Rishi Sunak came to power in an “anti-democratic coup,” and is in hock to a shadowy “globalist elite”; mass migration is “replacing” British culture, and net zero is a “suicide note” – not the rantings of an internet troll, but a snapshot of views espoused by presenters on GB News across seven days last week.The Guardian watched a week’s worth of output from the upstart rightwing channel in an attempt to understand the worldview at work – and how GB News gets away with sailing so close to the wind.Since the broadcasting veteran Andrew Neil quit as chair three months after the channel’s launch, complaining that he was in “a minority of one” about its direction, GB News has increasingly planted its flag on the radical right of British politics. 4-With a monthly reach of 2.8 million viewers – twice that of its Murdoch rival TalkTV – and a place in the political “pool” in which major broadcasters share filming duties, GB News’s boss, Angelos Frangopoulos, told staff in a recent email: “We are firmly part of the mainstream media.”But some of the views regularly encountered on the channel are anything but mainstream.Last summer it secured an additional £60m in funding from founding investors Paul Marshall – an ex-Liberal Democrat who went on to be a vehement Brexiter – and Legatum Ventures Ltd, the Dubai-based financial firm behind the free market Legatum Institute thinktank.Earlier this year Marshall wrote on the website UnHerd, which he also funded, that Prince Harry had fallen victim to “the woke creed”, which he claimed had also infected other institutions, including newsrooms.Rejecting this “woke creed” seems a constant preoccupation at GB News, which Frangopoulos styles as “staunchly non-metropolitan”.Much of its output is standard fare for a rolling news channel: last week there was Eurovision gossip and speculation about Phillip Schofield’s future and Harry’s car chase, punctuated by anodyne news updates.But at the heart of its anti-establishment pitch is a string of presenters whose shows are shot through with their fiercely rightwing opinions.These include the former Coast presenter Neil Oliver, the actor turned populist Laurence Fox and the ex-Brexit party leader Nigel Farage.Less well-known presenters, including Patrick Christys in the 3pm weekday slot, and Mark Dolan at 10pm at weekends, are equally forthright. These TV shock jocks generally kick off each hour with a polemical monologue (or Moggologue, in the case of the former Brexit opportunities secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg).On Friday’s edition of Calvin’s Common Sense Crusade, presented by the controversialist preacher Calvin Robinson, this involved calling for nuance over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – for which he suggested viewers look to Donald Trump.Frequently the tone is arch, rather than earnest, and discussion panels often feature at least one leftwinger, albeit rarely a senior figure (perhaps in part because the channel’s reputation deters many from appearing). Viewers’ contributions also feature heavily as the channel builds a committed community, with emails read out live and frequent use of vox pops. (Bernard, a Mark Dolan viewer, wants to bring back corporal punishment and “the rope”.)But the framing of sensitive topics by highly opinionated hosts sometimes appears to stretch the definition of “due impartiality”, as demanded by Ofcom.GB News has already fallen foul of the broadcasters’ regulator twice – most recently, for an appearance by the Covid conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf on the Mark Steyn Show, in which she linked the vaccine to “mass murder”. Steyn has since left the channel.The ruling was on the grounds of potential harm to viewers rather than due impartiality, however. Ofcom made clear that broadcasters are “free to transmit programmes that include controversial and challenging views” – so long as they don’t go completely unchallenged.The regulator also declined to pursue complaints about an episode of Oliver’s show in February, despite conceding that he had made references to “a global elite controlling world politics” – an idea sometimes regarded as an antisemitic trope or at best a baseless conspiracy theory.The regulator said it had “issued guidance to GB News to ensure they take care when discussing conspiracy theories, given the potential harm to audiences”.The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism had urged Ofcom to act. At the time, a GB News spokesperson said: “GB News abhors racism and hate in all its forms and would never allow it on the channel.”The broadcast code enforced by Ofcom is clear that opinionated hosts are fine but “alternative viewpoints must be adequately represented”. It has not specified what exactly that means, but GB News insiders believe 10-15% representation for differing views is probably adequate.A spokesperson for the channel said: “GB News chose to be an Ofcom-regulated channel and we take the Broadcast Code seriously. All staff receive Ofcom training when they join us to ensure they understand the code and the importance we place on complying with it.“Ofcom is very clear that due impartiality does not mean a 50:50 balance. Instead, broadcasters are required to include a range of views. Diversity of opinion is what GB News is all about.”GB News is as focused on expanding its online reach as growing viewers and listeners on its DAB radio channel, and lively moments are quickly packaged up for Twitter and TikTok.
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