Monday, March 23, 2026
Reform's in-house cheerleader
He says these are the only conclusions one can reasonably draw from the first-ever exercise in commissioning experienced professional journalists to watch multiple hours of output from GB News:
Most of our 20 reviewers had never watched GB News before. Most of them came away appalled – not by the political views that dominate the station’s output, but by the way the channel is driving a coach and horses through the laws that were put in place to define broadcasting in the UK.
The UK news ecosystem is both special and unique. Newspapers have, for 200 years, often been wildly opinionated in their approach to journalism. But parliament decided that broadcasting would be different: in return for a licence, there’s an obligation to be accurate and impartial. Broadcasters are required to offer appropriate challenge and context, and are supposed to promote a range of viewpoints.
GB News routinely – you might almost say systematically – disregards these requirements. Asked to score the programmes on a scale of 0-5 (0 being not at all compliant with Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code and 5 being wholly compliant), the overall score from our reviewers was just 1.5. Each reviewer came up with detailed reasoning.
Ofcom’s log of complaints, by contrast, shows a tiny trickle of concern. Of the 15 programmes we reviewed, nine had triggered no complaints, two sparked two complaints, while a kid-glove interview with Donald Trump led to 32. Two more programmes are “under assessment”.
So far, there has been no action in regard to any of these complaints. The Trump interview, which both our reviewers scored zero for compliance, was waved through on the grounds that some of Trump’s lies and inaccuracies were later challenged by guests during the evening show, in the early hours of the morning in the UK.
The virtual absence of complaints about the flagship evening shows suggests that the GB News audience is comfortable with what it’s getting and unlikely to raise concerns. In one poll run by Reform UK candidate and GB News presenter Matt Goodwin, a remarkable 97% of viewers agreed with Donald Trump’s statement that Europe had become “unrecognisable”. Even in Pyongyang, such a poll would raise eyebrows.
Rusbridger points out that since becoming an MP in July 2024, NIgel Farage has declared a remarkable £585,000 in fees from GB News, up to December 2025. In addition, his company holds nearly half a million GB News shares, which could amount to a 2% holding.
The article goes into some detail on the number of ways that GB News breaks OFCOM guidelines, so why are they not doing anything about it?
