Summary of complaint
We received complaints from people who felt our coverage of the fallout following Laurence Fox’s comments on GB News was biased against the channel.
Our response
We do of course always strive to achieve a fair range of views in any discussion. On this occasion the Newsnight team did invite GB News to take part in the programme, something that Victoria Derbyshire made clear on air. The production team also contacted several people who had previously worked on GB News or who might otherwise be likely to defend the channel. Unfortunately, none was available to appear on the programme.
Each of the three guests on the panel was wellÌýqualified to give their views on a discussion that was wider than simply GB News itself but which covered broader questions about the UK's broadcasting regulatory environment. And in the absence of anyone representing GB News,ÌýVictoria Derbyshire did challenge Adam Boulton on the fact that he spoke as someone who is part of the established media and therefore might have a vested interest in criticising the channel.
However we do understand that you might feel the item was therefore unbalanced, considering the way the discussion unfolded on air, and are happy to accept that in this case this item could have worked better if we had managed to find someone to robustly defend the channel.Ìý You may be interested to know that Newsnight’s editor appeared on Newswatch last week to explain our position on this, which you can watch using the below link:
/iplayer/episode/m001r0w1/newswatch-29092023
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