Emily Maitlis was widely praised for criticizing the BBC’s coverage about Brexit.
On Wednesday, former BBC journalist and broadcaster, John MacTaggart, spoke at the Edinburgh TV Festival’s annual MacTaggart Lecture. He criticised the BBC for allowing Global to take over. “both-sideism”approach to coverage, and said it could be risked “obscuring a deeper truth”.
“It might take our producers five minutes to find 60 economists who feared Brexit and five hours to find a sole voice who espoused it,” she said.
“But by the time we went on air we simply had one of each; we presented this unequal effort to our audience as balance. It wasn’t.”
She added: “I’d later learn that the ungainly name for this myopic style of journalism: ‘both-sideism’, which talks to the way it reaches a superficial balance while obscuring a deeper truth.”
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She also said: “Many broadcasters fear discussing the obvious economic cause of major change in this country in case they get labelled pessimistic, anti-populist, or worse still, as above: unpatriotic.
“And yet every day that we sidestep these issues with glaring omissions feels like a conspiracy against the British people.”
Elsewhere in her speech, Maitlis raised concerns about Sir Robbie Gibb’s role at the organisation.
She said the BBC board member, who previously worked as Theresa May’s director of communications and helped to found the rightwing GB News channel, is an “active agent of the Conservative party” who is shaping the broadcaster’s news output by acting “as the arbiter of BBC impartiality”.
To give a specific example, she said the broadcaster went out of its way to “pacify” Downing Street after she criticised Dominic Cummings for his breach of lockdown rules during the pandemic. She was asked to apologise by the broadcaster.
After clips of her interview circulated on social media, people showered her with praise:
We reached out to the BBC for comment. They replied: “The BBC places the highest value on due impartiality and accuracy and we apply these principles to our reporting on all issues.
“We made it clear in relation to Newsnight that we didn’t act as a result any pressure from Government or Number 10. To suggest otherwise is wrong. The BBC found that the programme was in violation of its editorial standards. That decision remains.”
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