GB News - Printable Version

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RE: GB Newse - qwerty123 - 20-02-2024

(20-02-2024, 10:53 AM)Adsales Wrote:  Ofcom is entirely right to investigate. The issue is not with Sunak "answering" questions from the audience; it is with the requirements set out in rules 5.11 and 5.12.

The programme naturally dealt with numerous matters which meet the definition of "major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy" (NHS, small boats, inflation, Israel/Gaza etc.)

That by default means that opposing views ("a wide range of significant views") must be provided either in the programme or in a "clearly linked and timely" programme. Neither happened here. Sunak was allowed to "answer" all questions and claim "Labour don't have a plan". Unopposed.

Of course one could argue that the questions themselves should be challenging and therefore present opposing views but that of course was not the case either (with the exception of the bizarre vaccine injury disruption). It of course could not be the case as the audience was made up of "Don't Knows" which naturally means the majority were 2019 Conservative voters who have turned away from the party either to Reform or to "I can't be bothered anymore". Every single poll clearly shows that Labour has held on to almost all of its 2019 voters while the Tories have only held on to approximately 30%. The 70% who indicate they will no longer vote Conservative are split 75% Reform or will not vote vs 25% any other party.

The argument of having offered Starmer the same kind of show is of course moot - even if he were to agree to take part at some point, that pogramme would neither be clearly linked to Sunak's nor would it be shown in a timely manner. And it still leaves the issue that Sunak was able to have an hour of an unopposed political broadcast.

On the face of it, a programme like it has not previously been broadcast in the UK. Interviews or Q&A session with individual party leaders (e.g.during conference season or during an election campaign) are always broadcast within days of each other (i.e. clearly linked... so much so that the host clearly states date and time of the next programme at the end).

The problem with this argument is that there is absolutely no reason to believe a programme with Kier Starmer wouldn’t have been shown in a timely manner had Starmer agreed to such a programme. As Kier Starmer hadn’t agreed to appear at the time of broadcast it would have been impossible for GBNews to state the time of any such appearance as there was nothing arranged. As long as broadcasters give both parties a reasonable window in which to decide whether they want to appear before the programmes are scheduled and the offer remains open to those who initially decline it is entirely reasonable for broadcasters to go ahead with programmes featuring those who are willing to appear even if this means some parties get more airtime than others (as the alternative would mean political parties could veto appearances on programmes that they believe are likely to be beneficial to the other side).

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RE: GB News - Jon - 20-02-2024

The idea you can give the Prime Minister 3 or so minutes to make claims about and to tear into the leader of the opposition without a challenge from the audience or the host doesn’t sit right.

The audience weren’t providing balance, because they were just asking questions. They should have had an opportunity to respond or let the host make one two counters to what the PM had said each time.

Apart from the vaccine chaps and the lady asking about LGBTQ+ issues it was a friendly audience because even though they might not have been voting for Sunak they were all largely on board with with the stated aims of the PM.

With the same method of audience selection the leader of the opposition would likely automatically get a much more hostile audience so it’s difficult to suggest they could balance it by offering him a People’s Forum.

Now you can say it was representative of those undecided voters who applied in the area. You can even interpret that it was within Ofcom rules. I’m not that bothered. It just made for pretty rubbish TV.

Bringing it back to presentation and to be fair the production values were good though.

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RE: GB News - Stooky Bill - 20-02-2024

(20-02-2024, 10:09 AM)agemame Wrote:  I think the timing may also be a problem, in general you don't allow 1 hour of focus on the head of a political party unopposed the week of two important byelections. That said, Ofcom can hardly say it helped him out, can it?

That is if you believe the intention was to help him, or help Reform... who did quite well last week.

As I probably said earlier I did get the feeling they'd set up Sunak with the debate somewhat

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RE: GB News - Fish92 - 20-02-2024

Worth remembering that GBNews did not choose the audience and they did not vet the questions. They hired Survation, a respected polling company, to do both. Survation were tasked to find undecided voters, not GBNews fans.

The choice of host, Stephen Dixon, seems like a pretty obvious choice to try and make the programme fair as well. He's a 20 year alumni of Sky News who isn't known for ever making any particularly strong political comments or sharing a political affiliation.

This is going above and beyond programmes of a similar format of which Ofcom have never taken interest in, such as over a decade of LBC's flagship leader call-ins.

This wasn't two Tory MPs "interviewing" a senior Tory Cabinet Minister, of which GBNews were very rightly reprimanded for. This was a political programme that would have been completely unremarkable if it was on any other broadcaster.

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RE: GB News - Adsales - 20-02-2024

(20-02-2024, 12:10 PM)Stockland Hillman Wrote:  As usual as interesting viewpoint Adsales, but it misunderstands the longtime understanding that broadcasters have on issues of balance in news.

We shall see

Quote:Let's get one thing out the way. Line by line rebuttals of politicians sentences has never been done, as it's Impractical. The Sunak claim Labour "don't have a plan" [on immigration] can't and shouldn't be rebutted by a simple "they do" in the way Suzanna Reed did on GMB, as that's just repeating another political statement as fact without context and analysis if it.

No one has asked for line by line rebuttals. They were never required and are not required. I don't agree with Reid's outburst.

Quote:So you can see if every contentious statement on TV or Radio had to have a officially approved type of balancing challange, it would be unworkable.

That's not required and I'm surprised you even mention that. The rules are crystal-clear and I don't think I need to explain them again.

Quote:Broadcasters are legally entitled to choose the editorial topics they cover, in this case GBN chose the battleground seats of 'red wall' voters so the challenging balance on matters of public controversy IS the public. The fact they usually have very different priorities to those of political journalists and activists is irrelevant - it's still balance.

It isn't balance. Due impartiality cannot exist unless a "wide range of significant views" are provided. The entire country is fed up with the state of the NHS, Sunak claiming everything is fine is not balanced unless that claim is followed up by a rebuttal from another member of the public or indeed a politician who holds a different view (or, atypical for UK media, a fact check).

Quote:It's not a GBN defence from me, because party leadership debates would also be impacted. Both SNP and Welsh Labour have changed leaders/first ministers and have hours of airtime which effectively is an unchallenged advert for the party with a narrow gap between the parties candidates. The views of rival parties isn't featured, despite the wide public audience. Why? Because the broadcaster is entitled to choose the topic and frame of the discussion and cover it in the most appropriate way.

If its protected speech for Leadership debates then its protected for every other sub topic including the GBN redwall discussion, outside of an legally defined national election period - where the law is clearly set out in primary legislation.

Leadership debates are not comparable as different candidates naturally hold different views and therefore due impartiality is preserved.

Quote:All regulatory rules must be clear, consistent and applicable in all situations. Ofcom are in danger of breaking the good work they've done over 20 years

They are clear. Ofcom has had any easy ride up until around 2015. They then miserably failed on numerous occasions and are slowly showing some teeth.

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RE: GB Newse - Adsales - 20-02-2024

(20-02-2024, 12:41 PM)qwerty123 Wrote:  The problem with this argument is that there is absolutely no reason to believe a programme with Kier Starmer wouldn’t have been shown in a timely manner had Starmer agreed to such a programme. As Kier Starmer hadn’t agreed to appear at the time of broadcast it would have been impossible for GBNews to state the time of any such appearance as there was nothing arranged. As long as broadcasters give both parties a reasonable window in which to decide whether they want to appear before the programmes are scheduled and the offer remains open to those who initially decline it is entirely reasonable for broadcasters to go ahead with programmes featuring those who are willing to appear even if this means some parties get more airtime than others (as the alternative would mean political parties could veto appearances on programmes that they believe are likely to be beneficial to the other side).

It doesn't work like that. The "clearly linked programme" if due impartiality is to be provided in a different programme needs to be shown in a timely manner (e.g. a week later as happens in debates in the run up to elections or during party conference season). You can't just say at the end of the programme "Oh by the way, Leader of the Opposition, you're welcome to an hour here too".

If the opposition isn't willing to take part in such a programme or on such a channel (and why would they outside an election campaign?!), then you are still obliged to provide due impartiality and there are other ways of doing so.

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RE: GB News - Jon - 20-02-2024

(20-02-2024, 04:04 PM)Fish92 Wrote:  Worth remembering that GBNews did not choose the audience and they did not vet the questions. They hired Survation, a respected polling company, to do both. Survation were tasked to find undecided voters, not GBNews fans.

I was aware of that but it doesn’t change the fact it wasn’t very good television and you may have been watching an election campaign rally with added questions: Presumably had it been two Tories MPs there would have been more points of disagreement though.

At least on LBC someone like Nick Farrari who’s known to be more Conservative leaning would follow up and challenge an MP or follow up on something from what I’ve seen. From a televisual perspective I don’t see the point of allowing someone to do a glorified speech, apart from which is probably partly the case that they probably wouldn’t agree to do it if it was going to be difficult. Though maybe Sunak would agree because he’s not risking anything if polling is to be believed.

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RE: GB News - LDN - 20-02-2024

In my opinion, there's a fundamental problem with the whole concept of 'balance' as currently interpreted by Ofcom.

Until the last few years, UK broadcasters have generally operated on the understanding that 'balance' requires a broadly representative range of opinions to be included within a particular newscast, whether it's an episode of Newsnight, an hour on the ITV News Channel (RIP), a regular Sky News bulletin, or a BBC regional news programme.

This wasn't a perfect situation by any means: all too often, it resulted in a simplistic interpretation, giving equal airtime to opposing viewpoints, even if one of those opinions was on the fringes of credibility or decency. On the whole, however, it was a functional solution, if for no other reason than viewers could sit down for 30 minutes or so and get a reasonably broad range of views on a number of topics.

In recent years, the notion of 'balance' has been reinterpreted by newcomers to the market -- and accepted, and implicitly endorsed by Ofcom -- as something along the lines of: 'you can broadcast any (lawful) views at any time, and as often as you like, as long as you can demonstrate that someone, at some point, has had the opportunity to present an alternative viewpoint'.

And so, we go, sometimes for hours at a time, on GB News (and, to a far lesser extent, on Talk TV) with right-wing and far-right viewpoints being promoted by guests, and unchallenged by presenters; or simply being explicitly stated by the presenters themselves, in the case of Farage, Rees-Mogg, and others.

When they eventually come, the 'alternative viewpoints' -- i.e. anything that deviates from the institutionally right-leaning outlook of the channel -- are fiercely interrogated and challenged, often ridiculed, and frequently dismissed as 'woke'; either by a fiercely right-wing guest, or again, by the presenter themselves.

This is not 'balance'. This is performative balance. It pretends to represent a wide range of views while under-representing those views, and while scrutinising them in a way that is curiously absent when it comes to views of which the presenters, guests and audience approve.

Even if Starmer had accepted the invitation from GB News, it's surely ludicrous to believe that he would have been give the same softly-softly let-him-say-what-he-wants approach that was granted to Sunak. Nothing in GB News' coverage of Labour politics or politicians suggests that Starmer would get a free pass to say whatever he wanted, essentially unchallenged, as Sunak did.

If he had accepted, there would have been no real balance, except in the most simplistic, infantile interpretation: Sunak had a forum, Starmer had a forum. 'Balance'.

This whole notion of balance on GB News is utter fiction. How can any sense of balance be appreciated, by the viewer, when that viewer might have to watch for several hours before they finally hear a counterpoint being presented with any real passion -- only for it to be shouted down as woke, lefty nonsense when it's presented?

What kind of balance might be achieved, even if Starmer were afforded a Sunak-style session of anything-goes unchallenged banter, if the channel then spent every subsequent hour angrily bloviating against every word that had come out of his mouth?

How can any reasonable or intelligent person believe, for even a moment, that balance exists on GB News, when every single day, the same handful of right-wing-taint-tickling issues (immigrants, Harry & Meghan, Labour, BBC bias, BBC stars, BBC arrogance, immigrants, the Royal Family, Keir Starmer, the licence fee, Sadiq Khan, immigrants, woke celebrities, BBC wokeness, Gary Lineker, immigrants) are being relentlessly discussed in the most disparaging (and quite f**king clearly, the least impartial) way throughout the entire day?

There is no balance on GB News. It's irrationally, objectively delusional to believe otherwise.

And I can't help but feel emboldened in that claim when I see that GB News literally markets itself in the US as "British and balanced". Indeed, that says it all -- GBN is every single bit as fair and balanced as that other bastion of impartiality, and defender of all that is holier-than-thou: Fox News.

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RE: GB News - Affogato - 21-02-2024

Let's leave the Ofcom/Sunak Q&A discussion there for now please. It's simply leading to repetition of the same old arguments/counter-arguments about the politics of the channel.

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RE: GB News - lookoutwales - 21-02-2024

In other news, GBN is taking its radio sales in-house after breaking off a contract with Bauer.

https://radiotoday.co.uk/2024/02/gb-news-ends-sales-contract-with-bauer-media/ 

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