When GB News took a journalist off air during a debate about freedom of speech this weekend, the irony was lost on no-one. Broadcaster Michael Crick provoked a producer’s ire when he said live on air that it was “absurd” that GBN employs so many Tory MPs on the channel. He also said that Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, “should get a grip on you lot”.
Apparently the furious producer then marched onto the studio floor and shouted “You! Out!” during a hastily announced advert break on Saturday. “It was all very frosty,” Crick told us.
The show’s presenter Neil Oliver said that the channel has “made space for all kinds of voices, left and right”, but Crick says it’s “a load of rubbish.”
“If GB News want to change and have lots of Labour people on, and Lib Dems and Greens and SNP people, then great, that’s fine, but at the moment it’s just a right-wing propaganda channel,” he told us.
Crick was a founding member of Channel 4 News, but left the programme due to concerns about left wing bias. Nowadays, he identifies as a centrist. “I find that after 40 years in broadcasting you don't really know what to think on lots of issues,” he added with a laugh. Crick’s a regular on Jacob Rees Mogg’s programme, because he believes that “other arguments need to be put”. He said that he doesn’t usually go on Neil Oliver’s show as “he does seem to have some rather strange views”.
He received an apology from the channel, which has branded itself “the home of free speech”, and told us it won’t stop him returning. He’d be happy to appear on Boris Johnson’s show, if asked. The former PM recently announced he’d be joining the channel as a presenter, and made his first appearance as a member of the team today when GBN showed footage of his trip to Israel.
As well as Jacob Rees Mogg, GB News has a clutch of Tory MPs who host their own shows, including Lee Anderson, Esther McVey, and Philip Davies. But Crick thinks it's “dangerous territory” to have sitting politicians in the presenter’s chair. “And goodness knows what GB news is going to do during the election,” he added. “They’re going to have nobody to present their programmes!”
