penalty of £100,000 ($130,000) 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,” Ofcom said of the near unprecedented move to fine a UK news network.
GB News is currently challenging the original decision that found it in breach of the Ofcom code, and Ofcom stressed that it will not enforce the fine until those proceedings are concluded.
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GB News CEO Angelos Frangopoulos called the move a “direct attack on free speech and journalism in the United Kingdom.” “We believe these sanctions are unnecessary, unfair and unlawful,” he added. “The plan to sanction GB News flies in the face of Ofcom’s duty to act fairly, lawfully and proportionately to safeguard free speech, particularly political speech and on matters of public interest.”
Frangopoulos confirmed that the sanctions are “still subject to that legal challenge,” flagging that the high court has granted GB News permission to bring the judicial review forwards.
The move is a crescendo to a fiery period between GB News and Ofcom.
GB News has repeatedly been found to be in breach of the Ofcom code and Ofcom has opened more than a dozen investigations since the channel launched – this Sunak probe being one of the more recent ones and leading to Ofcom threatening a statutory sanction. The regulator recently placed the channel “on notice” after five code breaches over the thorny issue of politicians acting as news presenters.
GB News was also rapped last year over Laurence Fox’s highly misogynistic rant about a female journalist, which led to him being fired from the station and presenter Dan Wootton leaving. A separate investigation into ex-presenter Wootton’s Dan Wootton Tonight show was recently discontinued along with five investigations into the network’s Don’t Kill Cash Campaign.
Ofcom rarely dishes out punishments as serious as fines. RT, formerly Russia Today, was handed a £200,000 fine five years ago for breaching impartiality in its reporting of the Salisbury Poisonings. The biggest fine in Ofcom’s history was £2M for ITV over “widespread and systematic deception” in premium-rate phone-in competitions nearly two decades ago.
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