“I have called for GB News to be closed down,” so started journalist Michael Crick in his speech at the panel debate “how to solve a problem like GB News.”
Crick’s opening line attracted applause and cheers in the sparse audience at the Media Democracy Festival in Sheffield.
Hosted by the Media Reform Coalition, Crick was speaking on its first panel after a keynote speech titled “How to solve a problem like GB News.”
We were told that GB News was invited to the event but GB News Management did not receive an invitation from the Media Reform Coalition.
I went along in my role as a GB News reporter to see what the pannelists and audience at this lefty convention might say about us.
The panelists were all critics of the broadcaster, as were the hosts, with the speakers key to stress that we were somehow both struggling with “relatively low ratings” while also being a pernicious and widespread threat to the media and Britain’s wider landscape.
Crick went on to urge regulator OfCom “to get a grip” and fulfil his demand for this broadcaster to be shutdown.
And the event continued in the same style, with representatives keen to take a pop at us for a supposed lack of impartiality, laundering “harmful tropes” into the media and sharing arguments or ideas that might lead to violence.
Helen Belcher, from Trans Media Watch, told us that “as a trans person I’ve not been brave enough to watch GB News … there is a real failure of regulation, which GB News is exploiting enormously.”
In a segway, Belcher referred to JK Rowling — “bless her” — and said that she was now denying the Holocaust due to her commentary on trans issues. There was plenty of applause at the end.
The next speaker, former Al Jazeera producer Marcela Pizarro said that the “global rise of the far-right movement” was “relevant to this topic”.
Pizarro said that on GB News there is focus on immigration, “stop the boats”, identity politics issues, and that the broadcaster is anti-Trans and smears Muslims.
Referring again to the far-right, Pizarro said that GB News did not come out of nowhere.
Our final speaker was Faisal Hanif, from the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring.
GB News reporter Charlie Peters exposing the event
GB News
I’ve featured regularly in their work, where Hanif has referred to me as a “journalist activist” at GB News in separate reports.
“I get paid to watch GB News and it’s not always a pleasure,” Hanif started, going on to say that he was looking forward to the channel when it was first announced.
He lamented the liberal bias that exists in the mainstream broadcasters, particularly on social issues, and thought that GB News could be a space for a lot of people who hear alternative views that challenge the norm.
But Hanif said he found “the opposite” after watching the channel “on a daily basis.”
He claimed that GB News has had an obsession with Muslims and lamented the discussion around Michael Gove’s new extremism definition and said that commentary on a “conspiracy theory” was “nauseating.”
His answer on what to do about the ‘problem’ of GB News? Hanif doesn’t want to shut down the channel like Crick and many others, but urged OfCom to do more.
Hanif believes in strict regulation. But what kind of stricter regulations does he want? And to crack down on what content?
His main concern appears to be “tropes” that foster division and hatred. In particular he pointed out what he described as the grooming gang “trope.” But this issue is not a trope, and numerous reports and studies have found an overrepresentation of Pakistani men in group child sexual exploitation.
This channel has been instrumental in leading the discussion on that issue where so many other broadcasters have faded away, afraid of falling foul of Hanif’s “tropes” and “conspiracy theories.”
He lamented that when former Home Secretary Suella Braverman launched the grooming gangs taskforce in April 2023, GB News “were acting as cheerleaders.”
But could you blame us? We called for some policy changes and the government enacted them. The crackdown was vital, and the national force we demanded has been implemented, activated, and is making a real difference. It has dozens of live cases. Hanif didn’t appear aware of this.
At the end of the panel speeches, I decided to reveal to the panel that they had a GB News reporter in the audience.
I’ve never had audible gasps react to me saying my name and job role before, so that was pleasant — how exciting! I swiftly pointed out that this medium-sized lecture hall on Sheffield University’s campus was largely empty, where GB News had just beaten Sky News and the BBC on breakfast and in much of the day’s programming.
We were once again Britain’s top news channel at least once last week, also beating Sky on four separate days.
I pointed out that people aren’t tuning in to GB News for “tropes” and “conspiracy theories,” but to engage with issues that they care about but are sneered at by the rest of the mainstream media.
We portray them accurately, honestly and fairly, giving unbiased reportage and analysis on stories that are deliberately omitted or all-too-delicately portrayed by our rivals.
We’re growing because our audience — the British people — finds this style refreshing.
I also told the audience that demands for further OfCom regulation are a shame, but the real sinister and censorious campaign against GB News comes from those who seek to smear us as engaging in “far-right” tropes. It is the urge to describe us as “fascist” — as one audience member did just before I spoke — and shut down our analysis on key issues, such as the grooming gangs scandal, as “conspiracy theories.”
We don’t deal with demonising lies. We aren’t a ‘problem’. We’re the people’s channel and we’re here to stay.