GB News

[jayne lee wilson]

Always very useful to sign up for the free content offered by the Times and Telegraph...various columnists and features offer a perspective of where centre, left or right and their variations sit in the UK media right now, whether on Brexit, Covid, BBC or the USA......their editorials usually provide the sharpest snapshots. Brexitgraph is a long way from MP-Expenses-Investigation-Graph.
So right now, they are keen to find anything to berate the EU for, while triumphalising any UK positives (guess which one...).

Among Telegraph columnists (I'm a bit addicted to columnists), you have unapologetic herd-immunity libertarian Alison Pearson railing against "SAGE and the even more leftwing Independent Sage" for "spreading more fear and despondency", then pleading with 'Boris" to free us all from our house arrest (and never mind a few extra deaths); someone you can only read first with disbelief, later with weary anxiety. This is now, as Nik Cohen keeps analysing, from the "mainstream media".
But there's also Tim Stanley, with whose Euroscepticism and other topics I disagree about almost everything, but find him useful reading because he always puts together a rigorous, wellwritten argument.

He was in raptures on the Press Preview last night about the imminent arrival of his new puppy.
Newshounds are all breathlessly checking now to see when he's doing the papers next and holds it up to the camera.......

[Nick Armstrong]

"insisted it will conform to Ofcom rules on impartiality". Isn't this obligatory?... But I was under the impression that all UK broadcasting was regulated by Ofcom.

Correct.

Which will be a huge relief if the reported Johnson preference for appointing that even-handed charmer Dacre formerly of the Daily Mail as new Ofcom head turns out to be the case...

[french frank]

Correct.

Which will be a huge relief if the reported Johnson preference for appointing that even-handed charmer Dacre formerly of the Daily Mail as new Ofcom head turns out to be the case...

Better get our pens an ink ready to complain, then

Just thought - does impartiality only apply to the reporting of news? What about the comment - which is what a lot of the US stuff seems to be?

[Nick Armstrong]

Better get our pens an ink ready to complain, then

Just thought - does impartiality only apply to the reporting of news? What about the comment - which is what a lot of the US stuff seems to be?

Well I don’t know about the US but here on TV if they have a commentator with a point of view, they’re supposed to balance it with the contrary view.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think a lot of neutral and right wingers would see these as their principles too.

W........ell, I'm not so sure how someone on the political right could justify uninformed stirring by powerful media people!

It really gets worse when you look at things like Brexit and extreme right politics because much of their support came from left voters.

At the time of the first referendum "the left" (if you will allow) varied between advocators of abstention, on the grounds that the (then) Common Market was merely a new form of international capitalist rationalisation, set up as a pan-European entity more able to compete better with America and the growing power of Japan, and therefore not an issue affecting working people one way or another; and voting against, on the grounds that any obstruction to such re-organisation would weaken capital and therefore offer potential openings for the left. I myself vacillated this time around almost up to the last moment, and after conversations with acquaintances and observing the debate here I decided that a successful Leave campaign led by the right and far right would be to their favour and likely result in an even more right wing Tory government being returned to power, possibly with UKIP support, and so voted Remain. I was not and am not a Labour Party member; however I was sympathetic towards the Catch-22 position Labour MPs were put in by electors in their constituencies voting Leave, and the invidious position of Corbyn and the shadow cabinet.

[french frank]

Well I don’t know about the US but here on TV if they have a commentator with a point of view, they’re supposed to balance it with the contrary view.

Yes, of course. In the US you might actually get two popular/ist right-wing commentators discussing a matter between themselves. Even 'balance' has to be carefully managed because people are selective about what they watch: put a particular guest on one night and it will attract one audience, another guest with the opposing view will get a different audience.

My admiration for Fox's Chris Wallace - as a journalist - increased on hearing him interview Sen Amy Klobuchar: he was challenging but fair (and she came out of it well). But the Fox and Friends/Hannity/Ingraham audience will surely routinely give Wallace a miss.

[Dave2002]

Well I don’t know about the US but here on TV if they have a commentator with a point of view, they’re supposed to balance it with the contrary view.

Sure -and this often works well! Balancing a sane and large group of people with well founded and sensible views against a few cranky nutters. Call that balanced and impartial if you will.

[french frank]

Sure -and this often works well! Balancing a sane and large group of people with well founded and sensible views against a few cranky nutters. Call that balanced and impartial if you will.

I think that was my fear - people will still pay heed, selectively, to whichever view suits them. The alternative, though, is censorship. With all these new sources of misinformation, I really don't know what the solution is. There seem to be two such channels looming - Piers Morgan's and Murdoch's.

[On the subject of television impartiality, Trump phoned in to Fox to pay tribute to the, now, late Rush Limbaugh and appeared (I only saw excerpts) to spend most of the time reiterating that "the election was stolen from me - and Rush agreed with that." ]

[jayne lee wilson]

Sure -and this often works well! Balancing a sane and large group of people with well founded and sensible views against a few cranky nutters. Call that balanced and impartial if you will.

Absolutely - exactly what happened with climate change/crisis, Nigel Lawson et al on the BBC... very depressing at the time, and finally overwhelmed by protest to Feedback and many other portals...

"Freedom of Speech" based on social media frenzy, ignorance and prejudice, often stoked by powerful political and electoral interest, is one of the defining problems of our times....

[french frank]

"Freedom of Speech" based on social media frenzy, ignorance and prejudice, often stoked by powerful political and electoral interest, is one of the defining problems of our times....

And not just of our times. Think of the way holocaust denial has been dealt with in Germany. Perhaps some kind of impartial judicial body is needed to determine finally at what point 'alternative' facts are simply too damaging to be allowed any kind of platform? Would that be open to abuse? I suppose it would - most things are But in principle?

[Jazzrook]

The grisly rightwing crew manning GB News:

https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/what-is-gb-news-everything-you-need-to-know/

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

The grisly rightwing crew manning GB News:

https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/what-is-gb-news-everything-you-need-to-know/

JR

Dewberry "I want to stop people being left behind".

Well, I for one will not be right behind.

[Bryn]

I know it is possible to compile a list of 'favourite' channels on Freeview but is there a way of excluding a channel altogether?

[oddoneout]

I know it is possible to compile a list of 'favourite' channels on Freeview but is there a way of excluding a channel altogether?

Don't put it in a saved list? Or shut your eyes as you scroll past? I'm wondering about where adverts for it might intrude - that would annoy me.

[gurnemanz]

May actually be easier to avoid all those presenters if they are conveniently bundled together in one place.