It’s time for the BBC to get off the fence over Brexit

Don’t agree at all. Opinions have no place in news reporting what you need is facts. If you allow personal opinions to be put over as news you alienate probably at least half of your viewers.

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Both the right and the left are accusing the BBC of bias, so they should be getting it about right.

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BBC puts out lots of programmes where people express opposing views on a host of newsworthy and current affairs topics: Question Time, Any Questions, Any Answers, Andrew Neil’s Daily Politics and Sunday Politics, The Moral Maze.

News always seems to me to be balanced and fair. I’ve listened to BBC for 75 years: ITMA, (It’s That Man Again), Workers’ Playtime, Mrs Dale’s Diary, Children’s Hour with Uncle Mac and Uncle David. I should know…:slight_smile:

I thought the whole point of the BBC is that it is meant to sit on the fence and provide both sides of the story.

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Absolutely, Caroline. I worked for Reuters for more than 30 years and it was drummed into us from day one that we didn’t do opinion (although this has changed, sadly). The BBC is (was) the same. We reported facts, checked and double-checked; we aimed for balance, objectivity, the latter not always, if ever, possible. But we did our best. What our clients did with those reports was another matter and entirely up to them. As Jane says, they must be getting something right because they’re being criticised from all sides.

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It is being mooted around Facebook that the BBC under instruction not to report anti Brexit activities or protests. This is certainly borne out by the complete lack of coverage of the anti-campaigns, the unbalanced air time given to the likes of Forage and BoJo and co., and very little time given to Tim Farron, Chukka Obana and Anna Soubry or any other pro-European speaker. It should also be noted that the Daily Express owner Richard Desmond, The Daily Mail owner Lord Rothermere, The Sun owner Rupert Murdoch and The Telegraph owners the Barclay Brothers also ALL fail to report anti-Brexit protests and disquiet.

I began to get suspicious of the media coverage of Brexit last autumn when I asked myself why are the newspapers in particular so anti-EU? The more I have seen the more murky the referendum becomes. Perhaps you would like to join me in doing some research.

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Well Facebook is hardly the best place to get your facts from is it?

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