Broadcaster GB News breached Ofcom rules when a Covid vaccine sceptic compared the jab to "mass murder", the regulator has said. It is the second time the broadcaster has now been found in "significant" breach of the Ofcom rules.
The watchdog said the breach came during an episode of The Mark Steyn Show in October last year. It featured an interview with author Dr Naomi Wolf.
During the broadcast she said the vaccine roll-out was pre-meditated crime, likening it to "mass murder" and compared it to the "doctors in pre-Nazi Germany". Ofcom received 422 complaints, alleging the comments were “dangerous” and included “misinformation” that went “unopposed”.
The media watchdog said while broadcasters are "free to transmit programmes that include controversial and challenging views", they must ensure the audience is protected from potentially harmful opinions. It found Wolf's views had the potential to impact on viewers' decisions about their own health.
Ofcom said: "Our investigation concluded that GB News fell short of this requirement by allowing Naomi Wolf to promote a serious conspiracy theory without challenge or context - for example through other contributions in the programme or by the presenter, who appeared to support many of her comments. There was also no scrutiny of the evidence she claimed to hold to support her claims.
"We also took into account that the programme presented Naomi Wolf as a figure of authority, with particular knowledge and expertise in the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines. We consider this would have lent credibility to her unchallenged claims.
"Of particular concern was her significant and alarming claim that 'mass murder' was taking place through the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccinations, which she repeated three times. We found that the comments made by Naomi Wolf had the potential to impact viewers’ decisions about their health and were therefore potentially harmful."
Wolf appeared on The Mark Steyn Show again the following day. However, on this occasion a banner was shown on screen saying she had “faced widespread criticism for Covid research”, meaning this did not breach the rules a second time.
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Ofcom says the "significant" breach is the second from GB News. It now wishes to meet station bosses to discuss how they can comply with guidelines in future.
The previous breach was also from The Mark Steyn Show. The regular said it was presenting a materially misleading interpretation of official data without sufficient challenge or context, risking harm to viewers.
Since March 2020, Ofcom has received over 26,000 complaints about TV and radio coverage relating to the Covid-19 pandemic. While complaints received about GB News to date total 4,560, representing 1.6% of all broadcast complaints made to us during this period. Of these 1,714 related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
