Richard Tice has hit out at the BBC over an error in an article reporting that GB News breached Ofcom rules.
The UK media regulator found GB News broke impartiality rules in an interview between presenter Martin Daubney and the Reform UK leader.
In an article on the BBC’s website, Mr Daubney was incorrectly referred to as the deputy leader of Reform UK.
But Mr Daubney is the deputy leader of actor Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Mr Tice said: “Another BBC News error. In your haste to dig at GB News you have clearly misread (deliberate?) Ofcom press release.
“Martin Daubney has never been part of Reform, but was deputy leader of a different party, Reclaim. Please correct.”
The BBC article has been updated following Mr Tice’s post.
Mr Daubney was an MEP for the Brexit Party, which was renamed Reform UK in January 2021.
He interviewed Mr Tice when he was standing in for Mr Fox, who has since been dismissed following comments he made on air about a female journalist, on GB News.
During the broadcast on June 16, Mr Daubney gave his views on the small boats crisis and spoke to Mr Tice, also an ex-Brexit Party MEP.
On Monday, Ofcom said the show did not meet the “heightened impartiality requirements”, which apply to programmes discussing “matters of major political controversy and current public policy”.
It said Mr Tice presented his views “with insufficient challenge” and the “limited alternative views presented in the programme were dismissed”.
Ofcom said: “The programme therefore did not include and give due weight to an appropriately wide range of significant views, as required by the Code.
“GB News accepted that the content was not compliant with the heightened special impartiality requirements in the Code.”
It added: “We expect GB News to take careful account of this decision in its compliance of future programming.”
A statement from GB News said: “We accept Ofcom’s finding and agree that our programme did not meet the due impartiality guidelines that our production team had planned.
“Our intent was for Mr Daubney to provide challenging questioning to Mr Tice. Mr Daubney talked of the need for balance and raised the views of people who might object to the strong measures Mr Tice was proposing.
“However, we accept this did not go far enough to meet Ofcom’s guidelines or our own policies and Editorial Charter. We apologise for this breach of the Code.”
The BBC was contacted for comment.
