Ofcom, Britain’s mission-creep prone communications regulator, launched a new consultation document which shows it is stepping up its campaign to muzzle the right-leaning broadcaster GB News.
In the document, Ofcom considers that
Rule 5.3 of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code … should be amended to make clear that no politician may be used as a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter in any type of programme included in a television or radio service (i.e. not just in “news programmes” on such services), unless there is exceptional editorial justification.
This latest wheeze follows a major legal defeat in March, when the High Court ruled that the regulator unlawfully censured GB News because a then-MP, Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg, hosted a current affairs show on weekday evenings. Following this high-profile failure, Ofcom is seeking to move the goalposts so that it can, in effect, decide who is an acceptable TV presenter.
Under Ofcom’s Rule 5.4, TV channels are banned from discussing the regulator’s regulatory processes, so an amended Rule 5.3 would be a matter of elite policymaking. The ongoing vendetta against GB News, which has grown in popularity while employing such presenters as Nigel Farage, is a sign of the disconnection between Ofcom and the wider public—and its hostility to free expression.
