Balance, bias and Ofcom

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Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, is attacking GB News again. This time it’s on the warpath against Conservative MPs who present programmes for GB News. In its latest ruling, Ofcom’s charge is that “host politicians acted as newsreaders, news interviewers or news reporters in sequences which clearly constituted news – including reporting breaking news events – without exceptional justification. News was, therefore [sic], not presented with due impartiality.”
Several questions are raised by this Ofcom report. First, why are Ofcom bothered by Conservative MPs presenting programmes on GB News, but not by Labour MPs David Lammy, Angela Rayner and Chris Bryant, all of whom present programmes for LBC? I think we can guess the answer to that question.
Second, that word “therefore”. Are Conservative MPs incapable of being MPs and impartial presenters? As I wrote recently for TheArticle, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage are obviously to the Right of the political spectrum, but I have never seen them let their politics get in the way of presenting impartial programmes (see GB News: an analysis, 4 March). The key question is not whether they are Conservative MPs, but whether the content of the programmes is biased. Are these programmes biased? Where’s the evidence?
Which brings us to the other main TV news networks. The coverage of Israel by BBC News, Channel 4 News and Sky News has been a disgrace since October 7. Their programmes are riddled with bias, week in, week out, including even once respectable flagship programmes like Newsnight, the Today programme, The World at One and Channel 4 News. I have given numerous examples of this bias in several pieces for The Article. For regular reports on the anti-Israel bias on mainstream TV news see also @HonestReporting, @camera-uk.org and @mishtal — for example, @mishtal’s recent exposes of anti-Israel bias on BBC Verify. But not a peep out of Ofcom.
What could possibly explain Ofcom’s obsession with GB News and their silence about anti-Israel bias on mainstream news channels? One obvious explanation is the make-up of the Ofcom Board. Most members of the Ofcom board (the civil servants Dame Melanie Dawes and Lindsay Fussell, the financier Ben Verwaayen, a former police Commander and non-executive directors Angela Dean and Bob Downes) have no previous experience of making TV or radio programmes at all. The others are all ex-BBC, ITV or Channel 4. How strange that all these ex-BBC, ITV and Channel 4 executives aren’t concerned about the astonishing anti-Israel bias on BBC and Channel 4 news programmes. And how curious that the channel that bothers them the most is GB News, which none of them has ever been involved with.
Of course, Ofcom are right to say this: “Under the Broadcasting Code, news, in whatever form, must be presented with due impartiality.” But this isn’t about adding up the number of politician-presenters. It is about how biased they are as presenters and this requires close examination of their programmes.
Take this remark by Ofcom: “If…a licensee chooses to use a politician as a presenter in a programme containing both news and current affairs content, it must take steps to ensure they do not act as a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter in that programme.” But that’s ridiculous. Various BBC and Channel 4 News reporters and presenters are not MPs, but have been guilty of worrying bias in their coverage of Gaza and other issues. Jacob Rees-Mogg is an MP, but I have never seen him show bias when interviewing someone with very different political views. He is courteous and respectful, even though he clearly disagrees, whether they are discussing euthanasia (he is a Catholic), taxing non-doms (he was against government policy which he considered inefficient in terms of tax revenue) or the EU (he is famously pro-Brexit). And yet Ofcom find fault with five [sic] programmes broadcast by GB News, two presented by Rees-Mogg.
Ofcom talks complacently about its “forensic analysis of the content”, and yet fails to give a single example of bias in its short report. Was the bias a result of biased casting, the choice of topics playing to Rees-Mogg’s prejudices or of the nature of the interviews themselves? We’re not told.
When I wrote recently about a biased discussion about Israel on Newsnight, I pointed out that there were two critics of Israel on the panel and only one defender, that both critics were given considerably more time to air their views than the Israeli, that they were never interrupted, but he was interrupted regularly both by the other panellists and by the presenter and so on. I wouldn’t claim that this is “forensic analysis”, but it is evidence-based and objective. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to view the programme for themselves and assess whether my criticisms are true or false. That is not the case with Ofcom’s report.
Finally, as I wrote in my recent piece on GB News, it is important to have some diversity in our news output. At the moment, on key subjects from Brexit and immigration to Gaza, all the main news channels have the same kinds of bias. The same interviewees appear again and again. A remarkable number of Left-wing speakers from Novara Media turn up on BBC News programmes. If the subject is slavery, you can expect to hear from Professor David Olusoga. If it’s cuts in public spending, you will doubtless see Torsten Bell from the Resolution Foundation. If it’s child poverty, you will probably hear the views of someone from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. That is because the people who choose programme guests are not the presenters, whether MPs or not, but the producers and the programme editors, who at the BBC and Channel4 increasingly seem to be on the Left and choose speakers who reflect their own views.
You could say: what about GB News inviting speakers from the IEA or Conservative Home? That’s my point. How often do you hear Paul Goodman (editor of Conservative Home) on Newsnight, unless it’s an item about internecine conflict within the Conservative Party? Or how often do you hear a speaker from Migration Watch UK on the Today programme?
It is good to have some kind of balance between different TV channels. GB News does not exclude people from the Left, but they do give a voice to the Right, both in terms of presenters and guests — not from the racist Right, but people who are concerned about immigration, Islamism and what they see as the failure of multiculturalism.
Clearly, for Ofcom this mixed diet is just wrong. They don’t want anyone on news programmes defending Suella Braverman or Lee Anderson, unless they’re a backbench Tory MP. Is that really good for our political culture? We don’t want an exclusive cast of Leftists or people from the Right on our news programmes. We want some kind of proper balance. Ofcom, apparently, are not too keen on ensuring that we get it.
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