Media analysts sometimes suggest that Ofcom can only investigate something which took place if there was a complaint about it. It is aimed not at expanding free speech, but making it impossible by undermining the evidential base it needs to function. No matter what you say as a guest, the overall structure of the narrative is designed to mislead and deceive. That turned out to be a deeply foolish assessment. As long as nothing I said was misrepresented or censored, there was no problem. I would go on there and deliver the liberal message. Sweet naive child that I was, I thought it was a free speech issue. I learned this lesson for myself the hard way, when I used to go on Russia Today years back. But inviting on some normal guests in order to conceal the overall thrust of your editorial position is not balance or accuracy. ![]() They do invite liberal or left-wing guests on – there was a point where I was receiving a text from them every week until they finally got the message to fuck off. It is quite clear where its hosts are coming from. But GB News has jettisoned that approach. Stations like LBC approached balance across the schedule instead of per debate, alternating right-wing hosts with more progressive ones. The BBC and Sky generally made sure that most debates featured voices from both sides. No equivalent of James O’Brienįor years, the regulatory environment in the UK was based on an assumption of gentlemanly conduct, in which they kept a vague eye on people who were ultimately acting in good faith. And yet outside of the two Steyn investigations, it seems extremely sluggish in its response. What’s going on here? How is this stuff able to go out without Ofcom stepping in? Its rules demand that “factual programmes or items or portrayals of factual matters must not materially mislead the audience”. Host Calvin Robinson likes to bang on about how Ukraine is a “Nazi-sympathising regime” and that the war there is in fact a “massive money-laundering operation” for “corrupt Western politicians”, by which he means the Democrats in the US. He was able to pontificate about an “imaginary pandemic” without challenge. In another recent show, presenter Dan Wootton interviewed Andrew Tate, who is currently under arrest in Romania, suspected of human trafficking. But none of that stopped the channel running a ticker saying the book “confirmed” the lab leak theory, nor Christys and his guest saying Covid conspiracy theorists were “completely vindicated” or that Chris Whitty should be arrested. “Mr Huff alleges that EcoHealth Alliance was engaged in gain of function research to create SARS-CoV-2. “Reports that he worked at or with the Wuhan Institute of Virology during that time are untrue,” it said. EcoHealth Alliance, where Huff had previously worked, put out a long statement refuting his claims. Presenter Patrick Christys recently praised a discredited book by Andrew Huff which claimed Covid was genetically engineered and leaked on purpose. ![]() Day after day, this kind of anti-vax content is given free rein. These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. On Wednesday, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism issued a warning about the language on the channel and the conspiracies it was alluding to. Steyn is currently under two Ofcom investigations – one for saying the Government’s vaccination policy is causing a health risk to the British public and another for an interview he did with so-called journalist Naomi Wolf about the vaccine rollout. On Tuesday, one of its leading presenters, Mark Steyn, who presented the 8pm slot, quit the channel, with a delightful parting shot in which he said he used to call its in-house compliance officer “Ofcom’s bitch”.
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