MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the House of Commons, has criticised Ofcom’s ruling regarding his appearances on GB News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ofcom, the broadcasting regulatory body in the UK, found that Rees-Mogg’s role as a newsreader on GB News while also serving as a politician violated impartiality rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The channel was put on notice yesterday (18 March), with the media watchdog saying that any repeated breaches of the same rules \u201cmay result in the imposition of a statutory sanction\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This may result in a financial penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rees-Mogg has defended his actions, arguing that he was not acting in a political capacity during his appearances on the network, telling the Times Radio: \u201cIt is a barmy decision from Ofcom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was talking about a stabbing \u2013 how can there be due impartiality? We know stabbing is bad. Would they get the stabber on there to argue why it wasn\u2019t bad? It is an eccentric decision.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Ofcom deemed that his status as a serving politician could potentially compromise the impartiality of the broadcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked for her views on the GB News ruling, Lucy Frazer, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said: \u201cI think GB News does a fantastic job, I\u2019m in favour of media plurality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think you have a lot of viewers who are interested in the output that you have, as indeed other channels have as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On whether she agrees with the ruling, Ms Frazer said: \u201cI think there were two decisions that Ofcom came to in relation to GB News. One was in relation to impartiality, and that\u2019s a question for them \u2013 they are the regulator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd the other was whether there was a breach of the broadcasting code, because the broadcasting code says that a sitting MP cannot present news as in live news that is happening, but they can present current affairs programmes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This situation raises important questions about the balance between politicians media engagements and their responsibilities as public officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the House of Commons, has criticised Ofcom’s ruling regarding his appearances on GB News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1643,"featured_media":17261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4972],"tags":[5648,2691,2559],"class_list":["post-17260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-gb-news","tag-jacob-rees-mogg","tag-ofcom"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n