Campaigners who accuse the BBC of anti-Brexit bias have raised the prospect of seeking a judicial review of the corporation’s complaints process.
A report published today claims to have found evidence that pro-Brexit views are under-represented on the BBC’s flagship news programmes. Just nine of 97 people interviewed about EU-related topics on Radio 4’s Today in October and November last year were long-term supporters of Brexit, according to the Civitas think tank.
The BBC pushed back against the report, which draws on research by Newswatch, which campaigns largely against what it sees as anti-Brexit media bias and has connections to leading anti-EU figures. A BBC spokeswoman said: “We’re covering the process towards Brexit in a responsible and impartial way independent of political pressure. The job of impartial journalism is to scrutinise the issues and interrogate the relevant voices, not advocate for a position. It’s precisely for this reason that the public trusts the BBC.”
The report’s authors, David Keighley and Andrew Jubb, who work for News-watch, said that the BBC was “impervious to all complaints in this domain” and a judicial review may be necessary.