The head of GB News has signalled that Laurence Fox is likely to be sacked by describing his misogynist comments about a political journalist as “way past the limits of acceptance”.
Angelos Frangopoulos, the station’s chief executive, said he was “appalled” by Fox’s comments, in his first interview since his channel suspended Fox and the presenter Dan Wootton after Tuesday’s on-air rant against Ava Evans.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme why Fox had not been sacked already, Frangopoulos said: “We have due process to follow”. But he said he expected an internal investigation to be “resolved very quickly”.
The former head of Sky News Australia added: “I was appalled by those comments. They are not in keeping with the values with us as a business and obviously we took action immediately.”
When it was put to him that Fox was deliberately selected to appear on the channel because of his controversial views, Frangopoulos said: “Laurence Fox does sail close to the wind. But he didn’t sail close to the wind earlier this week – that was way past the limits of acceptance.”
He added: “I was horrified by what was said … that comment should not have gone to air.”
Fox made a series of remarks about Evans while Wootton could be heard laughing during the segment. They have both since apologised.
The regulator Ofcom, which has received more than 7,300 complaints about the episode, has launched its own investigation.
On Thursday Wootton was sacked by MailOnline over accusations that he used a pseudonym to send sexually explicit messages to former colleagues. Asked about Wootton’s future on GB News, Frangopoulos said: “Again, we’re following process and he has been suspended and he will be investigated and the circumstances around that programme will also be investigated.”
Asked what editorial error Wootton made as a presenter, Frangopoulos said: “Well, fundamentally that content should not go to air. There’s a few issues here. Number one, we’re looking very closely at the production process that went into the programme, we’re looking into the way that the interview was handled and we’re also looking obviously at the comments themselves, which were appalling and we’re absolutely horrified about what was said and I’ve written a very extensive and personal apology letter to Ava on that.”
Frangopoulus said GB News respected Ofcom, which last week found that the channel broke impartiality laws when two serving Conservative MPs interviewed the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt. He said: “The difference is that what we are doing is very different to what the normal parameters of the Ofcom code were originally considered to be about, [which were] designed for the News at 10.
“We are reflecting a different approach to the way that conversations happen. And you know we are disruptive.”
This week the GB News presenter and Conservative party vice-chair, Lee Anderson, recorded an interview with the home secretary, Suella Braverman, which is due to be broadcast on Friday.
Frangopoulus said the interview would be “impartial”. He said: “No serving MP hosts a news bulletin-based programme on GB News. What they do is absolutely permitted under the Ofcom rules. Ofcom is currently looking at this – if that changes in the future, then obviously we’ll look at it.”
Asked why the channel did not use a journalist to interview the home secretary, Frangopoulos said: “This is where you’re missing the whole point of what GB News is about. We are not journalism for journalists, we are journalism for people.
“That happened between people like Suella Braverman and Lee Anderson, they are conversations, they’re not interviews in the same sense. We are confident that that programme will be fully compliant.”
The Today presenter Nick Robinson asked: “Isn’t calling one Conservative MP interviewing another Conservative MP and saying that that is impartial, what [George] Orwell might have described as GB Newspeak.”
Frangopoulus said: “I disagree. I think that what you’re looking at here is just a different way of carrying out discussions and extracting information.”
Fox apologised to Evans last night, less than 12 hours after vowing he would “never apologise to the mob.”
