In April, Ofcom released revised guidance for the section of its Broadcasting Code concerning due impartiality, due accuracy and undue prominence of views and opinions. This was in response to ongoing complaints about GB News breaching the code repeatedly, not least by using politicians as presenters. In addition, Ofcom published a research report from Ipsos UK, which used focus groups “to help us understand audience attitudes” to news and current affairs programmes.
However, this resulted in absolutely no substantive changes to the relevant rules concerning politician presenters. Rules 5.3 and 6.6 of Ofcom’s code remained unaltered. The former states: “No politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified. In that case, the political allegiance of that person must be made clear to the audience.” And the latter: “Candidates in UK elections, and representatives of permitted participants in UK referendums, must not act as news presenters, interviewers or presenters of any type of programme during the election period.”
Thus, by defining politicians only as electoral candidates, Ofcom would have permitted Nigel Farage, arguably the most influential British politician this century, to carry on presenting his weeknight prime-time programme on GB News throughout the election period had he not stood as the Reform UK Party Limited candidate for Clacton. And this is in spite of the fact that, at the start of the election campaign, Richard Tice stated that Reform would put up 630 candidates.
GB News and Reform slip through Ofcom’s regulatory net
Farage is both a co-owner and a director of Reform, which is a limited company registered with Companies House as Reform UK Party Limited, where he is listed as ‘Leader of a Political Party’. He took over as party leader from Tice on 3 June, but, under Ofcom’s interpretation of its rules, had he not decided to stand as an MP, he could still have carried on presenting programmes throughout the election period. And this is precisely what he has decided to do, now that the election is over, as have the other politician presenters Lee Anderson, Esther McVey and now Tice himself.
That is down to the distinction which Ofcom makes between news and current affairs. But as Stewart Purvis, a former Ofcom Partner for Content and Standards and former Chief Executive of ITN, has pointed out, this distinction is “not set out in the law that created Ofcom, the regulations Ofcom enforce or the guidance it has provided to broadcasters”.
Furthermore, the code, in line with section 320 of the Communications Act 2003, doesn’t differentiate news from other kinds of content, but specifically states that in “matters of political or industrial controversy and matters relating to current public policy” there are “special impartiality requirements” and these apply to “news and other programmes”.
This is crucial, as controversial subjects are GB News’ stock-in-trade, not least during their opinion-driven evening programmes. Thus, as Purvis and Chris Banatvala (the Founding Director of Standards and former Content Board member at Ofcom) conclude: “Ofcom’s distinction between the two genres news and current affairs – and, on the basis of this, allowing politicians to present programmes dealing with controversial matters, is simply self-created.”
Farage and Reform’s disproportionate share of BBC airtime goes unchecked
However, the situation regarding Farage, Tice and Reform goes beyond GB News and concerns the amount of airtime that they are now going to be allotted on the BBC. Even before he was elected as an MP, Farage had appeared 37 times on Question Time. Recently published research from Cardiff University showed that between 2014 and 2023, Tice’s partner, Isabel Oakeshott, appeared thirteen times, equalling only Julia Hartley-Brewer in the gallery of right-wing pundits who dominate the panels.
Given the BBC’s remarkable indulgence of Farage when he was leader of UKIP and then the Brexit Party, one fully expects this pattern to continue, and that Reform, with its five seats, will be treated far more generously than the Green Party, even though this has only one less.
And no doubt the BBC will defend this imbalance by arguing that Reform deserves more coverage because it received a 14% share of the vote compared to the Greens’ 7%. But this would be entirely to ignore the strength of the Greens’ support outside Westminster, where it has over 800 councillors in 170 local authorities and three members of the London Assembly. By contrast, Reform has a mere ten councillors and only one Assembly member.
The BBC might also argue that Reform is more ‘newsworthy’ than the Green Party – while, of course, entirely ignoring its own role in helping to make it so. This is partly because they regard Farage and his populist pals as ‘entertaining’, and thus as ratings boosters, and partly in order to appease the forces of the right by demonstrating that they’re not ‘woke’.
The first is an alarming reflection on the BBC’s journalistic standards, and the second seriously calls into question its political impartiality. Here, surely, is a case for Ofcom – except that it has shown itself entirely incapable of dealing adequately with serial infractions of its impartiality requirements by GB News.
Article first published in Media North: Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (North). For more from Media North, and to subscribe to their newsletter, visit their website.
