“Trumpification” describes a shift in news culture away from straight, factual reporting and toward polarised spectacle: personalities over policies, rage-baiting headlines, and a war against “mainstream media.”
Sound familiar?
GB News has led the way for this trend in Britain. Its roster of politicians-turned-presenters blurs the line between commentary and journalism, drawing repeated Ofcom investigations since the platform’s inception in 2021. Last year, the regulator fined the channel £100,000 for giving then-prime minister, Rishi Sunak, an unchallenged platform. This led Ofcom to review its rules on whether serving politicians should be allowed to present programmes at all.
"the Trumpification of UK media — an incentive structure where outrage is currency, politicians moonlight as journalists, and ratings trump impartiality."
Despite this criticism, GB News is still amassing an audience.
Ratings show the channel sometimes beating BBC News and Sky in key slots. Its pitch is simple: mainstream outlets are “biased,” and only GB News dares to speak for ordinary people. That framing echoes Trump-era Fox News, where political loyalty often mattered more than factual reporting.
It also matches a political climate villainising the so-called “elites”, paving a corridor for right-leaning outlets to reach people who feel left behind by the traditional media landscape.
Critics warn this marks the beginning of the Trumpification of UK media — an incentive structure where outrage is currency, politicians moonlight as journalists, and ratings trump impartiality. Paul Marshall, the hedge fund billionaire backing GB News, also owns The Spectator and UnHerd, creating a growing right-leaning media bloc in the United Kingdom.
Of course, the UK media landscape isn’t the US — yet. The BBC, Financial Times and Guardian still provide fact-checked reporting, and regulators haven’t collapsed under political pressure. But GB News’s US expansion matters less for its audience share and more for the permission it grants: to import American-style identity media into a British system that assumed outlets would play fair.
Whether that changes UK news forever depends on two things: how audiences respond, and how firmly Ofcom draws its lines. What’s clear is that GB News is betting Trumpification sells — on both sides of the Atlantic.