FROM BBC TO GB NEWS: CAN THE MEDIA BE IMPARTIAL?

Filmed at the Battle of Ideas festival 2023, this excellent panel gets to grips with impartiality. Does it still exist, is it worth reclaiming or a dated idea and where does this leave objectivity and truth?

Earlier this year, for the first time ever, Match of The Day aired without a host after Gary Lineker was removed from the airwaves by the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie. Lineker was said to be in breach of the BBC’s impartiality guidelines for tweeting that the language surrounding the government’s new asylum policy was ‘not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 1930s’.
Others say the problem is not presenters lacking objectivity or young journalists lacking training, but rather the rules themselves. Does it make sense for Ofcom to try to apply a broadcast code written in a different period dominated by the BBC and ITV in an era of new independent channels? Is it sensible or even possible for an individual to insist that organisations show true impartiality? And ultimately, what’s at stake if we ditch the idea of impartiality altogether?

The speakers are:
Liam Deacon- consultant Pagefield communications, former journalist & TV producer
Iain Macwhirter - columnist, The Times and Spectator; author, Disunited Kingdom: how Westminster won a referendum but lost Scotland
Helen Searls - chief operating officer, Feature Story News
Baroness Stowell - chair, Communications & Digital Select Committee
The chair is: Max Sanderson - senior editor, audio, Guardian

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