12 Jan, 2022
The BBC takes heat for saying that airing flat-earthers reflects the broadcaster’s commitment to impartiality
RT – David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy, has said that the broadcaster will give a platform to contradictory viewpoints in a bid to let impartiality triumph over identity, even to those who say the Earth is flat.
Speaking to the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee on Monday, Jordan argued that the BBC is “very committed to ensuring that viewpoints are heard from all different sorts of perspectives.”
“We don’t subscribe to the ‘cancel culture’ that some groups would put forward,” he said, even suggesting that the BBC might occasionally deem it “appropriate to interview a flat-earther.”
While he was clear that “flat-earthers are not going to get as much space as people who believe the Earth is round,” Jordan stated that the BBC would “need to address it more” if “a lot of people believed in flat Earth.”
Challenging those who oppose the broadcaster’s mission of impartiality over personal identity, the BBC official was clear that staff should not be able to block coverage because they disagree with it.
“Whether or not some members of our staff like it is not the point. They leave their prejudices at the door,” Jordan said, criticizing the New York Times for its editorial approach in this area, as it’s the job of reporters to “be prepared to hear viewpoints they might personally disagree with.”
The comments in front of the House of Lords committee sparked a backlash among fellow journalists and political commentators.
LBC host James O’Brien responded to Jordan by citing an article he wrote in 2018 titled ‘Media impartiality is a problem when ignorance is given the same weight as expertise.’
The Guardian’s Toby Moses blasted the proposed approach, stating that it is “nonsense” to claim impartiality means broadcasting views that are incorrect or potentially dangerous.
Plymouth-based reporter Carl Eve said the BBC official’s position exposes the organization’s problem, as it is giving airtime to people who are “completely bonkers” ahead of covering the news.
Jordan’s position is in line with the BBC’s director-general Tim Davie, who has made it his goal to put impartiality front and center, ordering internal reviews into the organization’s approach to coverage to address existing failures.
Former BBC veteran radio presenter Nigel Rees recently revealed to RT that among the reasons why he stopped working for the BBC were woke directives from above, accusing the broadcaster of becoming increasingly prescriptive.
Fri 14 Jan 2022
Either way, let us hope that the BBC’s new action plan on impartiality and editorial standards does not lead the broadcaster to promote more of the daft and dangerous views of those who believe that Covid-19 vaccines do not work or greenhouse gas emissions are not heating Earth.
Bob Ward
Policy and communications director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
The BBC’s stated policy to “represent all points of view” is worrying on two levels. First, where does the policy stop? There are people out there who think the value of a person depends upon their gender or skin tone – should those views be represented? What about Holocaust deniers? And those who think homosexuality, or marrying the wrong person, should be punished by death?
Second, one of the BBC’s worst failures this century has been to present ill-informed opinion as being equal in value to professional expertise – most notably on climate change. At the absolute minimum, it needs to make crystal clear who is and who is not an expert. A lot of misinformation originates from well-funded pressure groups, which need no help getting their message across. So if we must hear ill-informed opinions, let it be from a person on the street – then at least the defence of representing public opinion would have some merit.
Dr Richard Milne
Edinburgh
According to your report, David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy, told a Lords committee that the corporation does not subscribe to “cancel culture” and that everyone should have their views represented by the BBC, even if they believe Earth is flat, adding that “flat-Earthers are not going to get as much space as people who believe the Earth is round … And if a lot of people believed in flat Earth we’d need to address it more.”
I understand that many Americans fervently believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory and most of the Republican party believes that Donald Trump won the last presidential election – and here in the UK there are substantial numbers of anti-vaxxers. I assume that Mr Jordan will now ensure that the views of these groups are given airtime on the BBC’s channels commensurate with their numbers.
In fact, it appears that Mr Jordan has no genuine editorial policy – which would require him to make judgments based on facts and values – only a desperate anxiety to appease the cultural warriors on the right of the Conservative party.
Piers Burnett
Sinnington, North Yorkshire
It was disappointing to read that David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy, told a House of Lords committee that “if a lot of people believed in flat Earth we’d need to address it more” in order to ensure impartiality. He appears to have forgotten that the BBC’s editorial guidelines also state that the broadcaster is “committed to achieving due accuracy in all its output”. Or perhaps he is genuinely unaware that for the past couple of millennia the shape of the Earth has not been just a matter of opinion, but instead has been established as a verifiable scientific fact.
Either way, let us hope that the BBC’s new action plan on impartiality and editorial standards does not lead the broadcaster to promote more of the daft and dangerous views of those who believe that Covid-19 vaccines do not work or greenhouse gas emissions are not heating Earth.
Bob Ward
Policy and communications director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry at the BBC’s latest pronouncement rejecting cancel culture, when the example given is the willingness to give a fair hearing to flat-Earthers (BBC does not subscribe to ‘cancel culture’, says director of editorial policy, 11 January). It’s nothing new for the BBC to give a platform to fantasists, of course; but there did seem to be an acknowledgment post-Brexit that it had perhaps been wrong to give equal weighting to fact and delusion. And there must be someone at the national broadcaster who regrets affording quite so many opportunities to Nigel Lawson to deny climate change reality on the airwaves.
Which other minority beliefs can we now expect to be expounded in the 8.10am interview on the Today programme? It’s surely time we looked seriously at the view that the Covid vaccine is connecting us to a vast AI network, and that upstate New York was once inhabited by giants. There are also apparently people who still believe that Boris Johnson is a great prime minister, though finding a government minister to represent that view this week may be beyond even the bending-over-backwards, non-cancelling capacity of the BBC.
Helen Johnson
Sedbergh, Cumbria
