Poison, probity and podcasts


Unsubstantiated and false claims can be spread by influential podcasts. Should they be regulated for accuracy and fairness? asks Stephanie Power


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n November 2024, the Diary of a CEO podcast proudly announced it had reached one billion streams, more than any other UK podcast. A month later, the BBC World Service’s Global Disinformation Unit reported the series was


amplifying misleading information about health. In an analysis of 15 health-related Diary of a CEO episodes, they found each contained an average of 14 harmful health claims. Suggestions that polycystic ovary syndrome, autism and cancer can be ‘reversed’ or treated with diet went against scientific evidence. At the end of one episode, where a doctor said the covid


vaccine had had a ‘catastrophic net negative effect on society’, presenter Steven Bartlett offered a disclaimer of sorts, saying that he was aiming to present different views for listeners. “I’m not an expert in health,” he said, “but I think the place


that I’ve got to now is to present every opinion that I can. And, hopefully, people will be able to make up their own minds.” Hopefully people will make up their own minds? When it comes to audio purporting to be factual, I’m old


school. I was trained by BBC Radio 4. It turns you into a pedant. “It’s Trades Union Congress and trade unions,” I might shout at the radio. “SobozLIE not SoBOZlie,” I say to football commentators. And, Steven Bartlett, it’s fewer deaths, not less. But this misses the bigger point. Sticking any views or misinformation out on a podcast and hoping people will make up their own minds… that’s serious. It is not just Diary of a CEO. Valerie Wirtschafter, a data


analyst at Washington DC’s Brookings Institution, looked at 8,000 episodes of popular political podcasts in the US, finding around one in 10 included potentially false information. “Due in large part to the say-whatever-you-want perceptions of the medium, podcasting offers a critical avenue through which unsubstantiated and false claims proliferate,” she says. Ritula Shah is a radio presenter, formerly of Radio 4’s The


World Tonight and PM, now at Classic FM. She’s also on the board of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer. She thinks some podcasts should be subject to some form of regulation: “It depends on the content. If I am making a podcast about paint colours, as long as I’m not making claims about my paint that would transgress


12 | theJournalist


Further reading


• Brookings Institution research: https:// tinyurl. com/246c3pmt


• BBC story on Diary of a CEO: https:// tinyurl.com/ 4ab9suty


• Voice of the Listener and Viewer: https:// vlv.org.uk


advertising standards, I could probably be left to my own devices. But anyone making a podcast about health issues should have to be able to substantiate any claims.” She says regulation could operate on a complaints basis, like Ofcom: “Whether it is possible to regulate them in exactly the same way as the bounded media is questionable. But I don’t think that we can have this mixed environment where you’ve got very regulated broadcast media and then have this kind of free for all on the side. It’s bad for the existing public service broadcasters and it’s bad for the audience. There should be some broad editorial guidelines that you operate within.” Do others agree? Shah and I are both part of a group of


producers, presenters and executive producers working on programmes from BBC Studios, Wondery, Goalhanger, Tortoise Media, Global, The Guardian and The Evening Standard. There are 47 of us in one WhatsApp group, many of whom are ex-BBC, and we meet online once a week under the banner of The Feast Collective. I asked them, in my own tiny MORI-style poll, whether they thought podcasts should be regulated. Of the 30 who responded, all but one said they thought there should be some kind of regulation. One suggested a kitemark, a symbol of podcasting excellence. Someone else suggested we set up a group to police it. Brett Spencer is a senior lecturer and director of the Centre of Podcasting Excellence at City St George’s University in London. He agrees this would be difficult, saying that before you even start, two issues would need to be decided. “First, what is a podcast? We are now seeing the proliferation of podcasts moving from audio to video. So are you regarding a podcast as being audio only? Or is it anything that is audio and video? Do you have to then regulate YouTube? “The second challenge is: who is responsible? Ofcom regulates TV and radio via the broadcasters BBC, ITV and Channel 4. But for those who put out podcasts – Apple and Spotify etc – they insist they are not the publisher, just the platform. So they are not responsible. Are you then going to hold everyone to account – ranging from people in their bedrooms to massive production companies? Spencer also says if you bring in regulation, then the bigger shows may be unfairly targeted: “Ofcom works on a complaints basis. So if you brought in podcast regulation,


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