Six more investigations have been discontinued by media regulator Ofcom after the High Court quashed its impartiality rulings against GB News over politicians acting as newsreaders.
The media regulator said on Monday that reviews into episodes of programmes fronted by Reform UK founder Nigel Farage on GB News and others would not go ahead.
These also included investigations into episodes of various programmes with former minister Jake Berry, ex-MEP Alex Phillips and former deputy Reform UK leader David Bull on Talk, and Labour MP David Lammy on LBC.
Ofcom said last week that it “withdrew the three other breach decisions against GB News”, which included episodes of programmes on the channel fronted by husband and wife team Esther McVey, a Tory MP, and Philip Davies, who was an Conservative MP until the general election.
But Ofcom launched an investigation on Monday into GB News programme Headliners, which featured comments about the LGBT+ community.
Angelos Frangopoulos, the chief executive of GB News, welcomed the watchdog’s decision, and said he did “not believe that there was a breach of the rules” in the Headliners programme.
GB News took Ofcom to the High Court after it found that two programmes with Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, when he was an MP, violated rules that state news must be reported with due accuracy and “presented with due impartiality”, and that politicians cannot act as newsreaders except when “editorially justified”.
In February, High Court judge Mrs Justice Collins Rice said the regulator’s decisions were “vitiated by error of law” and that Ofcom “conflated a news programme and a current affairs programme” in its ruling about the two episodes of the State Of The Nation show from 2023.
Ofcom previously welcomed the ruling, and said it would “review and consult on proposed changes to the broadcasting code to restrict politicians from presenting news in any type of programme to ensure this is clear for all broadcasters”.
Mr Frangopoulos said: “Since the recent landmark High Court ruling finding that Ofcom acted unlawfully, a total of 11 cases against GB News and other UK broadcasters have now either been quashed, unwound or abandoned.
“Following the withdrawal of five breach decisions against GB News, now Ofcom has revealed that it is ‘not pursuing’ the case against the GB News programme, Farage and five others from other UK broadcasters – another vindication of GB News editorial decision making.”
