GB News has been hit with its first Ofcom breach over the network’s Don’t Kill Cash campaign and more could be incoming.The regulator this morning said GB News had broken two parts of its code over the campaign lobbying politicians to stop Britain from moving away from being a cashless society.Ofcom swiftly opened an investigation into an episode of GB News’ The Live Desk that mentioned the campaign in its infancy in July and five more probes into Don’t Kill Cash’s promotion remain open.While taking into account that “broadcasters are of course free to cover issues such as the use of cash in society in their programmes in various ways,” Ofcom said GB News had broken rules 5.4 and 5.5 of its code, which “included expressions of the views and opinions of the licensee on a matter of political controversy and a matter relating to current public policy, and did not preserve due impartiality on it.”The campaign’s stated aim is to “call on the Government to introduce legislation to protect the status of cash as legal tender and as a widely accepted means of payment in the UK until at least 2050.” GB News stresses that old people are placed at a disadvantage by a cashless society and an alternative is required.Ofcom said it received complaints in the first two weeks of July when 40 programs contained references to the campaign. It identified numerous promotions of the Campaign in GB News’ programs in the first week including regular calls to viewers to support a petition. A QR code with a caption supporting the petition was also frequently displayed.Ofcom considered that the promotion of the campaign often crossed a line in terms of promoting the matter of political controversy relating to public policy.In its response, GB News argued that the campaign was not about a matter of political controversy or current public policy and therefore Rules 5.4 and 5.5 were not engaged, but that in any event, due impartiality was achieved by including arguments in favour of cashless transactions. GB News stressed the need for Ofcom to perform its duties “in accordance with the right to freedom of expression set out in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”Five more investigations into the promotion of the campaign remain open and the issue is by no means the only one being investigated by Ofcom. The right-leaning news network has simultaneously breached Ofcom’s code four times in other areas, mostly over impartiality issues and the issue of political figures presenting topical programs. A total of 11 investigations remain open.A GB News spokesman said the network is “disappointed by Ofcom’s ruling that our campaign to protect cash for society’s most financially vulnerable people was a breach of the Broadcasting Code.”“Ofcom has not censured other UK broadcasters, including Sky News and the BBC, for running their own campaigns in the past,” it added. “Our Don’t Kill Cash petition received more than 300,000 signatures in what we believe was record speed for a media advocacy campaign. We disagree with Ofcom’s assertion that because the campaign was under the GB News banner, it represented the personal or self-interested view of anyone within the company. Nothing could be further from the truth.”He went on to say: “Ofcom repeatedly states that editorial decisions like these are matters for each broadcaster. We agree. We believe Ofcom has interpreted its rules extremely narrowly in this instance.”
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