The Liberal Democrats have urged Ofcom to look into GB News for potential violations of impartiality. This comes after the channel hosted Nigel Farage and Conservative MPs who criticized Ed Davey and other opposition leaders for their involvement in the Post Office IT scandal.
The party has sent a letter to Melanie Dawes, the head of the broadcast regulator, to express their concern that GB News did not properly acknowledge the involvement of Conservative politicians in the ongoing situation.
Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader of the party, sent a letter expressing specific worries about a segment on the channel Tuesday night. In this segment, Farage made several accusations regarding Davey, who served as the business minister in charge of the Post Office from 2010 to 2012.
Cooper expressed shock at Nigel Farage, the head of Reform, delivering a deceptive speech about the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, filled with false information. Cooper pointed out that the Liberal Democrats were not given a chance to respond, which goes against the Ofcom code’s standards for accuracy and impartiality.
Davey received backlash for initially declining to meet with Alan Bates, the leader of the campaign against the injustice, during his time in office. However, he later became the first minister to meet with Bates.
Cooper also highlighted segments involving Conservative MPs such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, saying she was shocked to see him “take aim at political leaders from other parties about the scandal, whilst not mentioning his own party’s role in this devastating miscarriage of justice”.
She stated: “There was no indication that the Conservative party awarded Paula Vennells (the former Post Office chief executive) a CBE and later appointed her as a non-executive board member in the government.”
He did not state that the governments he was involved in were slow to provide financial compensation to the victims. The Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) employed by GB News have not addressed these issues, leading to a biased and one-sided representation of a significant political dispute.
Cooper expressed doubts about the fairness of Lee Anderson, a Tory deputy chair, hosting a GB News program on Friday. This was due to his use of prime minister’s questions to criticize Davey on Wednesday.
“According to your guidelines, Farage, Rees-Mogg, and Anderson are not reliable sources for reporting on this matter with fairness and accuracy,” the author stated. “It is crucial that an inquiry is conducted to determine if GB News is violating your standards of impartiality and accuracy.”
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GB News has been subject to multiple inquiries by Ofcom regarding potential violations of the code, primarily due to its frequent utilization of Conservative Members of Parliament as commentators.
The previous year, the governing body determined that the station had violated regulations regarding possibly dangerous material, as one of their hosts used health information to draw deceptive conclusions about Covid vaccinations.
GB News was reached out to for a statement.
Source: theguardian.com
