On the 8th of January of this year, Marina Hyde of the Guardian decided that what the world really needed was yet another dose of Trump Derangement Syndrome seasoned liberally with a large addition of the Left’s usual hatred of the media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Speaking about the end of the Trump Presidency Ms Hyde complained that Fox News commentators such as Tucker Carlson were the creators of the Trump Presidency and complained that the soon to be launched GB News channel here in the UK would be a simulacrum of the news ‘infotainment’ that she so clearly despises.
Marina Hyde’s piece is the usual sort of anti-American, anti-populist, anti-freedom of speech stuff that we’ve come to expect from a paper that was once a good if challenging read, but which has since declined into being the house organ of the UK London-centric Metro-Left. This piece drips with condescension towards those who voted for Trump and also towards those who might want some sort of choice apart from what the BBC/ITV and the big left leaning American TV networks offer the people of the USA and the UK. It’s a classic Guardian on those who may think differently to those in the Guardian newsroom, utterly convinced that they, the small group of Guardia writers and journalists, are correct and that everyone else is wrong.
This is what Ms Hyde said about the soon to launch GB News channel and the Murdoch backed News UK channel.
And yet … imagine being the country that is RIGHT NOW deciding to get in on the bonkers newsotainment game. Imagine being the country that has watched the last four years unfold in the US, with its bloodlines so easily traceable to the Fox sensibility, and is nonetheless thinking: let’s have a bit of that. Because that’s us, of course. In the coming months, not one but two anti-impartiality news channels will launch in the UK – GB News, backed by Discovery, and News UK, courtesy of that aforementioned adornment to international life, Rupert Murdoch.
Knowing a reasonable amount about how there are differences between the UK and US media environments, Ms Hyde could not be more wrong. Because controls on broadcast media are far stricter in the UK than they are in the USA, it would be very difficult for a channel that is completely partial politically to exist in the terrestrial UK broadcast market. Of course it would be quite possible to set up a shortwave station broadcasting news of a politically partial nature to the UK from a place that respected free speech more than the UK does, but its audience would be quite small compared to that which can be got via the Freeview network on television. Such a station would not represent a sustainable market. GB News in order to get a licence to broadcast from Ofcom is required by law to be impartial. It is highly unlikely that a very partial broadcaster would ever get past Ofcom’s numerous hurdles in order to broadcast.
But, GB News’s Chief Executive Officer, Angelos Frangopoulos, has hit back at Marina Hyde’s smear and to the Guardian’s credit they’ve published his rebuttal dated the 22nd of February on their letters page. This rebuttal reads:
Marina Hyde’s article (As the US descends into chaos, what better time for Britain to go the same way?, 8 January) is a false imagining of what GB News, Britain’s upcoming free-to-air television news channel, will be.
To call us an “anti-impartiality news channel” is not only untrue but baseless, given that we haven’t launched yet. It also misunderstands Ofcom’s due impartiality rules, which do not allow a biased news station in this country.
GB News will be staunchly independent. That is our point. Our investors know this, our journalists will know it and so will our viewers. We aim to serve British communities who feel poorly represented by mainstream television media, especially outside London.
We are proud to be adding plurality to UK media by investing in journalism that will be as diverse and broad-minded as the British people themselves.
We are absolutely committed to our mission to report news in the most accurate and balanced way we can.
Well said there Mr Frangopoulos. Marina Hyde’s piece was, although a comment piece not a news item, a massive and dishonest smear on GB News. He’s correct that the London-centric media does not serve those outside the capital or outside of the Metro-Left bubble very well at all. I agree with Mr Frangopoulos, GB News will not and cannot be a simulacrum of Fox News or any of the other smaller politically partial media outlets that exist in the USA. It’s not just that they cannot by law
operate in such a manner but I doubt that the British public would watch it if it was merely a propaganda outlet.
The BBC is losing viewers and licence fee payers in large part because of a perception by the public that the BBC is a biased broadcaster and the record for audience numbers for partial broadcasters like Fox is not good in the UK. Fox got taken off of the Sky platform not because it was bad or wrong, but because people in the UK didn’t want to watch a nakedly partial news outlet. Prior to its removal from UK outlets I used to watch Fox but not because I agreed with all its output, but because it was a refreshing change from the BBC which dominates news in Britain. Maybe GB News can become the impartial alternative to the BBC that many crave,who knows? We will have to wait until it starts broadcasting to find out. But the rantings of the likes of Marina Hyde, in addition to showing her prejudices, may also show that Britain’s current media class, which is London based and leans to the Left, are very worried about what will be the effect of competition on the size of the audience that they currently reach. Come March we are about to experience some interesting times in broadcasting and I for one am looking forward to them.
Nowadays, and for some time past, I only check the BBC for the weather forecast. Oh, I scan the headlines, but only to see which way they’re spinning the news – no prizes for guessing which! And that’s the problem; too much journalism and not enough reporting. A reporter will write ‘this is where and when I was, and this is what I saw:’ a journalist will spin what he sees to match his social or political views. We have too much of the latter and not nearly enough of the former. But ‘journalist’ sounds posher that ‘reporter!’
Like Glyn, I only check Big Brother Control for spin, having usually already seen more impartial news elsewhere. As for their ‘science’ section, that lunacy is best avoided for blood pressure reasons!
After applying the E&OE rule, there’s very little of use left (& it’s always Left, ha ha!).
Also, most information is now presented in what seems to be primary school comprehension level – if hoi polloi are really that ignorant and stupid we’re all doomed, doomed I tell ya!
Likewise. I will have a look at ” Big Brother Control” (I like that!) just to see the news headlines, but the bias is so obvious that the Beed can’t be taken seriously any more.
Which leads me to my second point …
If Ofcom has “due impartiality rules, which do not allow a biased news station in this country. ” how is the BBC still a licence holder.