GB News hasn’t had a good couple of weeks — not since Laurence Fox made asinine and cruel comments about Ava Evans, whose views he took exception to. He has now been sacked and so has the presenter Calvin Robinson, and the presenter Dan Wootton (who got 8,000 complaints via Ofcom) has been taken off the station. Early on, the boss, Angelos Frangopoulos, apologised profusely for the offensive comments.
You don’t have to be an admirer of GB News to find this approach sinister and repellent
It wasn’t enough, though, for those who take exception not merely to an unpleasant observation but to the very existence of GB News on the basis that its views do not concur with their own. Campaigners who police political thought in the media have urged their supporters to lobby companies that advertise with the station to stop. They describe their mission as “making hate unprofitable by persuading advertisers to pull their support from publications that spread hate and division”. They are not alone; there are others besides. They triumphantly noted that GB News has lost £30 million in advertising.
You don’t have to be an admirer of GB News to find this approach sinister and repellent. It’s scary that a perfectly legal media outlet can be put in financial jeopardy on the say-so of a few thousand people who consider they have the right to stop anyone hearing anything that they themselves consider offensive. One advertiser, according to a GB News presenter, pulled out after one tweet. Quite the result, then.
The past targets of campaigners who seek to shut down debate by targeting advertisers include the Daily Mail and the Sun. Lego and The Body Shop withdrew advertising from them after campaigners complained about their values. It’s terrifically easy, this ideological struggle. From the comfort of home, you simply put out a tweet or send a message to a corporate communications department (all details helpfully supplied) and bingo, the craven corporates may actually do what you say over the heads of the millions of people who read the paper or watch the station.
Note to the companies who capitulate to the activists: they don’t actually reflect public opinion. Tell them where to get off. They may profess to target “hate”. Actually it’s free speech they’re after.
