Adam Boulton: The growing list of 'presenticians' as lines blur between broadcast news and campaigning politicians (2024)

A new word, 'presentician', has been coined because so many politicians are moving into presenting roles on TV news channels in this country.

Almost all of those getting the jobs are on the right wing of politics, yet according to their loudly-voiced opinions, the problem of mixing opinion with reporting is on the left in the mainstream media.

Gary Lineker, the football broadcaster, is the latest BBC figure to be castigated for a tweet criticising the government's plans to deal with asylum seekers.

The blurring of lines between broadcast news and campaigning politicians is unfortunate.

At best, it damages the bond of trust for those who turn to the mainstream media for accurate unbiased information.

At worst, it risks perverting our political culture, if opinions and partisan narratives are presented as accepted facts - 'the truth'.

The list of 'presentician' politicians is growing almost daily.

GB News has regular programmes presented by Jacob Rees-Mogg, Philip Davies and Esther McVey. Over on TalkTV, Nadine Dorries presents Friday Night. All of them are sitting Conservative MPs.

The former DUP leader, Arlene Foster, is on GB News and is also a member of the House of Lords.

Michelle Dewberry and Nigel Farage stood for the Brexit Party, and Laurence Fox stood for his own party - they also appear on GB News. Richard Tice on TalkTV is leader of the Reform Party.

Elsewhere, on Andrew Neil's weekly show two former cabinet ministers, Labour's Ed Balls and the Conservative George Osborne, are signed up as regular commentators.

Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg have it written into their contracts that they can appear on each other's programmes.

Dorries' first programme was a fawning chat with Boris Johnson. Dorries has suggested she will accept a peerage in Johnson's planned resignation honours' list, although she will try to delay taking it up to avoid a by-election in her constituency.

Changing attitudes of regulators

Conflict of interest would seem to be the biggest question facing those who are still MPs. The broadcasting regulators have changed their attitudes on this as the number of television news outlets has risen.

Weekend World was a prestigious, scrupulously unbiased ITV current affairs programme. Two sitting MPs in succession resigned and gave up their political careers to become the show's presenter: Brian Walden in 1977 and Matthew Parris in 1986.

The rules laid down by the broadcasting regulator Ofcom sound pretty straightforward: "No politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified. In that case, the political allegiance of that person must be made clear to the audience."

In practice, it depends what is meant by "any news programmes". Politicians are allowed to present "current affairs programmes" provided they reflect a range of views. It is tricky to see what is "news" and what is "current affairs", especially on self-designated "news" channels.

Ofcom took action against Russia's RT, Iran's Press TV, and the Fox News Channel from America when they were available in the UK and it has censured some specific GB News content.

It had very little choice but to open up when GB News was launched in 2021.

Firstly, Ofcom is committed to encouraging diversity in the news on provision. Technological advances are lowering the entry cost to being a broadcaster and it would be impractical to keep all outlets in the same straight jacket.

Secondly, the government, with Nadine Dorries as culture secretary, was heavily critical of the BBC, cutting its budget and supportive of GB News, with its explicit anti "London elite" agenda.

One of the founders of GB News, a FinTech investor called Andrew Cole, was open about its intentions, even as he resigned as a director, claiming: "The channel serves the views of the majority of British people and not the narrow London elites as seen by the BBC and other news channels."

"Views" and "news" amount to the same thing in his book.

This attitude is in marked contrast to the first dedicated news channels, CNN and Sky News, launched in the 1980s.

Both of them abided by the same rules, and spirit of the rules, as the legacy broadcasters BBC and ITV.

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Rupert Murdoch was the prime mover of Sky and neither he nor his other executives interfered in the editorial policy during my 30-plus years heading the politics team at Sky News.

British newspapers have always taken a political line, while television remained detached. That line is now blurring.

'Cross-fertilisation of politicians'

Many of the journalists imported as on-screen talent to work alongside the 'presenticians' at GB News, come from outlets with a right-wing bias.

This cross-fertilisation of politicians with journalist commentators simply reinforces dogma rather than challenging it, as Ofcom hoped it would on current affairs programmes.

This is clear in Andrew Cole's bold assertion that GB News represents "the majority of the British people" compared to the BBC and other news channels.

GB News may be pleased with its ratings but it is absurd to suggest that they represent anything like the majority of TV viewers. Equally, even recent election results do not show that there was ever a majority "of the British people" for the views which the channel promotes.

Britain's left-wing politicians have not made equivalent inroads into the new TV news channels. Technology has given them other media.

Labour figures have own podcasts

The shadow foreign secretary David Lammy has a regular slot on LBC radio. Tory Luke Evans as well as Labour's Jess Phillips, Ed Miliband and Jacqui Smith and ex-No 10 communications director Alastair Campbell all have their own podcasts. Those last two balance their opinions with co-hosts of different political inclinations even though podcasts are a less regulated medium.

Electronic broadcasting today is close to a rules free-for-all, in which participants choose what codes they plan to follow.

Unlike my friend and respected rival political editor Andrew Marr, I did not want to "get my voice back" when I left the mainstream broadcaster I had worked with for decades.

I regret it when colleagues move into party politics

I think what we try to do impartially is important and, though it is inevitable, I regret it when colleagues move into party politics. At least until now that has been a one-way street out of the media.

When news and views get blurred it can get messy, as Fox News is discovering now as evidence is deposed ahead of a defamation trial brought by Dominion, a US voting machine manufacturer.

Internal communications by Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, and star Fox News presenters including Tucker Carlson, show that they did not believe Donald Trump's claims that he had won the election, but were reluctant to tell their viewers for fear of an impact on ratings.

The front page savaging of Gary Lineker, and the BBC's decision to lead its news bulletins with the story, must be seen in the context of the struggle between news and views.

Lineker is not a 'presentician'. He is a retired world-class footballer and celebrity who now works as a freelance sports presenter. His private tweets have nothing to do with what he talks about as a broadcaster.

My advice to Lineker

It is truly "fake news" to equate his activities with politicians who continue to push their views on air or with a BBC chairman, appointed by Boris Johnson, who was party to helping Johnson get an £800,000 loan.

That said, my advice to Lineker would have been to keep his thoughts on refugees for another day.

But since I am a political journalist, I am not in the business of offering my opinions.