{"id":116462,"date":"2018-07-17T14:46:52","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T13:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=116462"},"modified":"2018-07-17T14:46:52","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T13:46:52","slug":"two-sides-to-the-story-is-the-bbc-biased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/two-sides-to-the-story-is-the-bbc-biased\/","title":{"rendered":"Two sides to the story: is the BBC biased?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent article from journalist Nick Cohen: \u2018How the BBC Lost the Plot on Brexit<\/a>\u2019 for The New York Review of Books <\/em>(NYR), accuses the BBC of \u2018journalistic cowardice\u2019 in regards to its coverage of Brexit. Accusations of bias at the BBC are not new, but it has taken the unusual move of responding, from its official media centre<\/a>, with a letter from James Stephenson, news editor at BBC News and Current Affairs. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are both sides of the argument.<\/p>\n

Biased<\/strong><\/span>
\nCohen\u2019s article lays out Brexit as he sees it \u2013 \u2018There is no plan, and there never was a plan\u2019. He criticises Nick Robinson, who said: \u2018The day we broadcasters have to \u2018broadly balance\u2019 the views of the two sides is at an end. Why? Because there are no longer two sides.\u2019<\/p>\n

He points out the current distrust in the media, being driven by the likes of Trump and Putin, and how journalists need to oppose their agendas.<\/p>\n

In an acerbic attack, Cohen writes: \u2018The BBC\u2019s reporting of the scandals around the Brexit referendum is not biased or unbalanced: it barely exists.\u2019 He suggests that massive stories such as the Facebook\/Cambridge Analytica scandal, the Brexit campaign funding scandal and the exposure of Russian interference in British politics scandal were covered with \u2018only the most perfunctory of reports\u2019.<\/p>\n

He writes that his colleague at the Observer<\/em>, Carole Cadwalladr \u2013 a huge force in uncovering and reporting on the data scandals this year \u2013 offered BBC Panorama the chance to interview Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie, but the current affairs show turned it down as there was no \u2018smoking gun\u2019.<\/p>\n

Cohen ends his article, suggesting the BBC may change its approach to Brexit as public opinion changes, but that \u2018No one should praise journalists who speak out when, and only when, they are certain that public opinion is with them.\u2019<\/p>\n

Not biased<\/strong><\/span>
\nJames Stephenson is more succinct in his reply, which is directed at the editor of the NYR<\/em>. He claims that Cohen has \u2018ignored a number of inconvenient facts\u2019 and points out that when the Facebook\/Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, the BBC covered it on major news bulletins for 11 days in a row. Its business, economics, media and North America editors, as well as the technology correspondent, all reported on aspects of the story.<\/p>\n

The BBC also interviewed the whistleblowers on multiple programmes.<\/p>\n

He also explains the Panorama issue: \u2018For Panorama to make a programme, it needed to be confident of the underlying evidence behind the whistleblowers\u2019 claims. Panorama asked for access to all the evidence, but that was not forthcoming. Limitations were placed on the BBC\u2019s own investigation of the allegations and constraints on who we could approach. In short, we did not have the scope to make a programme which met our standards of robust independent investigation in the time available.\u2019<\/p>\n

He goes on to write: \u2018We do not expect our journalists to “say what they believe”, as Nick advocates. We ask them to report accurately, offer informed professional judgements and go wherever the evidence takes them.\u2019<\/p>\n

He finishes: \u2018There can be few times in the BBC\u2019s history when its journalism has mattered more. This is not an organisation frightened of journalism, but committed to it.\u2019<\/p>\n

So, is the BBC biased?<\/span>
\n<\/strong>The BBC is in a unique position; funded by the public it must remain impartial \u2013 and when you attempt to report everything from all sides, you\u2019re often seen as taking sides. We\u2019ve presented both sides of this story, so you can decide if the BBC is biased yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent article from journalist Nick Cohen: \u2018How the BBC Lost the Plot on Brexit\u2019 for The New York Review of Books (NYR), accuses the BBC of \u2018journalistic cowardice\u2019 in regards to its coverage of Brexit. Accusations of bias at the BBC are not new, but it has taken the unusual move of responding, from its official media centre, with a letter from James Stephenson, news editor at BBC News and Current Affairs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":116463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,350,3729],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116462"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116465,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116462\/revisions\/116465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}