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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Daniel Bird

GB News Covid denier sparks Ofcom storm with furious viewers racing to complain

GB News has been slapped with 151 Ofcom complaints.

The broadcasting watchdog announced they'd received several complaints following the incidents which aired on the Headliners segment on GB News on June 18.

On GB News, the paper review programme saw host Simon Evans and Mark Dolan's guest Lewis Schaffer make a string of comments about the coronavirus.

Lewis was discussing The Guardian's front page which was headlined: "Pressure on Sunak as Met Police 'consider' latest Partygate video".

He said: "This is a complete non-story, everybody knows and all of these people knew that Covid wasn't a thing."

When told that coronavirus was a real issue, he responded: "No, you can't say it exists," before adding: "They told you Covid, it wasn't a thing, it was an excuse."

He was later told that there was a "huge virus" which was described as "survivable", "I'm going to disagree with you and I'm going to cut you off.

"People knew if Covid was a major thing, I guarantee, people would say 'Ok, maybe we shouldn't have a party', but every one of these people said 'Let's get close to each other'," before being silenced.

Shortly after the episode aired, viewers flocked to social media to share their concerns, with one tweeting: "How is this even allowed to be broadcast?"

"The regulators need to clamp down on this, and very hard. @GBNEWS cannot televise this dangerous nonsense and simultaneously promote itself as a news channel," said a second.

While a third penned: "Please can anyone shocked by what they've just seen here consider complaining to Ofcom?"

"@Ofcom needs to step in and actually do something," wrote a fourth.

This ruling is the second time in just a matter of weeks that GB News has been slapped with complaints surrounding Coronavirus.

Last month, it was ruled that the station had breached broadcasting rules during an interview which aired on October 4, 2022.

During the broadcast, presenter Mark Steyn discussed the Covid-19 vaccine with guest Dr Naomi Wolf.

Dr Wolf, who is a doctor of philosophy due to a thesis in English Literature, made claims about the vaccine and said the rollout amounted to "mass murder" and was comparable to the actions of "doctors in pre-Nazi Germany."

Ofcom received 422 complaints about the comments, with people saying it was "dangerous" and included "misinformation" that went "unopposed".

They found GB News to be in breach of the section and stated that, although broadcasters are free to transmit programmes that include controversial and challenging views – including about Covid-19 vaccines or conspiracy theories – their broadcasting code requires them to "ensure that its audience is adequately protected".

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