Fox News breaks Ofcom election broadcast rules with Brexit coverage
UK broadcast watchdog Ofcom has judged that Fox News broke election broadcast rules by airing topical shows on the day of the EU referendum.
Fox News
Ofcom rules enforce a ban restricting TV broadcasters from discussing elections and referendums on polling day. Fox contravened this by airing two separate Brexit bulletins during the ‘Your World with Neil Cavuto’ show in the hour leading up to the closure of the polls.
At 09.05, a contributor risked swaying voters with the following statement: “I mean we are governed by a bunch of bureaucrats that don’t speak English in a funny place called The Hague, which makes no sense at all, and it tells Britain what to do, it takes British money, it doesn’t send much of if it back.
“It’s a very unfair one-way street when you begin to dig into it and the biggest thing of course is that all of this is all a disguise over the immigration issue".
Ten minutes before the closure of the polls, a new update saw another commentator remark: “I will say this Charles, and I said this before, there is a lot of establishment pressure on the public to vote ‘Remain’.
"Politicians and moronic celebrities who don’t know anything about trade imbalances, they are waiting on this, the media – the BBC is like a running ad for Remain, and it goes on and on so that is a lot for the Brexit, British exit crowd to really fight up against."
As expected, the broadcaster breached Ofcom rule 4.2 forbidding the "Discussion and analysis of election and referendum issues must finish when the poll opens."