‘What’s going on, Ofcom?’: Veteran BBC Editor John Simpson Slams GB News ‘Impartiality’
John Simpson during a live broadcast of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme at Wigmore Hall in central London as the programme celebrates its 60th anniversary. October 28, 2017. (Rick Findler/PA Wire URN:33477886)
BBC World Affairs editor and veteran broadcaster John Simpson lashed out at media watchdog Ofcom in apparent criticism of a perceived disparity between the “highest standards” of “impartiality” required of legacy broadcasters versus those demanded from GB News.
Simpson published his frustrations on X, formerly Twitter, slamming GB News for making “unashamedly opinionated allegations being passed off as fact.”
https://twitter.com/JohnSimpsonNews/status/1761677155635691712?s=20
Simpson joined the concerned voices of former ITN chief Stewart Purvis and former Sky News political editor Adam Boulton, who called out Ofcom for “dragging its feet with investigations into the rightwing channel” in the Guardian over the weekend.
Boulton accused GB News of “deliberately taking the piss in terms of violating the conventions that we have grown up with in British broadcasting, of attempting to be duly impartial.”
He added: “Frankly, Ofcom has been supine – for understandable reasons – because it’s been clear that the government of the day is sympathetic to GB News… What we’ve got with GB News is conservative and rightwing politicians interviewing each other, essentially a mix of softball questions to them and rightwing politics.”
The channel is currently embroiled in 13 Ofcom investigations and is often criticised for employing sitting Conservative MPs and Brexiteer Nigel Farage as hosts. Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey, and Philip Davies are among the hosts under scrutiny for their roles on the channel and their political positions within government, raising eyebrows over the blending of politics and broadcasting.
Ofcom’s recently dropped probe into a dedicated GB News Q&A programme featuring Prime Minister Rishi Sunak intensified debates over the regulator’s stance on broadcasting impartiality and fairness.
The Guardian interviewed critics arguing GB News is exploiting regulatory loopholes, including former BBC News North American editor Jon Sopel who warned of a “dangerous road” towards the “polarisation of TV” and an affirmation-based broadcasting, the likes of which he witnessed covering the U.S.
“I’m not suggesting that we have reached that point in the UK but we have had a broadcasting ecosystem where there has been a duty to uphold impartiality and to report the news fairly,” Sopel said.
