13th March 2023
What follows is an analogy – and all analogies in human affairs are inexact, and this is because no two situations involving people are identical absolutely.
If your mind starts racing along the lines of “they are not the same” – I agree, and I can think of many points of contrast too.
But bear with me, as the points of comparison may be interesting and even thought-provoking.
(And any comments underneath which just list differences will probably not get through moderation.)
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Imagine a court judgment – in a civil case where there has been a trial.
That there was a trial implies there was more than one side – and this in turn means that on at one least issue there was a difference of view.
Imagine reading that judgment.
The judge sets out the applicable law.
If there is a dispute as to the applicable law the judge sets out the submissions of the parties and why one view of the law was preferred instead of another.
(Sometimes a judge may provide their own view of the law and why that is to be preferred instead of the views of the parties.)
If there is a dispute as to the applicable facts then the judge will often set out why the evidence of one party was to be preferred to another.
If the factual dispute is complex then a good part of the judgment will be devoted to setting out why one set of facts was preferred to another – whether the evidence is witness evidence, or in the form of exhibits, or contested expert evidence.
And the judge is required – by the rules of natural justice no less – to decide the dispute impartially and having given each side a fair hearing.
What the judge will not do – even though they are duty-bound to be impartial – is to treat both sides as having equal weight and not make any material decisions at all.
This is because the obligations of impartiality and to hear each side go to how the judge approaches their task of exercising their judgement, rather than being reasons to not make any evaluation at all.
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Now let us turn to the BBC.
The BBC charter provides (among other things) that the purpose of the corporation is “to provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them: the BBC should provide duly accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming to build people’s understanding of all parts of the United Kingdom and of the wider world. Its content should be provided to the highest editorial standards.”
The charter also states “the BBC should provide high-quality news coverage to international audiences, firmly based on British values of accuracy, impartiality, and fairness”.
And:
“The Mission of the BBC is to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain.”
Under section 319 of the Communications Act 2003, the Ofcom code must ensure “that news included in television and radio services is presented with due impartiality and that the impartiality requirements of section 320 are complied with”.
Section 320 of the same Act provides that the impartiality requirements include “the preservation, in the case of every television programme service, teletext service, national radio service and national digital sound programme service, of due impartiality, on the part of the person providing the service, as respects all of those matters”.
The 2022 framework agreement between the government and the BBC provides that the BBC board should “ensure in particular that any such guidelines set appropriate standards to secure the fairness, due impartiality, due accuracy and editorial integrity”.
You get the message.
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The obligation of “impartiality” is as (ahem) enshrined in the instruments that govern and regulate the BBC as much as they are for any judge.
But impartiality does not necessarily mean facile both-sides-ism.
For these instruments also refer to the following (emphasis added):
“The BBC must be independent in all matters concerning the fulfilment of its Mission and the promotion of the Public Purposes, particularly as regards editorial and creative decisions […]” (The Charter)
“the desirability of maintaining the independence of editorial control over programme content“ (section 319 of the Communications Act)
“The UK Government will continue to recognise and respect the editorial, creative and operational independence of the BBC, as set out in the Charter.” (2022 framework agreement)
And so on – there are many more.
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None of the instruments that govern and regulate the BBC provide that impartiality should mean an absence of editorial judgment.
Indeed, for like a judge who approaches their task with impartiality, the editor of a news programme also should exercise their editorial judgement with impartiality.
But there is still an exercise of judgement.
Impartiality – at least in the courtroom – does not mean that each side should be treated as being equally compelling.
And it should not in a newsroom either.
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Impartiality of the BBC, and the newsroom in particular is important, and its output ought to demonstrate that impartiality. As pointed out, being impartial isn’t the same as acting as though both sides of an argument have equal merit, where the facts are that they don’t have equal merit. A flat-earther doesn’t have to be quoted whenever anyone mentions that the earth is a spherical planet.
However, the reason why this is in the news at the moment is because someone who is not a BBC employee, and who works on a BBC programme that has nothing to do with news, has been required by the BBC bigwigs, under pressure from the government, not to share his personal opinions on matters of the day.
That has very little to do with BBC impartiality, because only someone determined to take offence at the BBC could be offended by someone not speaking for the BBC speaking. It is to do with the government trying to stifle dissent, and the BBC being spineless in response.
I’m not sure “Spineless” is the right word, given the clear loyalties of the BBC board…
Nor am I convinced that the government had to ask: I expect the rabid frothing from the back benches was enough.
We will probably never know though.
Spot on.
Impartiality does not mean that a flat-earther must comment on everything, but it does mean that viewers are informed that such people exist. It is quite sufficient that they be given a passing mention occasionally to reflect the level of such beliefs in the general population.
And there should be no problem with people expressing their personal opinions via platforms where it is clear that these opinions are not those of the BBC – with the exception that the BBC has a legitimate reason to object if that means people will refuse to appear due to thinking their interviewer will be biased against them. So only those likely to be interviewing people for their political opinions should be require to be discreet.
The ofcom code provides some useful explanation of what it means by impartiality, particularly “due impartiality”:
Meaning of “due impartiality”
“Due” is an important qualification to the concept of impartiality. Impartiality itself means not favouring one side over another. “Due” means adequate or appropriate to the subject and nature of the programme. So “due impartiality” does not mean an equal division of time has to be given to every view, or that every argument and every facet of every argument has to be represented. The approach to due impartiality may vary according to the nature of the subject, the type of programme and channel, the likely expectation of the audience as to content, and the extent to which the content and approach is signalled to the audience. Context, as defined in Section two: Harm and offence of the Code, is important.
See https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/section-five-due-impartiality-accuracy
Thank you David. As someone one said, if one party claims it’s raining and the other party that it isn’t, impartiality demands looking out of the window.
Yes and agree the blog just right.
“Personal statements made by contractors to my business neither represent nor reflect the opinion of my business”
Job done.
Many posters, showing support for the BBC’s decision to suspend a TV show presenter because of comments on Twitter have referred to the Editorial Guidelines stating that this forms a part of any presenter’s contract of engagement (despite not having read said contract), based on the BBC statement: “We have said that we consider his recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines.”
However, I believe an important part of the guidelines may have been overlooked; the heading: “Guidelines
The Editorial Guidelines are the BBC’s values and standards. They apply to all our content, wherever and however it is received.”
“…our content,…”
With any law, policy or contractual agreement, we should all be mindful of the ‘Devil in the Detail’, but not at the expense of the deity in the main points.
From afar: I might suggest that the true issue here – and apparently a somewhat undefined one – is not “impartiality” but rather “editorial standards” for it is only there, that is, in the process of deploying editorial functions that the act of analysis leading to the actual presentation occurs. By the time one hears or sees the finished production innumerable small decisions are made, from shape of the issue to arrangement of words in every sentence. I’m not trying to say impartiality per se does not matter, merely that it is the appropriate application (and definition) of “editorial standards” through the entire production process that deserves attention. Another way to put it might be that impartiality is both a subset of rules governing specific factual situations and an overarching norm. In this sense the production is also a bit like litigation: A judge may exercise discretion, but that discretion must occur within a multilayered, multidimensional set of rules of different types, from procedural rules, to evidentiary rules, to norms for appearances and public-facing conduct. Focussing on just one aspect of the process, obscures, I think, any discussion on a procedure (editing/production) that lacks any publicly-visible structure.
Two of the biggest shortcomings of our thinking culture are:
1: The habit of turning things into dichotomies, when there may be multiple views or positions that are not necessarily “opposites”.
2: The habit of polarising views or positions – when things have been presented as two opposites – when there may be multiple views or positions along a spectrum.
The habit of pushing views or positions to the extremes of a spectrum is another poor habit.
For ‘news’ purposes, of course, arguments, disagreements and conflict – which easily arise from the poor thinking practices above – are “dramatic” and “make a good story”.
I would like to comment but first need time to recover from being told the Charter speaks of “British values of accuracy, impartiality and fairness.”
Michael (Irish)
“Impartiality” is a rabbit hole invented to emasculate the BBC. I believe it used to be the case that serious media / newspaper journalists back in the day needed at least two independent corroborations of the facts for a “story” to be published in a serious newspaper (of which we now how precious few). Does the FT require an equal “impartial” input from a crypto source in order to report on decisions by the Bank of England? Or two credible statements by individuals who were actually at the meeting? The BBC it seems has gone for the former. The FT has stuck to the latter. Which has more credibility? The membership of the US Supreme Court is now 100% politicised. Is this the future here too?
The problem of equating impartiality with ‘bothsidesism’ was brought into sharp focus with Climate Change, when it became increasingly clear that the science was compelling, and the denier ‘think tanks’ and ‘policy groups’ were fossil fuel funded lobby groups who did not deserve equal exposure, but it was a long time coming. Sadly, the same was true during the Brexit debate, when 98% of economists were given the same exposure as one economist and a bunch of right wing self-proclaimed institutes espousing promises of unicorns. The BBC served the nation badly, pandering to political bullies.
Most of us knew this I would imagine. It’s missing the point entirely, this was a case of the Beeb being displeased with a negative / realistic spin being put on a Tory policy. “Impartial” is a word they’re chucking in to justify / make their actions appear right and fare.
The legislation, etc, says that the BBC’s output must be impartial. But this isn’t about the BBC’s output. It is about what people on screen can do with the rest of their life.
We can understand that people can lose their job for what they do in the rest of their time, if it brings their employer into disrepute. For the BBC, there is a particular sensitivity about people who work in news in current affairs.
If Andrew Neil can work in news and current affairs for the BBC for many years, I think Gary Lineker can present a sports programme.
Well said. The only point with which I’d disagree is that impartiality _never_ means facile both-sides-ism – although that’s not something one would be likely to understand from analysis of the BBC’s standard modus operandi in practice.
The setting aside of external considerations – dis-interesting, if you like, which is what being impartial means – is a matter of intellectual rigour & judgement. Both-sides-ism is mere complacent laziness. Always.
What I find surprising is the inability of “senior managers” to manage. They seem unable to see the bigger picture and have only a narrow focus. Who has been covering for them all their careers.
Today’s comment reminded me of a quote by Emily Maitlis talking about her time working for the BBC. She said that on some issue it took 5 minutes to find 50 experts saying one thing but 5 hours to find one person with the opposing view. She said that when the BBC put both of these sides on air, they shielded that imbalance from the viewer. Because impartiality.
I think she originally said this in the context of the economic effects of Brexit, but it is likely to have applied to a number of other issues.
Impartiality does not require a false equivalence.
An extraordinarily powerful and helpful blog and set of comments, thanks.
Although the focus is on Lineker – understandably because he is high profile, but many others are affected by this.
As somebody who has spent most of their working life in the public sector, ‘politically restricted’ posts put limits on what people can say or do.
The Thatcher government brought in the ‘Local Government Officers (Political Restrictions) Regulations 1990′ and the Labour governments left them in place.
At a local level, I found that councillors weren’t that bothered about officers’ political views so long as they didn’t affect their work – and, in quite a few cases, felt it was better that political allegiance was out in the open.
Personally, I tend to think that there are pros and cons for political restriction – but we never seem to have had that discussion.
My cynical side does think that this affects the left more than the right (because people with a public service ethos seem more likely to be left of centre), but interestingly, contractors winning large public sector contracts – including the big consulting companies – are allowed to spout off about whatever they like.
It’s the BBC’s inconsistency that irks me. False balance is a persistent problem in science, eg giving Nigel Lawson air time to spout nonsense about climate change. But when interviewing politicians obvious lies are not challenged, eg that the UK’s vaccine roll-out was expedited by Brexit. Neither is an example of impartiality.
The point you are making is that impartiality does not mean treating each side as equally valid. The BBC years ago commissioned Prof Steve Jones to review their policy on evidence, but they still don’t take much notice of his report, which highlighted false balance.
Well, if we continue the analogy with justice then one could say: “Impartiality must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done.” I suspect the people at large would not see suppressing an opinion as being impartial.
David, could you tell us what your opinion is of the BBC’s claim that Fiona Bruce was legally obliged to make that statement quoting Stanley Johnson’s friends, in which they claimed that his domestic violence was a “one off”?
I could perhaps see that she might have qualified the allegations against Johnson by saying they were allegations by his wife in a newspaper, but introducing the opinions of his friends is surely beyond irrelevant?