When Your Broadcasting Regulator is Captured—Ofcom Investigated

Looking at Ofcom's persecution of Mark Steyn.

The recent High Court battle between former GB News host Mark Steyn and The Office of Communications (Ofcom) has raised some troubling questions about broadcasting regulation in Britain.

Steyn argues that Ofcom, led by CEO Melanie Dawes, has “killed” his career through rulings against two of his 2022 broadcasts, one eventuating in a personal £50,000 court fine, where he challenged Covid vaccine policies.

In an April 2022 broadcast, Steyn critiqued the vaccine rollout using UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) data, pointing to lapses in vaccine efficacy. The data essentially undermined the vaccine’s effectiveness at preventing hospitalisations.

Days later, Ofcom judged his interpretation “materially misleading” and “harmful to viewers” after four people complained. Specifically, he was found to have broken Rule 2.2 of the Broadcasting Code which states that “factual matters must not materially mislead the audience”.

Note Steyn wasn’t penalised for sharing false information but for presenting the government’s own data in a way Ofcom didn’t like. He is also not “anti-vaccine”. In fact, he reportedly received multiple Covid vaccine doses and survived two heart attacks the following year.

Since 2020, when Dawes took over, Ofcom has taken a seemingly more radical approach, recently slapping GB News with a £100,000 fine last month for alleged “lack of critical coverage” of Rishi Sunak.

Yet, many argue other major outlets frequently air partisan coverage without facing similar penalties.

Another incident saw Ofcom reprimand Steyn for interviewing author Naomi Wolf in October 2022, where Wolf likened the vaccine rollout to “mass murder,” invoking comparisons to pre-Nazi Germany.

At the centre of discussions was a Californian misinformation law, which defined “Covid disinformation” as “unprofessional conduct”, allowing the state medical board to revoke the licenses of physicians who diverged from “contemporary scientific consensus.”

Ofcom branded such a “serious conspiracy theory,” fining GB News for not “protecting viewers.” In the same statement, they said, “broadcasters are free to transmit programmes that include controversial and challenging views about any topic, including Covid-19 vaccines or conspiracy theories.”

The regulator took particular note of Wolf’s pre-Nazi reference. Conversely, when others have invoked actual fascist comparisons, they’ve sat idle.

Take James O’Brien’s comments two weeks ago on his LBC program, where he claimed anyone denying that Trump is a “fascist” is a “liar”. The host has reached 1.46 million weekly listeners before, and he’s calling one of America’s most outspoken supporters of free speech a dictator.

In response to a Freedom of Information request in July, Ofcom revealed they received 926 complaints against O’Brien between 2020 and 2024 (to May 14th). None of these were carried forward for “investigation”. Compare that to the four complaints levelled at Steyn in April 2022.

Ofcom’s partiality was again made clear in its handling of complaints by journalists Laura Dodsworth and Toby Young over Sky’s partnership with the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT)—part owned by the UK Cabinet Office.

Sky and BIT’s collaboration in 2021 aimed to subtly “nudge” viewers—especially kids—to back the government’s Net Zero agenda, a tactic Young and Dodsworth said breaches Ofcom’s rules on covert influence.

Four months later, Ofcom dismissed the complaint, deeming climate science “broadly settled,” which suggests psychological manipulation is acceptable, as long as the message aligns with the “scientific consensus”.

Many may not be aware, but Tony Blair’s government inserted a provision into the Communication Act of 2003 that fundamentally changed impartiality rules for broadcasts.

Instead of upholding “impartiality”, it required Ofcom to adhere to “due impartiality”. Meaning, for issues that are “broadly settled”, like climate change, broadcasters must abide by the prevailing consensus or risk punishment.

That same provision outlined broadcasters should consider relevant factors, which include “independent” reports commissioned by the UK Parliament and those not challenged by “international scientific institutions”.

Put simply, they’ve codified bias into our laws.

Under Dawes, Ofcom seems to draw a selective hard line against dissent. If regulators can punish journalists simply for interpreting government data differently, the scope of what’s punishable becomes disturbingly broad.

Dawes’s career history suggests a progressive bias in itself. In 2019, she served as Permanent Secretary Champion for Diversity and Inclusion for the Civil Service in 2019.

She also worked with The Patchwork Foundation, a group "focused on communities and individuals that are traditionally underrepresented".

Couple Ofcom’s selective punishment with their allowance of manipulative psychological techniques for state-approved messages, and they’re acting less like an impartial watchdog and more like a state enforcement arm.

For journalists challenging certain topics, there appears to be a clear warning: stray from the accepted script, and you could face fines, legal battles, and career ruin.

Imagine what this could mean, and has meant, for other journalists who command less of a spotlight…

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