UK news chief defends political line-up and says he wants to recruit more MPs

The chief executive of right-wing TV channel News UK has firmly defended the practice of hiring sitting politicians as presenters and said he hopes to recruit more MPs from “other parties” to join the fight.

Angelos Frangopoulos said GB News had been “working very hard to encourage MPs from other parties to join them”.

Mr Francopoulos also defended the channel’s current makeup, explaining that only three of their 34 presenters “serve politicians”, referring to Lee Anderson, Jacob Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage, who is not an MP but leads the right-wing challenger Reform Party.

He also said hiring only right-leaning MPs was “not intentional” and that British news channels “like” to have “a broad range of MPs on the channel”, as news stations such as LBC do.

The Australian-born TV executive admitted that although his channel was involved in “discussions with political parties” they had not been successful in recruiting other politicians because some parties “discourage MPs from taking on second jobs”, he told the House of Lords Committee on Communications and Digital.

“This is purely because we haven’t found anyone willing to say yes,” he added.

The channel has been heavily criticized by communications regulator Ofcom after it was found that five episodes of a British news program produced by Conservative MPs broke broadcasting rules.

Ofcom said two episodes of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s “State of the Nation” and “Friday Morning Esther and Phil” were broadcast in May and June 2023. Two episodes and one of Saturday Morning Esther and Phil violated the rules of due impartiality.

Six months ago, regulators found an episode of GB News’ The Live Desk broadcast in July 2023 breached the same rules.

Ofcom said: “We found that host politicians acted as newscasters, news interviewers or journalists in a sequence that clearly constituted news, including reporting on breaking news events, without specific justification.

“As a result, the news is not getting the fairness it deserves.”

Ofcom added that politicians “play a part in society” and the news content they present “may be viewed by viewers because of this perceived bias”.

“We believe that the use of politicians to disseminate news may undermine the integrity and credibility of regulated broadcast journalism,” it added.

The channel was also recently heavily criticized by Ofcom after it ruled that misogynistic comments made by actor Laurence Fox to a female reporter breached broadcasting rules that protect “viewers from offensive content”.

The communications regulator warned that further breaches by GB News could result in statutory sanctions, including a ban on the reuse of offending content and the revocation of the broadcaster’s license.

Mr Frangopoulos told peers his channel had received 50 inquiries from Ofcom in the past three years but said it had cooperated fully with each one.

He also argued that audiences have “different expectations” of impartiality from different channels and that UK news is “part of the news ecosystem”, insisting “our brands are trustworthy”.