Ofcom needs to truly prove its mettle this year
Opinion
From the high court overturning its rulings on two GB News shows to the start of its enforcement of the Online Safety Act, Ofcom finds itself defining or refining where media balance should lie in an increasing contentious age.
You have to feel sorry for Ofcom.
For months, the communications regulator has been attacked for being toothless and told to develop a backbone over its lack of action on allowing GB News to have either Conservative MPs or former Conservative MPs interviewing each other on live television.
It looked like a very unique interpretation of the historic principles of broadcasting due impartiality.
Now, the regulator is having its rulings overturned in the high court and being accused by GB News executives of surrendering to left-wing pressure groups.
Either way, Ofcom is finding itself in the middle of defining or refining where media balance should lie in an increasing contentious age and is therefore likely to be spending more of its time fighting off legal challenges and defending itself against judicial reviews.
Protecting fairness, truth and impartiality
It all may seem terribly polite in a rather British sort of way compared with the current activities of US president Donald Trump.
Trump is in the midst of closing down the Voice of America while also declaring that the broadcasts of CNN and MSNBC must be illegal because they carry critical reports on a president who has uniquely trashed the US in little more than six weeks.
But our much more modest points of principle are still worthy of consideration all the same.
Despite the proliferation of unverified, and unverifiable, information everywhere on the internet, it is still worth fighting to protect concepts of fairness, truth and impartiality on licensed broadcast television — and in protecting honest news in particular.
It is more than a little unfortunate that, just as Ofcom was getting some teeth and a backbone, it should be stopped in its tracks by the high court.
There was plenty of justification for Ofcom imposing a £100,000 fine on GB News for its pre-election love-in with then prime minister Rishi Sunak.
As the regulator pointed out, there were barely any challenges to Sunak’s policies, nor was there any attempt to provide alternative points of view.
However, as a result of the high court ruling, it looks as if politicians will in effect be able to act as newsreaders when the programmes involved are judged to be “current affairs” rather than news bulletins.
Ofcom climb-down
The regulator has now had to withdraw 11 investigations or rulings, most of them involving GB News, although there have also been ones involving Talk and LBC.
There is a very fine line between what constitutes current affairs and news programmes, and the two challenges to Ofcom rulings involved former cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg updating news stories.
The distinction is largely a false one and all such programmes that deal with factual information and public policy issues should be held to equally high standards of due impartiality.
An exception could be made in the cases of clearly labelled opinion pieces as long as, over time, a diversity of opinions are on offer.
It is good that Ofcom is now carrying out an urgent review and plans to consult on new rules that would restrict politicians presenting news on any type of programme.
Defining terms could still be a challenge.
Serving MPs should simply be banned from presenting either current affairs or news programmes and all variants in between.
Restrictions should also apply to those who hold political positions or who have not formally retired from politics.
But what about former politicians? Should those no longer sitting in the House of Commons or House of Lords be permanently banned from presently current affairs or news programmes?
After all, there is no shortage of former Conservative MPs who lost their seats last year now looking for gainful employment.
Meanwhile, Ofcom has been keen to demonstrate that it has not just lost all its teeth. The regulator is launching an investigation into GB News programme Headliners in which a presenter claimed that the “full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons” at a church would “include paedos”.
And, earlier this month, Ofcom imposed a fine of £150,000 on religious channel The Word Network after finding that two episodes of Peter Popoff Ministries breached broadcasting rules.
The regulator decided that the programmes contained potentially harmful claims that contacting the presenter’s ministry or ordering its “Miracle Spring Water” could improve serious health problems and financial conditions.
Test of powers
It is likely, though, that Ofcom’s recent experiences with litigation will not go away.
This week, it takes over formal responsibility for enforcing the Online Safety Act and the deadline has now passed for platforms and apps to carry out illegal harms risk assessment.
At the same time, Ofcom is launching enforcement programmes into child sexual abuse imagery on file-sharing services.
While some of the target material will be all too obvious and indefensible, it will be Ofcom that will be responsible for ensuring that platform owners will remove illegal material quickly when they become aware of it.
Fringe outlets can probably be tackled and there is, for instance, already pressure for Ofcom to do something about a website with 3m members that contains thousands of graphic images of real-life killings, suicides and executions.
It will be a real-life test of the powers of the Online Safety Act.
The big test will come from less extreme, but still illegal, examples that find their way on to the platforms of the high-tech billionaires, recently emboldened by their newly cosy relationship with Trump.
What happens if they do not take down illegal material in a timely manner — or, indeed, care little about whether it is there or not in the first place?
Ofcom has considerable powers of enforcement and can impose fines of 10% of turnover or up to £18m — whichever is greater.
Would Ofcom have the backbone to impose a 10% of revenue fine on the likes of Facebook or TikTok, and would it be straight back to court if it did?
Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — bookmark his column here.