The rise of GB News has presented the head of Ofcom with “the biggest problem he’s ever faced”, according to Jim Naughtie.
The BBC Radio 4 presenter said the emergence of partisan news channels in the UK was a “worrying” development, making reference to Fox News’s support for Donald Trump.
“Oh, it’s worrying. And I think anybody who looks at what has happened in the States, if they do care about the free flow of information and proper debate, would have to be worried about it,” Naughtie told Roger Bolton’s Beebwatch podcast.
“Comparing GB News and Fox isn’t entirely fair. We’re not in that situation yet. But I do think Ofcom has now got a situation that it’s never faced before: not a complaint about a particular programme, a particular presenter, [but] a general kind of balance issue running up to an election when the rules become extremely tight.
“There are legal obligations on people who have access to the public airwaves to behave in an impartial way.
“GB News are open about it; they say, ‘Look, we’ve got an agenda, this is what we believe, and too many people are not getting our point of view so we’re going to give it to them. We’re not much bothered about anyone else’s point of view.’”
‘People just aren’t going to watch it’
The former presenter of the Today programme said that GB News has obligations as a public broadcaster, unlike “some nutty podcast from a bedroom in Colchester”.
“Not an absolute duty to have two minutes of one side and two minutes of the other, that’s the kind of impartiality that doesn’t make sense, but an obligation across the piece to be fair-minded,” he added.
Lord Grade, the media veteran, is the chairman of Ofcom and Naughtie said: “I think this is one of the biggest problems that he’s ever faced and I think it’s extremely important that it’s grasped.”
Ofcom is investigating several impartiality complaints against GB News. Last year, it ruled that a programme in which Tory MPs Esther McVey and Philip Davies interviewed Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, breached guidelines.
Naughtie said most viewers do not want to see politicians being interviewed by representatives of their own party.
“I do think the common sense of the viewers will kick in here. Of course there will be partisans, doesn’t matter if it’s Right or Left, who would want to see that kind of thing but they’ll always be a minority.
“I think the idea that you could sort of pull the wool over the eyes of the population at large by saying – ‘We’re going to have a proper political discussion of this, the only thing is that the four people involved in it all have the same view’ – I mean, people just aren’t going to watch it.”
