“That is an actual comedy show. Not comedy masquerading as news like GB News output.”
In a moment of poetic justice, GB News is under fire after airing a vile anti-LGBTQ+ remark that sparked hundreds of thousands of complaints and triggered an official investigation by Ofcom.
The controversy centres around the channel’s long-running ‘comedy’ panel show Headliners, where right-wing pundits and comedians discuss the next day’s newspapers and routinely take aim at so-called ‘woke’ culture.
During a January episode, comedian Josh Howie made a comment while discussing a sermon by Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who had called on Donald Trump to show compassion for immigrants and LGBTQ+ people.
Quoting the bishop’s statement, Howie sneered:
“I just want to say, that includes paedos, if you’re doing the full inclusion.”
More than 1,200 formal complaints were lodged with Ofcom, alongside a petition from the Good Law Project, signed by over 70,000 people. The petition was delivered to the media regulator, which has confirmed it is investigating the broadcaster – again.
GB News hit back, attempting to frame the controversy as a ‘free speech’ issue.
Its chief executive, Angelos Frangopoulos, said the channel had been “subjected to a coordinated political campaign by far-left pressure groups.”
But the courts have long discredited this kind of rhetoric. The High Court has described the slur linking the LGBTQ+ community with paedophilia as “one of the oldest, most pernicious and most stubbornly ineradicable falsities or myths of homophobia.”
Agustina Oliveri, head of campaigns and communications at the Good Law Project, welcomed the investigation into a “channel of hatred.”
“Ofcom has been letting GB News get away with broadcasting racism, misogyny and homophobia for too long,” Oliveri said. “It’s time for the regulator to do its job and make sure that media barons stop profiting from monetising hate.”
The Good Law Project has since expanded its campaign, urging advertisers to distance themselves from the channel.
Sky, one of GB News’ largest advertisers, has come under pressure, with over 19,800 people emailing CEO Dana Strong demanding that she stops funding hate speech by advertising on the channel.
Even readers of the right-wing Daily Express took aim.
‘Anti-woke’ comedy show sums up all of GB News output,” wrote one commenter in response to the newspaper’s report on Ofcom’s latest investigation into the broadcaster.
Another summed it up: “That is an actual comedy show. Not comedy masquerading as news like GB News output.”
Let’s hope this time, the broadcaster isn’t let off the hook, because, surely, turning hate into entertainment shouldn’t come without consequences.
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