Michael Grade defends GB News, criticizes broadcasters' 'embarrassment'

Michael Grade, the recently departed chair of Britain’s media watchdog, has accused broadcasters of being “embarrassed” by GB News because it covers the “agenda of the majority”.

Grade, who has recently retaken the Conservative whip in the House of Lords after stepping down from Ofcom, said he was now able to give his real view on the rightwing broadcaster, which has faced repeated accusations of partial and misleading coverage.

“I can now speak [freely], as I’m not at Ofcom,” Grade told Politics Home. “I honestly think they’re embarrassed by the fact that there is a news organisation that has a different news agenda to them, that speaks to the agenda of the majority – if you look at the polls, a large swathe of the voting population, who have no voice on the BBC.

“Immigration, Brexit, these are all issues that don’t get the weight on the BBC, or haven’t been able to, that GB News will give, so what’s the problem?”

A series of concerns have been raised over Ofcom’s approach to regulating GB News under Grade’s reign. He was appointed to the role under Boris Johnson’s government in 2022.

Former Ofcom figures have questioned its lack of intervention, and its decision not to change rules that allow figures from Reform UK to present GB News shows.

However, Grade said the “same rules apply to GB News as apply to the BBC, Sky, ITN, whoever”.

“All news programmes are the result of editorial choices made all along the line. What story are we going to cover? How are we going to cover it? Who do we interview? What are we going to ask them? What are we going to use? Where does it go in the running order?

“Everything’s a choice, all the way up. [Just] because GB News make different editorial choices necessarily on each news day from the BBC, ITN or Sky, doesn’t make it wrong.

“[GB News has] actually got better and better. It’s not difficult to comply; sometimes it’s only a sentence in a script.”

Grade’s remarks faced immediate criticism. Chris Banatvala, Ofcom’s founding director of standards, who drafted its code and investigation procedures, disputed the peer’s understanding of Ofcom’s broadcasting code.

“After reading hundreds of pages of Ofcom impartiality decisions, perhaps the clearest explanation for the regulator’s failures is Lord Grade’s suggestion that due impartiality can be achieved with little more than ‘a sentence in a script’,” he said.

“Grade is also wrong about the criticism of Ofcom. No one seriously argues that GB News’s editorial agenda is itself the problem. Decisions about which stories to cover have always been a matter for broadcasters, not the regulator. The evidence is now clear: Ofcom is not applying the same regulatory standards to GB News as other news services.”

A GB News spokesperson said: “GB News is Britain’s No 1 news channel. It’s because we believe journalism is there to serve the people of our nation and not the media establishment elite.”

Some senior TV figures believe the channel should not be allowed to broadcast in the way it does, with the vast majority of presenters, as well as guests, speaking from a rightwing perspective.

Ofcom was criticised for failing to investigate GB News’s interview with Donald Trump at the end of last year, after receiving complaints that the US president’s claims about climate change, Islam and immigration had gone unchallenged.

It has since announced it is investigating a show that repeated the interview a day after its original broadcast.

GB News said it was “surprised and concerned” by what it described as Ofcom’s “delayed decision” over the Trump interview, pointing to the regulator’s previous decision not to pursue complaints about its original airing. “GB News stands firmly by its journalism and editorial standards,” it said.

Steven Barnett, a professor of communications at the University of Westminster, said: “Michael Grade appears to have rewritten the law on impartiality.

“It is up to parliament to decide whether it wishes to change the law, but in the meantime let’s hope that Ofcom under its new chairman [Ian Cheshire] is prepared to regulate GB News as parliament required.”