GB News could face sanction from regulator Ofcom, after it was decided a programme with Rishi Sunak facing questions broke broadcasting due impartiality rules.
The regulator received 547 complaints about The People's Forum: The Prime Minister, an hour long programme featuring Mr Sunak in a question-and-answer session with a studio audience about the Government’s policies and performance, presented in the context of the forthcoming UK General Election.
Ofcom found that while some of the audience’s questions provided some challenge to, and criticism of, the government’s policies and performance, audience members were not able to challenge the Prime Minister’s responses and the presenter did not do this to any meaningful extent.
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Mr Sunak was also able to set out future policies that his Government planned to implement, if re-elected, without challenge or significant alternative views.
Ofcom also found that the Prime Minister's criticism of aspects of the Labour Party's platform was not balanced with Labour's views or positions on those issues, or any other significant views on those issues.
The regulator said: "Given the very high compliance risks this programme presented, we found GB News’s approach to compliance to be wholly insufficient, and consider it could have, and should have, taken additional steps to mitigate these risks.
"We have therefore recorded a breach of Rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the Broadcasting Code against GB News.
"Ofcom considers GB News’s failure to preserve due impartiality in this case to be serious and – given its two previous breaches of these rules – repeated.
"We are therefore now starting our process for consideration of a statutory sanction against GB News."
As part of a lengthy response, GB News said: "In the age of TikTok, YouTube and Twitter, the places where tens millions of Brits consume their news without regulator approval, their investigation seems absurd beyond belief.
"Does Ofcom really believe people cannot think critically and live in a vacuum of an hour-long news programme? This is not the 1970s when there were just three TV channels.
"People have access to boundless amounts of information on where all the political parties stand, and Britain has a healthy and large dose of cynicism and scepticism when it comes to taking politicians at their word.
"When Sunak answered questions in the People’s Forum, viewers understood that he spoke from his own perspective, with his own spin and bias, and can be judged as such.
"For democracy to function, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the ability of voters to interrogate their politicians are fundamental.
"Ofcom’s chilling ruling threatens all three principles and should concern us all."
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