The Mail on Sunday has learned that Nadine Dorries plans to review Ofcom’s structure in response to concerns about biases towards BBC.
In the context of the forthcoming review into Corporation’s complaint process, Culture Secretary is likely to investigate the regulator’s role.
Officials are concerned that ten of 14 members Ofcom’s Content Board are former employees of BBC. It is the regulator who can escalate complaints.
Ofcom investigated only one complaint against the Corporation over the two-year period, while 418 were referred by the BBC.
It is only a small fraction of 830,632 complaints received by the Corporation during the same time.
According to a Government source, “Fundamentally it needs to be considered.”
Ian Paisley (DUP MP for North Antrim) accused the BBC of “marking their homework.”
Nadine Dorries plans to review Ofcom’s structure in response to concerns about biases towards BBC. The Mail on Sunday reports.
Ofcom’s low investigation rate of complaint’shows that the process is not credible’, he stated. He said that there were ‘hundreds of thousands of complainants’ and that only one gets to the top. The government is obligated to repair this system because it’s not transparent or credible.
When asked about the Content Board’s composition, an Ofcom spokesperson said that it was primarily made up former BBC staff.
“Industry expertise is crucial to strong regulatory and our Content Board is composed of experts from a variety of media, commercial and telecoms backgrounds including newspapers, Channel 4, Sky and tech platforms like the BBC. After the Ghislaine Maxwell guilty verdict, the Corporation said that it had violated editorial guidelines by interviewing Alan Dershowitz.
The broadcaster did not mention Mr. Dershowitz’s participation in this case, or Jeffrey Epstein’s previous representation.
As part of an ongoing review into complaints processes at the Corporation, the Culture secretary is likely to investigate the regulator’s role.
The Mail on Sunday learned from The Mail on Sunday that Jess Brammar (BBC executive news editor) was the duty manager at the time when this interview aired.
After her appointment, Government sources questioned the BBC’s integrity. BBC stated that Mr. Dershowitz wasn’t a good candidate to be interviewed as impartial analysts and they didn’t make any background information available to the audience. We are investigating how it happened.
The broadcaster was also criticised last night for its coverage of New Year’s Eve. The broadcaster showed Hamilton actor Giles Terera performing an impromptu poem about 2021. It made mention of footballers taking to the knee.
Sir John Hayes, Tory MP and Member of Parliament for the Tory Party said that “The BBC’s biased views on what matters are well-known.” Their misinterpretation of the first message in the New Year was not surprising.