Sir Trevor Phillips has said issues of concern in the Grenfell building would have “been a story before the fire” if there was more local journalism.
The Sky News Sunday politics show presenter, who was part of London Weekend Television’s London Programme, now ITV London, spoke about the decline in the BBC, along with local stations.
An inquiry report concluded the 72 deaths in the 2017 blaze in west London were avoidable and had been preceded by “decades of failure” from the government, other authorities and the building industry.
Sir Trevor, who admitted he does not have the “temperament” to be a BBC journalist, told Roger Bolton’s Beeb Watch podcast: “One of the things that the BBC has lost – and in recent times – and it’s not a sort of a casual thing, it has been a matter of money, resource and choice, is its very local coverage.
“I don’t mean that there are no local radio stations. I know they exist, but it doesn’t seem to me that localism exists in the same way it did back in the mid 1980s.
“(A) very, very important example today, we’re talking on the day that the Grenfell inquiry report is going to be published.
“There is no way in a million years that Grenfell, 30 years ago, would not have been a story before the fire, because, certainly the programme that I presented, ITV London programme, would have been all over it, year after year.”
Proposals to reorganise the broadcaster’s local radio stations to share more content and transmit fewer programmes unique to their areas resulted last year in BBC local journalists going on strike, as well as long-running work-to-rule action, with the dispute formally resolved in November.
Sir Trevor, who made the BBC Two documentary programme Windrush in 1998, also said the BBC’s critics want “to kick” the broadcaster and “take away its dominance”.
The host of Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips also said questions need to be asked if the “culture” of the organisation needs to be looked at following various scandals including Huw Edwards.
Edwards admitted having indecent images of children, with seven of the 41 being of the most serious type.
He resigned from the corporation in April and the BBC knew of its arrest in November 2023.
Sir Trevor also said: “If I have a criticism of the BBC, it is that it isn’t doing that vital job of sitting at the centre of our democracy and encouraging the overall ecosystem to give us a range of stories.”
Sir Trevor also said the corporation sees people from diverse background as “victims”.
He said: “The BBC (saying it) is consciousness of race is all about discrimination, a sort of liberal idea that we’ve got to make up for the deficit and the bad times that people from minority backgrounds have had.
“Well, there’s that part of our lives, but by and large it actually it’s not what we experience.
“Most of us get on with our lives, and some of us do quite well, and even if we don’t do quite well, what we don’t need is constantly to be reminded by people who want to show their compassion at what a miserable time we’re having.”
