Labour MP Kate Osborne has doubled down on her claims last night that GB News and Reform were “spouting nonsense and broadcasting content and language that attacks and vilifies the LGBTQ+ community” in the wake of the Berlin Pride terror attack over the weekend. Rather than conceding that a hysterical rant about GB News the day after a terror attack might be distasteful (to put it mildly), Osborne has fired out another salvo. Below is a short excerpt – those with enough spare time to read the full thing can click here.
“TL:DR
1. Did I post blaming GB News for the Berlin attack instead of the perpetrator? No
2. Do GB news legitimise hatred and allow slurs against LGBT people in the name of debate? Yes (One of their presenters has already had to apologise for comments on his show and Ofcom are looking at investigating because of 9000 complaints)
3. Did their faux outrage and misleading spin lead to even more hate and abusive messages being sent to me? Of course it did.
So yes, I see my last post got GB news frothing at the mouth and a load of abusive messages mostly from Reform bots but also threats and abuse from individuals.
Of course the statement didn’t blame GB news for the attack – that is clear for all to see…”
Straight out of the usual left wing playbook. ‘Look over there…’
The new chairman of Ofcom has suggested that the internet/broadcast regulator could take a much tougher approach against GB News. Two-tier regulation…
Former Channel 4 chairman Ian Cheshire was yesterday formally appointed as new chairman the regulator. He spoke to the Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee of MPs late last month about GB News. Asked whether he had seen The New World’s campaign against the channel, Cheshire said Rusbridger had been in contact with him…
He added that the regulator takes a programme by programme approach as opposed to looking at channels as a whole, but said he was“very open to being challenged about that, and I’m intending to meet up with Alan [Rusbridger] in due course.”
Worryingly, when asked about whether he agreed with the current Ofcom framework for allowing politicians to present programmes, Cheshire said: “It is literally the second question in my induction plan… it is very high on the list.” Activists and anti-GB News rags like The New World have been pushing that agenda hard…
Cheshire’s predecessor Lord Grade said those same activists are “embarrassed by the fact that there is a news organisation that has a different news agenda to them, that speaks to the agenda of the majority.“ And that it now beats Sky News and BBC News on the regular…
Even with a 30-minute sit-down with the PM, Cathy Newman’s debut show on Sky News still recorded lower BARB ratings than GB News Tonight with Martin Daubney. Sky trailed throughout the entire hour, including every minute Starmer was onscreen…
Newman’s show, which aired for the first time at 7pm last night, peaked at 97,600 viewers. In the same slot, GB News Tonight pulled in 160,700…
The average over the hour had GB News at 138,200 and Sky News on 86,175. Starmer is kryptonite to the viewers…
Former Guardian editor and media standards bloviator Alan Rusbridger has been spending his time appearing in broadcast studios and writing articles on his special investigation into GB News. He claims that the channel is “driving a coach and horses through the laws that were put in place to define broadcasting in the UK” and that Ofcom has “more or less given up the ghost”…
Rusbridger seems to have forgotten his own record on media accountability. In 2020 he was appointed to the Irish’s government “Future of Media” commission, which was tasked with upholding journalistic standards. One year later Rusbridger was was forced to resign from it over a piece that Guardian columnist Roy Greenslade had written in 2014 – while Rusbridger was editor…
Greenslade wrote a piece stating that the BBC had been “too willing to accept” a statement from Máiría Cahill, a former Labour Senator, that she was raped by an alleged member of the IRA when she was 16. Rusbridger reportedly said he knew at the time that Greenslade was a supporter of Sinn Fein. In 2021, the issue resurfaced when Greenslade admitted to being “in complete agreement about the right of the Irish people to engage in armed struggle.” Even the Guardian’s “readers editor” said Greenslade “ought to have been open about his position,” and Rusbridger’s successor Katherine Viner said it “was not handled appropriately.“ Something something glass houses…
Ed Davey used one of his only two PMQs questions to accuse GB News of being “Reform propaganda“, and called for even more Ofcom censorship to stop GBN somehow “turn[ing] our great country into their vision of Trump’s America“. Just four days ago he gave a long form interview to the channel’s Chief Political Correspondent Katherine Forster, in which he repeatedly attacked Trump, insisted the US president was “out of control“, and claimed the “Liberal Democrats have answers“. This clip aired multiple times and was shared across the channel’s social media platforms to millions of people.
Apparently this is not good enough for Ed. Ofcom or even the Prime Minister needs to get involved. Forster was also the only national broadcaster to bother going to the LibDems’ spring conference. Given how terrible it was, maybe Davey wanted Ofcom to ensure absolutely no one knew it even happened…
Lord Khan in the Telegraph: “I hope, and I say this in a non-pompous way, that the public service I do will bring rewards in this world and the hereafter,” he says. “I’m hoping the work I do is earning me Brownie points.”