Government’s choice for Ofcom chair raises concerns over GB News impartiality

Erik Olsson, Press Association

The UK Government’s pick for the next chairman of Ofcom has said addressing impartiality concerns around GB News will be an immediate priority if he takes over the communications watchdog.

Sir Ian Cheshire said he would have “serious conversations” about whether sitting politicians like Nigel Farage should be allowed to present current affairs programmes on the news channel.

Last year, Ofcom issued updated guidance that politicians are not allowed to be newsreaders in news programmes and non-news programmes unless it is exceptionally justified.

However, politicians are allowed to present current affairs programmes on the channel as long as a range of views are reflected in their programme.

Speaking at his pre-appointment hearing in Parliament on Wednesday, Sir Ian, who was Channel 4’s chairman between 2022 and 2025, said examining the distinction between current affairs and news programmes will be “the second question on my induction plan”.

“I think there is a question about, does this actually hang together as a coherent piece of regulation,” he told MPs on the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.

“I will be having serious conversations internally and externally with stakeholders to make sure I’ve understood what I think the current framing is before we start suggesting whether there are further interventions.”

The updated guidance was issued after a High Court judgment quashed the regulators’ ruling against GB News relating to shows hosted by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg when he was an MP.

The ruling found that Ofcom’s decisions were “vitiated by error of law” and that it “conflated a news programme and a current affairs programme”.

The new guidance also states that a presenter’s political allegiance must be made clear, and updated its definition of politician to include members of the House of Lords and representatives of political parties.

Sir Ian, who has previously been the chairman of Barclays UK and Debenhams, said he is planning to meet prominent GB News critic Alan Rusbridger, who claimed in a report published in the New World newspaper that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK had “effectively ended up with its own television station”.

Mr Rusbridger, who was editor-in-chief of The Guardian between 1995 and 2015, said a team of 20 journalists had reviewed 15 hours of prime-time GB News programmes and found “numerous glaring breaches of impartiality”.

Section 5 of Ofcom’s broadcasting code states that “news, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality”.

Impartiality

Asked if Ofcom has a problem with policing due impartiality, Sir Ian said: “We do have to balance this issue with free speech… but I’m very open to being challenged by it, and I’m intending to meet up with Alan in due course.”

Sir Ian, whose selection is subject to a parliamentary hearing, was also asked if Parliament should look into GB News’s “opaque” funding “to safeguard democratic integrity”.

“If you were saying as a citizen, would I be worried about it? The answer is yes, and if it’s something that is on Ofcom’s agenda that I could contribute to, I will look at it,” he said.

Ofcom is responsible for regulating a range of communications services, including internet, TV and radio, and postal services.