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ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

With an election looming in the UK and chaos among the British Tories, 2024 could see a new Prime Minister entering 10 Downing Street.

Amidst those political dramas, a right wing broadcaster GB News, has been stirring up debates, igniting culture wars, and making headlines for its provocative social commentary.

So, what is GB News, and who’s behind it? And, what role has the Australian media played in its rise in popularity?

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper Amy Fallon, on the Australian inspiration behind Britain’s divisive broadcaster.

It’s Tuesday, April 2nd.

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ANGE:

Amy, the UK has been in a state of political chaos for a while now. We've seen a series of prime ministers come and go in relatively rapid succession. I'm wondering if you could talk to me about where the political situation in the UK is up to at the moment.

AMY:

Yeah, obviously, it's been very chaotic in the UK. There's been three prime ministers since the last election.

Audio excerpt – Boris Johnson:

“And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world. But them's the breaks.”

AMY:

Including Liz Truss, who I think was at 44 days or 45 days, that she was in for.

Audio excerpt – Liz Truss:

“I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the King to notify him that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party.”

AMY:

The government is not doing well at the moment. There was talk recently that the Tories might replace the current leader of the party, Rishi Sunak. That seems to have died down. He's tried to win back support with a big public immigration campaign that has borrowed a phrase from Australia. Of course, which is stop the boats. That's become quite the slogan over here.

Audio excerpt – Rishi Sunak:

“Today, we are introducing new legislation to keep my promise to you, to stop the boats. My policy is very simple. It is this country, and your government, who should decide who comes here and not criminal gangs.”

AMY:

But it seems that that's not working. So yes, it looks like it's a foregone conclusion, that Labour of all form power at the next election.

In this madness, post Brexit, it seems that what's happened is there's been a lot of voters who are not knowing who to turn to now. We've seen the rise of this Reform party here, but also we've seen the rise of these two new channels, GB News and Talk TV. It feels like that has come about because of, you know, people being disillusioned with mainstream media and, you know, mainstream politics and, and they're looking at who to turn to now.

ANGE:

Okay and can you tell me a bit more about GB News and who's behind it?

AMY:

So GB News. Well, it's a start up. And in the UK it's being referred to as an upstart channel, which is quite interesting considering that the man at the helm of that is an Australian, Angelos Frangopoulos.

Audio excerpt – Unknown:

“For two decades previously, Angelo ran Sky News Australia, challenging the TV establishment in his home country.”

AMY:

It was launched in June 2021 with a roster of UK, I guess you'd say celebrity presenters and the promise to be proudly British and not engage in censorship.

Audio excerpt – Angelos Frangopoulos:

“We are serving audiences that are growing, and that we are doing something different to what the, you know, the status quo of establishment broadcasters are delivering, and I think a lot of it is, is just really communicating our messaging.”

AMY:

Angelos had worked for Sky News Australia for two decades, and was credited with turning it into a rightwing megaphone. We did put out several requests to speak to him and speak to some GB presenters, and they didn't come back to us, unfortunately. But there's several interesting podcasts around with Angelos that I've been listening to this week. On the Media Masters podcast with Paul Blanchard on September 22nd, he said that GB News viewed itself as the mainstream media.

Audio excerpt – Angelos Frangopoulos:

“We see ourselves at GB News as being the mainstream, and the rest of the media is very much the establishment.”

AMY:

In terms of contents, it plays God Save the King at dawn every day.

There's an evening presenter called Patrick Christys, and in the ad for his slot, he says that his programme is as close to entertainment as news can get.

Audio excerpt – Patrick Christys:

“We'll have our finger on the pulse. It's news, but it's this close to entertainment. Patrick Christys tonight, nine til 11pm. Only on GB news.”

AMY:

The stories mainly revolve around culture wars, the Anti-woke war, immigration and the royals.

Audio excerpt – Patrick Christys:

“We deserve to know how many asylum seekers have committed sexual offences in Britain. We are paying for them, they live amongst us, we deserve to know. It is our right.”

AMY:

I'll give you one did quite well last week, for instance, it was a story about the row between English football supporters and Nike, over the decision to rebrand the Saint George's flag.

Audio excerpt – Nigel Farage:

“And have a look at the Saint George's Cross, or at least their interpretation. And that's it. It's a multicoloured cross. It bears no relationship to the cross of St. George, whatsoever.”

AMY:

They're very into, you know, anti-woke language. Go woke go broke, that sort of language.

ANGE:

And Amy, you mentioned that GB News is being led by this Australian CEO Angelos Frangopoulos, the former Sky News Australia chief, and it sounds like he's overseeing a pretty clear direction at the channel. I'm wondering though, how much of an Australian influence there is more broadly at the network.

AMY:

I guess the clearest example of this is the story that blew up a couple of weeks ago. You may remember former President Trump made headlines when he criticised former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd. So Trump seemed to suggest that he'd vote Rudd out of his post as Australian Ambassador to the US, if he won the upcoming election.

Audio excerpt – Donald Trump:

“He won't be there longer if that's the case. I don't know much about him. I heard he was a little bit nasty, I hear he's not the brightest bulb, but I don't know much about him. But if he's at all hostile, he will not be there long.”

AMY:

But what's also interesting Ange is about that moment, Angelos had reportedly asked for the question that promoted Trump’s answer to be drafted personally by the current CEO of Sky News Australia and his old friend, Paul Whittaker. And that question is what prompted Trump to make those comments. Then there's other connections as well. In the space of a week, we've had former Liberal Party Attorney-General George Brandis on the channel. And we've also had former Liberal Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on, he was reviewing the papers. And then former pop star and neighbours actress Holly Valance has had a strange revival as a right wing pungent, after marrying a billionaire who's a Tory party donor. She's been on GB News criticising Australia for being too woke.

Audio excerpt – Holly Valance:

“As a young adult living there, and I was sort of realising I'm probably not going to kick off a massive career here because I'm not going to play the game.”

Audio excerpt – Interviewer:

“What is playing the game?”

Audio excerpt – Holly Valance:

“Various things, just going along with whatever they're doing, which is usually lefty, weird, woke crap.”

AMY:

And she also called Greta Thunberg, a quote, “demonic little gremlin”.

Audio excerpt – Holly Valance:

“You know, like, I don't understand why you had this, like, demonic little gremlin, high priestess of climatism as the goddess in classrooms, Greta.”

Audio excerpt – Interviewer:

“Greta Thunberg? Okay.”

AMY:

While there's a lot of Australian fans of the channel and a lot of Australian talent to go on the channel, there are a lot of critics of GB News who say that it goes too far. So yes, it certainly has its critics.

ANGE:

After the break, how GB News’s Australian approach could run into trouble with British regulators.

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ANGE:

Amy, GB News has managed to find an audience with a bit of help from some lessons they've learned from Australia. But I'm wondering how that approach to news and analysis and broadcasting has gone down in the UK.

AMY:

Yes well, it's certainly caused quite a stir here for being unconventional. I actually spoke to veteran British journalist Michael Crick about this. He's not a left wing guy at all, he says. He described himself as a centrist and a pluralist. He said he actually quit his job at Channel Four News.

Audio excerpt – Michael Crick:

“I mean, I've been fighting bias in television for a very long time. And it's one of the reasons I left Channel Four News because I thought it was left wing biased.”

AMY:

In November, Michael Crick became so incensed during the segment on GB News on free speech, saying that Ofcom should take action against the network. Ofcom stands for the Office of Communications. It's the British regulator, British communications regulator.

Audio excerpt – Michael Crick:

“And I think Ofcom, who are one of the weakest institutions on the planet, should get a grip on you lot. I mean, it's absurd that you have Tory MP after Tory MP after Tory MP.”

AMY:

And, and he was promptly booted out of the studio.

Audio excerpt – Michael Crick:

“You choose to replace Nigel Farage as his successor as Brexit Party Leader. You got Boris Johnson. You got Philip David.”

Audio excerpt – Presenter:

“We have to go to a break. Bear with us.”

AMY:

You know, he told me that he thinks Ofcom has still been too slow to bring sanctions down on GB News, but there have been some moves by the regulator. Only last week, it emerged that Ofcom had found that GB News had broken rules, barring politicians from acting as newsreaders five times during programmes broadcast in May and June of 2023. The regulator said that host politicians acted as presenters, interviewers or reporters in sequences that clearly constituted news, including reporting breaking news events without exceptional justification. But, and it has many people scratching their heads, Ofcom said that there was no sanction over the recent breaches for GB News, instead it's put the channel on notice. So that has surprised many. And it seems now that Ofcom is coming under more pressure every week to act.

ANGE:

Okay, so the regulator has found that GB News is in breach of regulations on transparency with the audience, but it only gave them a warning about that. I guess is it simply then that a company like GB News can essentially broadcast whatever they like as news and, in essence, outrun the regulator?

AMY:

Yes Ange well, this is what we're waiting to say. But Ofcom have eight more ongoing investigations into GB News. The next election is approaching fast though, and there are concerns that the outcome of those investigations may come too late to head off any misinformation or, you know, disguise political content before the public head to the polls. And I also spoke to Professor Stephen Cushion from the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University about this. He hopes that Ofcom could complete its investigations and publish the findings before the election. And he also added that he was concerned GB News was becoming savvy at targeting lower information audiences. He said that the GB News editorial team is working hard to push this content online and across platforms such as TikTok, to appeal to younger viewers who will probably not be engaging with live content on its news channel.

ANGE:

And finally Amy, I guess it can be a dangerous path to go down, to start to regulate what can and can't be said in the news media, right? So in reporting this story, do you think countries like Australia and the UK really should be regulating these kinds of outlets more firmly?

AMY:

Yes, I guess so. I mean, yes, obviously freedom of speech is one thing. But you know, on the other hand, there does need to be some form of regulation doesn't there? As Michael Crick pointed out, you know, so much is at stake here. If we let standards drop and say it's a free for all, then there's the risk of things becoming polarised like they have in the US and then that affects politics. You know, he pointed out that Trump was basically created by Fox TV, and he thinks that GB News is going the same way.

It's also worth pointing out that, you know, we have Talk TV here too now. GB News is doing a lot better than Talk TV, which was also launch post Brexit but by Murdoch. But yeah GB News is doing far and away better than Talk TV, succeeding where Murdoch is failing. So it's not the, you know, only channel that now has its eyes on political influence.

GB News could actually have a lot of influence on, you know, the next leadership of the Conservative Party. Because the channel, you know, is having quite a lot of influence on Tories and Reform now.

ANGE:

Amy, thanks so much for speaking with me today.

AMY:

Thanks so much, Ange.

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ANGE:

Also in the news today…

Israel’s military has admitted to shooting dead two men on a Gaza beach and burying the bodies with a bulldozer.

The admission came after Al Jazeera aired footage of the incident, saying in their report that both men were waving white flags and were unarmed.

The Israeli military said that each of the men continued to approach troops after ignoring warning shots.

And,

The creators of ChatGPT, OpenAI, will not release their latest product to the general public.

The company’s new voice cloning tool can reportedly create an AI generated version of someone’s voice after listening to only 15 seconds of audio.

In a statement, OpenAI said: “We hope to start a dialogue on the responsible deployment of synthetic voices, and how society can adapt to these new capabilities”.

I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am. We’ll be back again tomorrow.

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