GB NEWS bosses are “afraid they’re going to run out of money” due to problems with advertisers, the channel’s third host to be suspended has said.
Calvin Robinson hit out at his own broadcaster before announcing that he had joined Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton in being suspended.
Wootton and Fox were both reprimanded by the channel after a “misogynistic” rant from the latter – at which the former laughed – about journalist Ava Evans.
Fox criticised his employer for “capitulating to the mob” rather than defending his right to free speech after he called Evans a “little woman” and asking: “Who would want to shag that?”
When Wootton also tried to distance himself from the comments, Fox released a screenshot of what appeared to be private messages between the two men laughing at them, as well as saying that GB News had been aware of what he planned to say beforehand.
On Friday morning, Robinson (below) spoke out in support of Wootton.
He wrote on Twitter/X: “We failed as a community to stand up for Mark Steyn [another GB News host who quit earlier in the year amid an Ofcom probe into spreading misinformation about Covid vaccines]. If we let them do the same to Dan, it’s over. The channel will be on borrowed time, we will all be the next in the firing line.
“I get that people have to pay the bills. But GB News is more than a job – it’s certainly more than a chance to be on the telly – it is a mission. An opportunity to shift the dial in public discourse. To have the conversations the shills on other channels cannot or will not have. We must do all we can to avoid GB News becoming just another MSM [mainstream media] outlet. Which it will, if we let it.
“Our bosses are scared. Afraid of Ofcom, afraid of the woke mob, and afraid they’re going to run out of money unless they manage to sort this advertising problem out. We need to give them courage, not enable them to capitulate. If they pander to the woke mob, we are finished.”
Robinson claimed that Wootton was standing up for “the very idea of GB News” as he attacked people who may be looking to take on his role at the station.
Three hours after posting the lengthy statement, Robinson posted a much briefer one in which he said: “I have been suspended from GB News.”
I have been suspended from GB News.
— Dcn Calvin Robinson (@calvinrobinson) September 29, 2023
GB News later confirmed the suspension in an equally brief statement.
On Thursday, Ofcom announced it had received some 7300 complaints about Fox’s outburst on the Dan Wootton Show.
After initially claiming he would “never apologise to the mob”, Fox issued an apology for his comments amid further backlash on Thursday.
GB News is treading close to the line with Ofcom again, with a planned broadcast of an “interview” between Conservative deputy chair Lee Anderson and Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Friday.
Scheduled for 7pm, the show looks set to breach Ofcom’s rules on having politicians act as interviewers in news broadcasts.
