Mark Steyn, the former GB News presenter, has accused Ofcom of “killing his career” after he questioned Covid vaccines on air (Evening Standard, Independent, Telegraph).
The Canadian broadcaster left GB News after the media regulator found two of his programmes, which featured discussions about the vaccine rollout, breached its guidelines.
Ofcom had found that on April 21, 2022 statistics from the UK Health Security Agency were presented in a “materially misleading way” in a broadcast which received four complaints.
It ruled that the show incorrectly “provided definitive evidence of a causal link between receiving a third Covid-19 vaccine and higher infection, hospitalisation and death rates”.
The presentation was made without sufficient counterweight and was found to be a potential “harm to viewers”.
Ofcom also took issue with a broadcast on Oct 4, 2022, when Mr Steyn interviewed US author Naomi Wolf during a show which received 422 complaints from viewers.
Ms Wolf claimed that the vaccine rollout was akin to “mass murder”, and comparable to the actions of “doctors in pre-Nazi Germany”.
Ofcom ruled this amounted to “an unchallenged conspiracy theory”, and Ms Wolf’s unopposed claims were a “harm to viewers”.
No statutory sanction was imposed for either breach, but GB News was requested to attend a meeting to discuss its approach to compliance with the code.
Mr Steyn, 64, is asking a High Court judge to quash the decisions, with his lawyers claiming they lacked “clarity and coherence” and risked an “obvious potential chilling effect”
Speaking in a packed courtroom in London on Tuesday, Jonathan Price, for Mr Steyn, said: “The rulings against his show have killed his career, killed his career in the UK, and given rise to what he describes as crude defamation … recycled through the London papers as if they had the force of criminal convictions.”
Mr Price said that the show “did not adopt an anti-vax approach” but instead “strongly criticised the purely binary position” on Covid vaccines and featured guests who “questioned and challenged the official narrative”.
However, barristers for Ofcom claim the regulator was free to make its decisions to protect the public from potential harm.
In written submissions, Jessica Boyd KC, representing Ofcom, said there was “no realistic basis” for the court to rule that the regulator had “obviously gone wrong” in its decisions, adding that the rights of broadcasters to freedom of expression “are not unqualified”.
She continued: “Neither decision sought to prevent the claimant, or his guests, from ventilating controversial views about important public health issues or from challenging the reliability of official medical advice, including in inflammatory or provocative terms.
“He and they remain free to do so, provided they comply with the (Ofcom) code.”
The hearing before Mrs Justice Farbey concluded earlier this week, with a judgment expected in writing at a later date.
