Leading up to, during and following the June 2016 Brexit referendum, the BBC has faced criticism from all sides of the debate. Leave-supporters argue that the BBC is inherently biased against Brexit, claiming that its output has been overwhelmingly negative about the implications of leaving the European Union. On the other hand, the BBC is increasingly criticized for confusing balance and due impartiality in the Brexit debate. Critics argue that it has become so obsessed with “balanced” journalism that it has failed to properly inform the public about the consequences of leaving, and has given a platform to those whose views are not based in merit. Director of BBC News Fran Unsworth said the Brexit debate has “divided the UK, everyone has a stake in it and the BBC is being tested by all, not just politicians.”

Due impartiality is one of the core principles of the BBC’s charter. This means not favoring one side over another, while taking into account the nature and subject of the content. So, according the BBC’s editorial guidelines, “impartiality must be adequate and appropriate to the output.” In the case of Brexit, and pro-leave and pro-remain stances, does impartiality mean giving an equal platform to both sides? In any case, neither side seems entirely content with the BBC’s Brexit coverage. In this post, I’m looking at criticism on both sides of the argument, and how Brexit has pushed the BBC to the ultimate predicament.

Many Brexit-supporters view the BBC as a pro-establishment, London-based broadcaster that does not accurately reflect the views of UK citizens as a whole. Journalist Rod Little stated in a 2017 article that “the BBC is deeply, institutionally biased towards a soft-liberal, naïve, middle-class view of the world, especially with regard to immigration, Europe, Islam, homosexuality…and all race issues.” A recent poll by YouGovshowed that 27% of people think the BBC is anti-Brexit, while 24% think it is neither, and only 8% thik it is pro-Brexit. This perception of the BBC has been accompanied by harsh claims and reports from right-wing politicians and organizations that it has blatantly violated its code of impartiality by not adequately representing pro-leave views.

A 2016 investigation by News-watch showed that BBC programs were biased in favor of remaining. An analysis of 25 of its flagship news program’s feature items covering the referendum claimed that twice as much space had been given to pro-EU supporters. And, out of 40 editions of Newsnight, 25 of the guests speaking on the EU clearly supported remain while 14 supported leave. In 2018, The think tank Civitas (in conjunction with News-watch) released another report monitoring thousands of hours of BBC radio and TV coverage dating back to 1999, titled “Brussels Broadcasting Corporation?”. The report asserted that between 2005 and 2014, only 132 of 4,275 guests on Today who spoke on the EU were pro-Brexit. Furthermore, based on 274 hours of BBC coverage of EU issues between 2002 and 2017, only .2% of those interviews were left-wing supporters of leaving the EU, despite “an estimated four million labor voters” being Eurosceptic. According to the report, BBC Director-General Tony Hall and chairman David Clementi also “repeatedly” refused to meet a cross-party group of MPs to discuss research. The group included Labour’s Kate Hoey and Graham Strigner, and Tories Philip Davies and Philip Hollobone. Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who backed the report, said the BBC “is determined to present its EU coverage in terms of Tory ‘splits’ and conveniently ignored the fact that vast swathes of Labour supporters voted for Brexit as well.”

In 2017, more than 70 MPs signed an open letter to Tony Hallaccusing the BBC of biased Brexit coverage. In the letter, the group stated that it “pains us to see how so much of the economic good news we’ve had since June has been skewed by BBC coverage which seems unable to break out of pre-referendum pessimism and accept new facts.”

In May of 2018, a cross-party group of nine pro-Brexit MPs and peers complained that BBC Radio 4 programs were not sufficiently representing pro-Brexit supporters’ views, and claimed that the programs violated the BBC’s due impartiality requirements. The BBC rejected the complaint, stating that is was not required to devote equal airtime to pro-brexit and anti-brexit supporters, especially because “the political context had moved on since the EU referendum.” The group, which included UKIP peer Malcolm Pearson, Labour MP Kate Hoey, DUP MP Ian Paisley and Conservative MP William Cash, then submitted the complaint to Offcom. Citing three surveys (conducted by News-watch) examining BBC Radio 4’s programs, they asserted that “positive, pro-Brexit opinion is being systematically underrepresented in BBC output,” and “more time, space and emphasis is being given to pro-EU or anti-Brexit voices.” In February 2019, Offcom found that the programs did not breach due impartiality requirements. The programs had aired considerably after the referendum, thus “the public debate had therefore developed from a discussion of a binary question – whether the UK should ‘leave’ or ‘remain’ in the EU – into a much more complex and nuanced discussion comprising many different viewpoints on the form that the UK’s exit from the EU should take, and the potential implications on a range of different areas.” Offcom stated that the BBC was not required to give equal time and representation to every view and “every facet of every argument,” and that the programs had included a range of alternative views on Brexit through various editorial techniques.

So, the BBC has been facing a considerable amount of criticism from politicians and the public just based on the assertion that its coverage is pro-remain. However, it’s been drawing just as much or more condemnation from those insisting that its coverage gives too time and space to pro-leave supporters, with impartiality at the core of the argument.

James O’Brien, a daily current affairs program presenter for LBC, wrote that the BBC had seriously confused the concept of impartiality in a March 2018 article. The premise of his argument was that ignorance is being afforded the same weight as evidence-based explication. He pointed out that a leaked WhatsApp exchange showed Conservative MP Nadine Dorries asking her colleages to explain the EU customs union to her, “because she was having problems defending her widely stated opposition to it.” Broadcasters should not give the time and platform to people whose stances are not researched and based in fact. O’Brien also expressed his frustration over the confusion of facts, citing Britain’s control of its borders as an example. “It is clear,” he said, “not only that we (Britain) can and do “control our borders” but also that European Union members are free to employ rather more restrictive policies than successive British governments have been minded to introduce.” People who name control of borders as a benefit of Brexit should be, as he put it, “hit over the head repeatedly with this inalienable fact until they surrender and withdraw.” O’Brien also stated that it’s the job of the moderator to “police such basic facts,” and not the other debater; a concept lost in today’s practices.

That brings me to a point Mark Demazer brought up in March 2019 article titled, “Could Brexit Break the BBC?”.  He also discussed the issue of fact-checking. He concluded that, “what is needed is a change in form—to get politicians and others who say things that are highly contentious, to be stopped by presenters and grilled, even if that is at the expense of other things that the interview might achieve.” Demazer pointed out that interviewers are often expected to progress the story by getting a line in an interview that will be perceived as news. However, he said “the chase for the new should stop should stop, at least sometimes, until an unreliable fact or figure used by the interviewee is revealed as such—or at least debated—by the interviewer.”

After close examination of the BBC’s Brexit coverage, Professor Chris Grey came to the conclusion in a 2018 article that the BBC was actually slightly biased in favor of Brexit. He backed this assertion with a number of reasons. When discussing coverage of merited views and information, he pointed out that certain technical issues concerning Brexit “don’t sit well with normal electoral senses of balance.” For instance, the overwhelming opinion of economists (including those working for the government), is that Brexit will be economically damaging, though the degree is not certain. In August of 2017, BBC gave prominent coverage to a report by Economists for Free Trade, which claimed there would be huge benefits from a hard Brexit. The report was not new and it had been heavily criticized by leading economists. The BBC’s equating of balance with impartiality is a problem in this case because it “suggests that the pro-Brexit minority of economists have equal billing with the anti-Brexit majority.”

Grey also pointed out that the BBC’s selection of political figures to defend Brexit has compromised its content. The government is not willing for ministers to defend Brexit policy, so regularly featured pro-Brexit figures (like Iain Duncan Smith and Bernard Jenkin) are not government members. The BBC’s use of proxies (which is “a major failure of political accountability” in itself) raises concerns, because most are “ultra brexiters of the European research group.” The majority of pro-Brexit views presented on the BBC are extremist, even though there are many supporters of a softer Brexit.

Grey reached a telling possible explanation of these trends, stating that his “sense is that over the years the BBC has been stung (or perhaps worn down) by the very vocal criticism of the anti-EU movement and of the political right more generally. Relentless accusations of liberal-left bias from the right wing and Eurosceptic press, as well as from insiders, led it to a kind of ‘liberal guilt’.”

Former editor-in-chief of The Guardian Alan Rusbridger made a similar argument in a July 2018 article titled, “Why the BBC is getting its Brexit coverage wrong.” In citing Today presenter Nick Robinson’s view of due impartiality that journalists must “take account of how much support someone has and the evidence underlying his or her arguments before deciding how much coverage he is entitled to,” and cover “what is” instead of “he said, she said,” he suggested that neutrality may be compromising the function of journalism today. He asserted that the “center of gravity” of the Brexit argument has been dragged to the right by Europhobic newspapers, and has caused experts to be pushed to the margins of the debate. For example, according to Rusbridger, those who believe that Brexit will have severely damaging economic and foreign policy consequences for the UK are being perceived as “undemocratic extremists,” only allowed a voice when Brexit hardliners challenge them.

So what all these accusations and arguments come down to is impartiality, and whether or not the BBC has correctly upheld that concept. In response to open letters and accusations from both sides, the BBC has asserted that it has maintained its doctrine of due impartiality and does not broadcast biased coverage. So what side is right? That appears to depend on the legitimacy of a view or argument, which can be subjective.

After expressing that the BBC had confused the concept of impartiality, ITV political editor Robert Peston (who worked for the BBC for nine years), stated that it is journalists’ role to determine which of two opposing arguments’ is “likely to be closer to the truth.” The core function of journalism is to provide the public with accurate and truthful information. Just because there are two sides to an argument, it does not mean both are equally valid. BBC journalists must do their best to question the legitimacy and merit of those they allow a platform to (whatever side they are on) in order to execute proper journalism and fully observe “due impartiality.”

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