GB News used to be a joke - now it's dangerous

GB News launched in 2021, to massive media interest, with a promise to become a patriotic centre-right alternative to the BBC and Sky. That did not happen. The launch was a technical and editorial disaster and an object lesson in how hard it is to make a rolling news channel work smoothly. But then something disturbing took place. As its ratings dwindled, the channel opted for a new approach. It dedicated itself to conspiracy theories on the furthest fringes of the right.

On Tuesday, one of its leading presenters, Mark Steyn, who presented the 8pm slot, quit the channel, with a delightful parting shot in which he said he used to call its in-house compliance officer “Ofcom’s bitch”. Steyn is currently under two Ofcom investigations – one for saying the Government’s vaccination policy is causing a health risk to the British public and another for an interview he did with so-called journalist Naomi Wolf about the vaccine rollout.

On Wednesday, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism issued a warning about the language on the channel and the conspiracies it was alluding to. These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. Day after day, this kind of anti-vax content is given free rein.

What’s going on here? How is this stuff able to go out without Ofcom stepping in? Its rules demand that “factual programmes or items or portrayals of factual matters must not materially mislead the audience”. And yet outside of the two Steyn investigations, it seems extremely sluggish in its response.