GB News says it has won a legal battle against Ofcom after the regulator pursued the broadcaster for a 53-second segment of Jacob Rees-Mogg reading out a US court decision on Donald Trump. Ofcom found that it “was in breach of Rule 5.3 of the Code because Jacob Rees-Mogg had presented news in the sequence in question.” GB argued at the time that the application of the rule was too narrow and this was a current affairs, not a news programme – and neither did Rees-Mogg’s words make it one…
The High Court has found today that Ofcom misapplied that rule because it only applies to “news programmes” and there is “no plausibly contended justification” to finding GB News in breach of the rules. The court interestingly said Ofcom’s interpretation of the rules was ‘novel’ and had no substantial precedent in regulation. The regulator will not appeal and has been ordered to pay GB’s legal costs…
GB News CEO Angelos Frangopoulos says: “We are proud that we were the only media company prepared to have the courage of our convictions. I call on the Government and Parliament to consider the seriousness of this fundamental failure by Ofcom.” An embarrassment for the two-tier regulator just as it is ramping up to its new brief of regulating the entire internet…
UPDATE: An Ofcom spokesperson says:
“We accept the Court’s guidance on this important aspect of due impartiality in broadcast news and the clarity set out in its Judgment. We will now 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.”
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”