The BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee (ESC) has upheld a complaint against the BBC’s own political editor Laura Kuenssberg that she misrepresented Jeremy Corbyn’s position on armed police policy – and then the Chair of the ESC immediately challenged the decision and asked for it to be reviewed.
Ms Kuenssberg has a long history of nonsensically biased reporting concerning the Labour party and its leader – not to mention the small matter of being on record as co-ordinating the on-air resignation of a Labour shadow minister just before PMQs to maximise ‘impact’ – so the piece in question was hardly unusual – but for the BBC Trust itself to stamp its own journalism as, in all but name, ‘fake news’ is remarkable.
Ms Kuenssberg was pronounced ‘Journalist of the Year’ for 2016 by The Press Gazette, a fact which beggars belief for anyone who’s watched her BBC performances with the sound turned on. For a ‘Journalist of the Year’ to be found to have faked news shows how bankrupt most ‘mainstream’ ‘journalism’ now is – even more so given that the fact will surprise very few people.
For the committee’s Chair to then immediately ask for its own decision to be challenged shows how desperately this country needs an actual independent broadcaster, with the kind of standards that the BBC is supposed to attain and uphold – but signally does not.
But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised at the BBC’s ambivalence about fake news – since Ms Kuenssberg is hardly a ‘lone wolf’ of biased or plain false reporting in the Corporation. The BBC also had to admit that its Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme to have completely misrepresented a peaceful demonstration to smear Corbyn supporters during the debate on military action in Syria:
It will be interesting to see how the ‘review’ turns out – but is unlikely to change anything whichever way it goes. So if you want real news, you need to follow the independent sources.
Which, of course, the Establishment is currently busy trying to portray as fake. Without a request for review by the Chair of the ESC, naturally.
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