Earlier this year, Rats in a Sack asked “Could Ofcom finally take GB News to task?” after the media watchdog received numerous complaints about an interview it aired with Donald Trump late last year. The channel dispatched Beverly Turner to pitch him a series of less-than-penetrating questions in a rambling interview.
Ofcom was inundated with complaints about the unchallenged lies Trump repeatedly spouted during the interview, including asserting that man-made climate change was “a hoax”, that London had no-go areas for police and that the capital had “sharia law”.
He made other claims about law and order and immigration that were either left unchallenged or effectively endorsed by Turner, a basketball presenter turned crackpot conspiracy theorist. When Trump said people are “being stabbed in the ass or worse”, she replied: “It’s true… It’s awful, it is. And it feels much safer [in the US].”
Now, after Ofcom officials are understood to have spent weeks examining 32 detailed complaints signed by tens of thousands of people, it has come to a decision: and nobody who has followed the toothless regulator’s attitude to the hard right broadcaster will be surprised.
The watchdog has declined to launch an investigation, saying that while Trump’s views “were not challenged during the interview itself”, “alternative perspectives” were set out in a surrounding panel discussion which did challenge his opinions.
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“We carefully considered complaints about this current affairs programme which featured an interview with US President Donald Trump interspersed with a studio panel discussion and other guest interviews,” an Ofcom spokesperson said.
“Preserving due impartiality is a cornerstone of Ofcom’s broadcasting rules and we carried out a detailed assessment of the entire programme as broadcast. While we acknowledge that President Trump’s views were not challenged during the interview itself, the surrounding panel discussion and other guest interviews offered a range of alternative perspectives which strongly challenged his position.
“Given this, we will not be pursuing complaints about this programme further.”
Chris Banatvala, Ofcom’s founding director of standards, has said he was “astounded” by its decision.
“This was a test case for how Ofcom regulates broadcasters on due impartiality,” he said. “It has failed that test. The decision raises serious questions about whether Ofcom is willing to enforce its own standards as set out in legislation.
“It now appears that Ofcom has abandoned any pretence that meaningful regulation of broadcast content is still being maintained.”
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