The sheer audacity of this is astonishing. One of the great elders of British journalism sits in the BBC studios, condemning and patronizing a start-up broadcaster of which he disapproves. It became the favorite tune of the establishment media. Andrew Neil appeared on the Today program this week to launch a salvo against GB News, the station he helped set up three years ago. Everything in the studio was very friendly, everyone spoke by name; it was Andrew this and Andrew that when Mishal Hussain allowed Mr. Neil to freely spill his spleen. It was a very revealing interview, but I think not quite what the BBC and Neil intended.
You have to wonder why everyone else's hatred of GB News is so intense. Is it because they are losing audience share to a competitor? A smart offer because GBN is rapidly growing its audience. As the UK Press Gazette reported last month: “Year-on-year, relative newcomer GB News, which launched a dotcom URL last year, had the fastest growth in the top 50. The news brand's audience grew 167 percent compared to February.» 2023 – 9 million people.”
But what seems to worry Mr Neil isn't the fact that GB News is now the UK's 21st leading news brand, with a staggering 3,515 per cent year-on-year growth. He adapted the station's claim that «Britain is listening» to say that «just a tiny part of Britain» is listening and watching. Get rid of the idea that his anger was caused by an energetic young competitor who was eating his lunch. What really angers Mr Neil is that some of GB News' programs are run by employees of Tory MPs. This is the principle of what you see.
Andrew Neil presents the premiere of GB News, June 2020
And the fact that MPs are behind the microphone is a break with the British broadcasting tradition, which, as everyone knows, is aimed at maintaining pristine “impartiality”. However, the very concept of media impartiality is false; it is the Big Lie that is constantly repeated to scare us into submission. The BBC — and the rest of the media — are no more «impartial» than GB News. They just have very different preferences and prejudices.
The interview with Andrew Neil was prompted by media regulator Ofcom's announcement that it was to investigate GB News for breaches of rules relating to a program in which Rishi Sunak answered questions from the public. Ofcom said the program, called People's Forum, breached its rules because the Prime Minister's responses were not controversial. Significantly, Ofcom said in a statement: “Given that this represents a serious and repeated breach of these rules, we are now beginning the process of considering statutory sanctions against GB News.”
This could spell the end for GB News as Ofcom has the power to revoke its broadcasting licence. I highly doubt they'll go that far. It would not be good for Ofcom or British democracy as a whole to shut down a broadcaster simply because it offends the views of the elite — especially with a general election looming. There may be a fine, or perhaps GB News will be ordered to more closely match how the BBC and others do it. This would be a recipe for softer, middle-of-the-road “consensus broadcasting.” It would be a pity; the experiment of using MPs and other politically interested people such as Nigel Farage as presenters was, in my opinion, a resounding success.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, for example, has proven himself to be an extremely intelligent and highly brilliant investigator, and a man whose political insight and deep historical knowledge make his program one of the consistently best programs. It would clearly be better if GB News had a few Labor MPs to balance the books, but as station manager Angelos Frangopoulos said: “We are trying very hard to encourage members of other parties to join us and present programmes. We'd love to have as many MPs on our channel as possible, like stations like LBC do… It's an ongoing conversation, but it's purely because we've yet to find anyone who says yes.
I wonder why? MPs are usually not shy about making their voices heard. I suspect this is because GBH has become a dirty word on the left—and in elite circles in general. And the reason for this is simple: GB News is the only broadcaster where you will hear a full-throated challenge to some of today's crazy orthodoxies, like climate change. I have heard and admired discussions about GBN that have sharply questioned the UK's Net Zero policy.
Some of us are beginning to think that this piece of eco-fanaticism could cause enormous damage to national prosperity. But you won't be hearing this kind of debate on Today anytime soon. BBC, High Priest of the Church of Climate Change, censors heretics. The politically naïve might expect Ofcom to also be interested in a similar failure of “impartiality”, but this would be to misunderstand a regulator that is a central pillar of the media establishment along with the BBC.
Angelos Frangopoulos, CEO, GB News Photo: JULIAN SIMMONDS
It was interesting to hear Mr Neil justify his criticism of GB News while simultaneously attacking Ofcom itself. The decision to focus on Rishi Sunak's Q&A, as Neil crooned, was like going after Al Capone for tax evasion (an insult he copied from Michael Crick, who had appeared on Reesie Mogg's program the night before, criticizing GBH as » right person»). propaganda channel»). In other words, GB News' sins were much greater in other areas.
One might wonder how much of Mr Neil's dissatisfaction stemmed from his association with GB News as originally intended. He served as its first chairman and star presenter at its launch in June 2021. But the relationship quickly soured and Neil left while GB News set about finding its own voice. Frangopoulos says he is on a mission to “disrupt” the UK media scene, which is why he is so resented.
But Mr Neil said he fully supported disruptors — but apparently not ones like GB News. He favored the Sky News model, which he boasted he was instrumental in creating. However, Sky turned out to be a «destroyer» just like Tweedledum was to Tweedledee. Its output is now indistinguishable from the BBC's in terms of content and outlook.
Michael Crick to Jacob Rees-Mogg: “I think if you went to YouTube you wouldn’t get even the meager advertising you get”
>
Crick continues : “They [Ofcom] don’t regulate GB News as strictly because your viewership isn’t very high.”
Shots fired 😂 pic.twitter.com/hFL3zP86Cx
— GB News Spin Room (@GBNewsSpin ), May 20, 2024
George Orwell's timeless fable Animal Farm comes to mind, in which revolutionaries change shape over time, becoming carbon copies. their original oppressors. Andrew Neil, by the way, has just announced that he is going to join Times Radio — another «disruptor», chasing almost the same program as the BBC, but growing slower than GBN.
GB News is not perfect . Some of his reporting is flashy and sometimes downright ignorant. But its saving grace is that it represents something new, a departure from the old, outdated media consensus that censors proper debate on important topics.
So far, Ofcom has resisted calls from people like Neil to saddle the newcomer with regulatory burdens that would make him sound and look like everyone else. Anyone who cares about freedom of speech and free debate in a free country should hope that Ofcom retains its composure and allows GB News to flourish.
Свежие комментарии