Journalism used to be about trying to seek the truth. Of course it used to be skewed according to editor pressure. However, Brexit has highlighted a growing problem on TV. That is too often the presenter just facilitates two positions and unless there is some confronting of what is said the viewer is left with the impression that there are two equally valid positions. There was recently an interesting interview on Channel 4 news involving Susannah Reid formerly UKIP leader and Heidi Allen from the Independant Group. Reid claimed that polling showed that people now favoured ‘no deal’. Krishna Gurnamurtyh challenged this by pointing out that wasn’t true and when she tried to repeat it he continued to ask her for the evidence of this. He’s right in terms of the evidence. When Heidi Allen said there is polling support for a second referendum, which is true, he asked her for her evidence for that that she hadn’t come prepared with. So he was completely fair to both. It was exactly the kind of thing I would want from all interviewers. The BBC has been guilty of a lack of challenge of false and misleading statements and has let itself down badly throughout the Brexit process. John Humphrys’ featherbed interviewers approach to a never ending parade of brexiteer supporters on his Today programme has been a disgrace. The lack of challenge to JRM has been one of the problems.
waldo, before reading your post I was going to comment on the 'feared' John Humphries and how he must have been replaced by a clone that has been programmed not to ask any difficult questions of brexiteers. No wonder I tend to listen to O'Brien on LBC rather than the neutered BBC, ITV etc
I don't mind at all if hard questions are asked of remainers as well as brexiteers as most brexiteer arguments fly in the face of the evidence. But as O'Brien says, since Brexit and Trump, the BBC impartiality model has been broken.