Grade inflation

Which Michael Grade has Nadine Dorries appointed at Ofcom ? The plain-speaking public servant, blessed with a genuine common sense and good communication skills, or the slightly dyspeptic showbiz luvvie-turned-commercial opportunist and Tory peer who doesn't quite understand how news works ?

"I wish those in the BBC who asked for more money from the Government would watch their own news bulletins and see what is going on, with people having to decide whether to heat or eat, and the increased use of food banks. There is a complete lack of reality about what is going on in Britain with this regressive tax. "      House of Lords, January 2022

“It is the BBC’s journalism that too often lets the corporation down. The Iraq war broadcast about the dodgy dossier that ended with the death of Dr David Kelly; the failure to transmit its own exposure of Jimmy Savile; the unforgivable and mistaken traducing of Lord McAlpine; the coverage of the arrest of (the innocent) Sir Cliff Richard – the list goes on and on. To this charge sheet must be added widespread accusations of bias about election coverage from all parties, Brexit bias, unbalanced coverage of the Middle East, Scottish politics and a host of other topics.”  Telegraph May 2021

“Given the available evidence, or rather lack of it, it is worrying that the BBC has so far defended its report that there were ‘clearly’ anti-Muslim shouts from the bus, while the antisemitic gestures were only ‘alleged’. They need to provide the evidence  to support their defence or rethink and issue an urgent correction and apology.”  Lord Grade to Jewish News, December 2021

“An emotional interview is conducted with the father of a dead Palestinian youth who had been killed committing a fatal terror attack. However, the report failed to show the emotional distress caused to Israelis by any of these recent attacks. This is inexcusable."   Criticising an Orla Guerin report on the BBC in October 2015

“You have to look to see what you would lose and what you would gain. What you would gain from privatisation is you could build a really big media business around Channel 4. I think the channel needs to be freed up really to move ahead.”  On possible Channel 4 privatisation, December 2015

“The place is so bureaucratic it’s terrifying. It’s caught up in processes. Talk to producers outside, agents and so on and the BBC is in danger of becoming the last resort. You go to the BBC when you can’t sell a programme anywhere else because it’s such a nightmare.”   On BBC TV in 2015