GB News cries foul over long-delayed Ofcom probe

GB News has been mocked after claiming it was “surprised and concerned” by Ofcom’s decision to investigate its rebroadcast of Donald Trump’s interview, with critics pointing out that the bigger scandal is the regulator taking six months to act at all.

This week, Ofcom confirmed it will investigate whether GB News breached broadcasting rules when it aired a second showing of Trump’s interview on the Weekend, after previously deciding not to pursue complaints over the original broadcast on the channel’s US-focused programme Late Show Live.

The interview drew criticism after Trump was allowed to make a series of false and inflammatory claims about Islam, immigration and climate change with little or no meaningful challenge from presenter Bev Turner.

Among the unchecked claims were that human-induced climate change is a “hoax,” that parts of London are beyond police control, and that areas of the capital operate under sharia law.

Despite the controversy surrounding the broadcast, GB News responded to Ofcom’s announcement by saying it was “surprised and concerned” by the regulator’s “delayed decision,” insisting the channel “stands firmly by its journalism and editorial standards.”

The response prompted ridicule, with critics arguing GB News was attempting to portray itself as the victim after airing the same interview twice.

Campaign group Stop Funding Hate reposted a series of clips from the interview of Turner heaping nauseating praising Trump. “GB News is ‘surprised and concerned’ that Ofcom is investigating and says it ‘stands firmly by its journalism and editorial standards.”

Viewers piled on underneath.

“This is an AI parody, isn’t it?” one person asked.

Another replied: “It’s real, it happened, and it aired twice.”

Others mocked GB News’s apparent shock that broadcasting unchallenged misinformation could eventually attract regulatory scrutiny.

The Good Law Project also criticised Ofcom’s delay, writing: “Ofcom’s finally investigating GB News over its failings to challenge Donald Trump’s false claims about climate change, Islam and immigration in an interview last year. But if regulation takes this long to come, is it really regulation?”

Meanwhile, campaign organisation 38 Degrees said the investigation was “just the start,” warning that if Ofcom failed to act decisively, many people would see the regulator itself as “broken.”

Criticism has also focused on Ofcom’s inconsistency. The regulator has yet to explain why it declined to investigate the original broadcast but decided to pursue the rebroadcast instead. Nor has it explained why the process has taken half a year while clips from the interview amassed hundreds of thousands of engagements online.

Richard Wilson, director of the Reliable Media campaign group and one of the complainants, accused Ofcom of presiding over “regulatory failure.”

“Today’s announcement is welcome, but it is a direct result of sustained pressure from the public, from MPs and from civil society,” he said.

“The new Ofcom chair has inherited a dysfunctional regulator, and parliament must ensure he is held to account for fixing it.”

For many, the affair has become an example of failure on two fronts: GB News airing highly controversial claims with little challenge, and Ofcom responding so slowly that any eventual intervention risks looking largely symbolic.

As several viewers pointed out online, this was not a live broadcasting mistake or an isolated slip-up. GB News aired the interview once, faced backlash, and then chose to air it again anyway.