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GB News will not be investigated by the media regulator after a presenter insisted there was no riot in Belfast last month, despite cars and houses being set alight, attacks on police and families fleeing their homes.
Ofcom received more than 400 complaints following the comments by Bev Turner, presenter of the broadcaster’s Late Show Live, who said there “weren’t riots” and that no houses had been burnt in the violent disorder.
“There was no riot,” she said in a show broadcast hours after the unrest. “There is not a house that has been burnt down. There are no riots.”
When a guest on her show, political commentator Matthew Stadlen, pointed to footage of burning cars and houses, Turner replied she had seen it and it was “not that dramatic”.
However, the regulator, which has come under heavy criticism over its approach to maintaining broadcasting accuracy and impartiality, said it would not investigate the comments because Turner was challenged and had been expressing her own view.
The violence in Belfast broke out after a Sudanese man was charged with attempted murder in relation to a knife attack. A video of the attack was posted by Tommy Robinson and other far-right figures, prompting demands for protests in response.
Turner later said on social media that she had been speaking in the early hours of the morning, when she had been “relying on sparse footage and interpreting media descriptions”.
She said she feared the disorder would be used “by the government to introduce more powers of control” and that she believed Stadlen was “priming viewers at home to accept incoming restrictions”.
Critics of Ofcom’s decision not to investigate, despite a total of 446 complaints, say it demonstrates the low bar the regulator has effectively set to comply with broadcasting rules.
Richard Wilson, the director of campaign group Reliable Media, was among those who made a complaint. He said: “Whether or not a house burned down is not a matter of opinion … It now looks like Ofcom has told GB News that as long as someone in the studio disagrees with you, you can say what you like about settled facts. That’s not regulation. It’s a green light.”
Chris Banatvala, an independent media consultant who drafted Ofcom’s code and investigation procedures when he was its founding director of standards, said Turner’s comments were “clearly misleading” and risked “fuelling conspiracy theories”.
“A broadcaster has an editorial voice which must respect the facts,” he said. “At a time when Ofcom is cracking down on misinformation and adopting emergency measures for social media during periods of civil unrest, it appears to be allowing GB News to go unchecked, despite the higher legal standards that apply to broadcasters.”
A spokesperson for Ofcom said it had “carefully considered complaints about comments made by the presenter Bev Turner regarding civil unrest in Belfast”.
They added: “Taking into account that the comments reflected her personal view and received robust challenge by a guest – who referenced specific aspects of the disorder which countered the presenter’s own analysis – the programme did not raise potentially substantive issues warranting further investigation.”
GB News was approached for comment.
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