Roger Bolton’s recent Beeb Watch conversation with Peter Horrocks is a welcome contribution to a debate that needs a much wider public audience. Horrocks brings experience of editing Panorama and Newsnight, directing the BBC World Service, and serving for six years on Ofcom’s Content Board. His account raises questions about how broadcasters exercise editorial judgement, how regulators scrutinise them, and who gets to shape the future of public media. Acast
My concern is that we are still approaching these questions through the assumptions of institutions whose authority can no longer be taken for granted. The BBC’s institutional model is, in my view, in decline. We need a different settlement that distributes editorial power and supports public purpose across a wider range of organisations.
The word ‘due’ runs through this discussion. Broadcasters must exercise due impartiality, give arguments due weight, and consider the context in which a programme appears. Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code makes clear that impartiality does not require equal airtime for every opinion. The requirement depends on the subject, the programme and its context. ofcom.org.uk
That flexibility is necessary. Journalism involves judgement. Yet ‘due’ too often becomes, to my mind, a get-out-of-gaol card for broadcasters challenged about their decisions. The qualification leaves room to defend an omission, a choice of contributor or a particular framing without explaining the underlying reasoning. How can audiences test an editorial judgement if the criteria remain elastic and the explanation arrives only after a complaint?
Horrocks’ suggestion that Ofcom examine a wider range of cases, including those where a breach is uncertain, has merit. Published reasoning could help everyone understand where the boundaries lie. The same openness should apply to broadcasters. They should explain which perspectives they considered, why they gave them particular weight, and how those decisions can be challenged.
The opening discussion of Russell Brand illustrates a related difficulty. Brand has now been convicted of rape and three sexual assaults. The responsibility of broadcasters towards people exposed to powerful presenters deserves serious scrutiny. However, the framing feels thin when the conversation turns to the BBC’s independence as a news organisation. The Crown Prosecution Service
Horrocks recalls BBC News responding to an earlier Brand controversy reported by the Mail on Sunday. He describes a press office warning against following the newspaper’s agenda, followed by internal objections when Radio 4 gave the story prominence. This is a recollection of an earlier broadcasting controversy, distinct from the later criminal case.
The question I wanted Bolton to pursue was straightforward: given that the BBC is a news organisation, why would its journalists be consulting its press office about investigating matters involving BBC personnel? Seeking the organisation’s response is normal journalism. Allowing its communications operation to influence whether a story merits investigation would be a different matter.
Horrocks may simply have expressed a passing recollection imprecisely. His account does not establish that journalists sought permission, and he describes the newsroom proceeding with coverage. Nevertheless, the distinction deserved a follow-up question. Bolton challenged institutional defensiveness more generally, but did not pin down the press office’s role in this example.
Editorial independence must be visible in the everyday relationships between journalists, managers and those responsible for the institution’s reputation. Reassurances that BBC News is robustly independent cannot settle questions about informal pressure, access to information or the professional consequences of making colleagues uncomfortable.
The conversation about GB News raises another set of questions. Horrocks wants Ofcom to examine impartiality more broadly, including the framing of programmes and the treatment of alternative views. He is explicit that he does not begin with a wish to close the channel. That distinction matters.
I would nevertheless ask a question that needs more attention: what harm is GB News causing or enacting? Are we concerned about inaccurate reporting, unfair treatment, political influence, the exclusion of competing arguments, or the presence of opinions that some viewers find distasteful? These concerns require different evidence and different responses.
An impartiality breach does not depend on proving injury to a particular person. The existing rules must be applied consistently. But when the discussion moves towards new restrictions, sanctions or wider powers over public expression, the justification needs to be clear. Disapproval of a broadcaster’s outlook is an inadequate basis for deciding what others should be allowed to hear.
In a liberal democracy, the power to define harm, and to decide when it justifies censorship, must itself be open to scrutiny. Parliament, regulators and courts have their responsibilities. The principles they apply also need deliberation in the wider civic discourse. An established circle of media professionals cannot simply assume that its own understanding of acceptable debate commands public agreement.
The media landscape has changed. Audiences encounter broadcast interviews alongside newspaper commentary, podcasts and clips circulating through global social media platforms. Expectations about impartiality and fairness must develop in response. Horrocks recognises this when he raises the possibility of a future system in which accuracy has greater weight across the wider news environment, while public service broadcasters retain stricter impartiality obligations.
That is a discussion worth having openly. We need to distinguish the rules currently in force from the settlement we might choose for the future. Global platforms complicate national regulation, but they also expose the limits of assuming that a small number of British institutions can continue to organise the boundaries of public discussion.
GB News may be distasteful to many people. For viewers who believe their concerns have been excluded elsewhere, its willingness to discuss those concerns can be a reason to value it. The defence of sex-based rights is an obvious example. The question is whether the BBC and other news organisations have allowed competing arguments about sex and gender identity to receive fair examination, or treated a contested position as an agreed starting point.
Seen in Journalism has challenged the BBC over precisely these issues. It alleges that internal advocacy and staff networks have influenced coverage and restricted the hearing given to gender-critical perspectives. Those allegations deserve public examination of how editorial decisions were made. The BBC, for its part, has said that it has updated guidance and that its intention is to provide accurate, duly impartial coverage reflecting different viewpoints. SEENinJournalism’s Substack
My concern is the possibility that internal interest groups can help determine a public broadcaster’s editorial assumptions without their influence receiving equivalent public scrutiny. Staff should be able to raise concerns about their workplace. The editorial treatment of contested public questions must remain accountable to the public. That principle should apply to every interest group.
The best way to promote viewpoint diversity is to decentralise the editorial process. More authority to commission, investigate and publish should sit with independent local organisations, community media, specialist publications and civic networks. People need practical opportunities to make media and develop their own editorial judgement.
This requires resources, training and sustainable organisations. Adding a wider range of guests to programmes still leaves the power to set the agenda concentrated in the same hands. A more plural settlement would give more people the capacity to decide which questions are worth asking in the first place.
I therefore welcome Horrocks’ suggestion of a Public Service Media Authority, potentially involved in funding, appointments and collaboration, with a role distinct from regulation. It opens a useful route towards funding public purpose media beyond the established broadcasters. The design remains to be worked out, but the direction deserves attention.
It echoes Andrew Neil’s proposal for a commission of public broadcasting, reported by the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, using an Arts Council type model to distribute public funding at arm’s length from government. Such an arrangement should be accessible to community and independent media as well as national organisations. Communications and Digital Committee
The test would be whether it disperses power. Funding decisions would need transparent criteria, protection from political interference and meaningful routes for public challenge. Otherwise, a new authority could reproduce the same narrow professional networks and institutional preferences.
I have argued for structural change to Ofcom for years. In April 2019, writing for the Media Reform Coalition, I called for Ofcom to be broken up. In May 2024, I set out the case for three distinct regulators: one for economic regulation, one for platforms and technology, and one for content and public purpose. Media Reform Coalition
These responsibilities involve different judgements and can pull in conflicting directions. Encouraging competition, governing communications infrastructure and considering the civic consequences of content require distinct forms of expertise and accountability. Horrocks’ account gives fresh reason to consider whether combining them in one expanding organisation serves the public well.
What is most welcome about this interview is the willingness to discuss alternatives. Bolton has repeatedly drawn attention to the absence of a sufficiently broad public conversation about the BBC’s future. The Charter renewal process has not generated the sustained civic debate that a decision of this importance deserves.
I have encountered a similar hesitancy among people who feel a strong sense of social responsibility but do not want to enter an overtly political or ideological contest. They have experience, judgement and useful questions, yet too often remain outside the discussion. That leaves the field to a narrow range of professional advocates and familiar commentators.
Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for DCMS, should have encouraged a much wider civic conversation, with accessible opportunities for people to deliberate about what public media should do, how it should be funded and who should exercise editorial authority. Community organisations, local journalists, volunteers and audiences all have a stake in those decisions.
I welcome Horrocks coming forward, and Bolton making space for this discussion. More people need to do the same. Public purpose media will gain legitimacy when people can help shape it, challenge its assumptions and participate in its work.