A British news network was censured on Tuesday over a prior incident in which an American author espoused a conspiracy theory about the COVID-19 vaccine without being challenged.
The incident occurred last October when author and conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf appeared on GB News, which launched in 2021 as an "anti-woke" conservative news channel. During the appearance, she compared the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines to premeditated mass murder and to the practices of "doctors in pre-Nazi Germany." Wolf made the comparison three times and received no pushback from the network's hosts.
On Tuesday, Ofcom, the U.K. government agency tasked with regulating television, declared that GB News had violated its broadcast code by not at any point challenging Wolf's remarks about vaccines, which the agency called a "significant and alarming claim." The agency said that it received over 400 complaints about Wolf's comments.
In the U.S., widely spread and unfounded conspiracy theories about the dangers posed by vaccines have been among the primary reasons cited for the country's failure to reach herd immunity. As of Tuesday, the CDC reports that a little over 81 percent of Americans are vaccinated against COVID-19, while 95 percent is typically considered the threshold for herd immunity. By the end of last month, NBC News reported that around 150 people were still dying from the virus each day. Roughly 86 percent of U.K. residents have received at least two vaccine doses.
"It is important to stress that in line with the right to freedom of expression, broadcasters are free to transmit programs that include controversial and challenging views, including about Covid-19 vaccines or conspiracy theories," Ofcom's official statement read.
"However, alongside this editorial freedom, the broadcasting code imposes a clear requirement that if such content has the potential to be harmful, the broadcaster must ensure that its audience is adequately protected."
The statement continued: "Our investigation concluded that GB News fell short of this requirement by allowing Naomi Wolf to promote a serious conspiracy theory without challenge or context...There was also no scrutiny of the evidence she claimed to hold to support her claims."
GB News defended its handling of the Wolf interview, stating that it "has a different approach from many other factual channels" and strives to put forward "controversial and contrarian [ideas] as a way of provoking thoughtful questioning and debate and re-evaluation of important issues." The network also claimed that it had not put forward Wolf's views as a "literal truth," and that as a Jewish woman herself, the author's comments about Nazi Germany were "not excessive and a reasonable comparison."
This incident came only two months after GB News was censured on similar grounds for an April 2022 episode in which Ofcom said host Mark Steyn, who also appeared in the Wolf segment, made a "potentially harmful and materially misleading" claim about vaccine booster shots worsening conditions.
"We accept Ofcom's finding that our former presenter Mark Steyn and his guest Naomi Wolf breached the Ofcom code in their broadcast about Covid vaccines last October," GB News said in an official statement sent to Newsweek.
"Mr. Steyn last appeared on the channel five months ago. GB News chose to be an Ofcom-regulated channel and we are proud to play our part in bringing a wider range of opinion to Britain's media landscape. We take Ofcom compliance seriously and we also take freedom of speech seriously. The balance between these two is not always clear cut and presents vital issues for our democracy."
Updated, 11:20 a.m. ET, 05/09/2023: This story has been updated with a statement from GB News.
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