Ofcom Begins Procedure To Sanction GB News Over Rishi Sunak ‘People’s Forum’

deadline.com:

Ofcom has begun the procedure to issue GB News with a sanction following a “serious and repeated” breach of its code over a People’s Forum show in which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took questions from a live audience.

Ofcom has today said GB News once again failed to “preserve due impartiality,” a section of the regulator’s code that the right-leaning news network has repeatedly fallen foul of, with Sunak given a “mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his government” in this instance.

In The People’s Forum, Sunak was questioned by a live audience about the government’s policies and performance, in the context of the forthcoming UK general election.

The show almost immediately drew criticism for being one-sided and attracted more than 500 complaints to Ofcom. “While some of the audience’s questions provided some challenge to, and criticism of, the government’s policies and performance, audience members were not able to challenge the Prime Minister’s responses and the presenter did not do this to any meaningful extent,” Ofcom said. “The Prime Minister was able to set out some future policies that his government planned to implement, if re-elected in the forthcoming UK General Election.