GB News Blasts Ofcom Consultation With Legal Letter Listing Regulator’s Failures – Guido Fawkes

GB News Blasts Ofcom Consultation With Legal Letter Listing Regulator’s Failures

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Yesterday’s Sunday Times published a story about GB News accusing Ofcom of bias in a letter the broadcaster sent to the regulator. The report was a little undercooked, Guido has had full sight of that letter…

In the missive lawyers offered a devastating judgement on Ofcom’s proposals. One key point passed over lightly in the Sunday Times piece was that Ofcom appear to have failed to follow their own consultation principles, which state “where possible, we will hold informal talks with people and organisations before announcing a big consultation…if we do not have enough time to do this, we will hold an open meeting to explain our proposal, shortly after announcing the consultation.” The people’s channel say they have not been invited for any informal talks or to an open meeting, and demanded that “Ofcom should withdraw the consultation and, if it still wishes to investigate whether a change of the rules is necessary, publish a consultation that follows the correct process.” Shots fired…

The letter also offered a withering attack on the unworkable nature of the proposals – arguing that the High Court judgement offered certainty, something these proposals would destroy by making it “necessary for broadcasters to determine whether each and every word spoken on air is news content or not” as Ofcom offer no definition. In a slap down to the regulator, GB News quoted Ofcom executive Cristina Nicolotti Squires’ words back at her: “I am not convinced that having a very clear definition is possible. What is news? News is lots of different things to all sorts of people.” If Ofcom does not know, how are broadcasters supposed to know?

And it’s not just GB News who feel this way. Over the weekend, ex-Ofcom broadcast chief Stewart Purvis wrote about these proposals, “Ofcom has dug itself into another regulatory hole. You do wonder who at Ofcom could have signed this off without realising the implications.” Ouch…