13-12-2023, 06:21 PM
(13-12-2023, 03:09 PM)strollfan Wrote: If there's no such thing as a news channel according to Ofcom, and GB News call themselves a news channel and they classify themselves as news, why are we having an argument about whether they are news?
Indeed. "NEWS" in regulatory terms is a distinct programme block, usually as part of PSB licence obligation. It isn't any content that's topical/current affairs or events, hence ITV GMB can treat news events as content within its general entertainment parts, it can hold topical interviews with opinionated presenters on current events and then report on those events in a part that's regulated as News.
How many people realise that when the little Sport or Weather animation appears on the news, that news content and rules have ended and what they are watching is entertainment with different rules? It's a mad situation.
Ofcoms problem is that lots of targeted complaints are made against GBNews by political activists, but things like Rees Mogg doing "news" because a story broke is a very tricky area. Regulation has to be consistent and repeatable, to rule against GBN for that issue makes life tricky for all live TV and radio shows.
GBN is effectively an all day Good Morning Britain/ Jeremy Vine/Loose Women, with hourly news bulletins. It's LBC on TV with a heavy right bias that's countered by guests. Unlike LBC that's a mainly soft left, with heavily left James OB countered by right-wing guests
Left/right definitions increasingly irrelevant to describe sides of viewpoints, however.