BBC Election Complaint 1
Posted
The BBC often annoy me with the left-leaning political coverage, but they took it to new levels during the election campaign.
Looking back, I think I had an excellent point with this complaint. Not so sure on the next one I’ll post…
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Dear Sir/Madam
I have just come back from my imaginary girlfriend’s house, Margaret, where I was watching the debate. I didn’t really want to watch the debate, but she was watching it so I had no choice.
Immediately it was clear that a pro-Corbyn audience had been picked. The BBC had clearly picked a majority who would whoop and cheer for Corbyn like no other candidate.
Not only that, but the interviewer seemed not to allow time for the audience to clap Amber Rudd, and also seemed to offer a disproportionate amount of responses to Corbyn to follow Nuttall’s generally dreadful points. Subtle – but I didn’t miss it.
It is difficult enough for the Conservative Party to counter Labour’s lies and disinformation without the BBC being on their side too – the supposedly neutral broadcaster.
I have often thought the BBC to be biased towards Labour, though this had seemed to lessen in the last few years. But this was shocking. An absolutely disgraceful abuse of broadcasting power.
I appreciate that the BBC might be upset about the idea of another Conservative government, but I expect you to at least make a little bit of effort into reducing bias.
Not only were the audience biased – but the parties themselves, with 5 being of socialist bent – 2 of which are not even national parties.
The whole debate was manufactured to disadvantage the Conservative Party.
Regards
James Winfield
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Dear Mr Winfield
Many thanks for getting in touch about The BBC Election Debate 2017 broadcast live on BBC One from Cambridge on Wednesday 31st May.
We were naturally concerned to learn of your unhappiness in relation to the audience at the event, so we’ve discussed viewer concerns personally and at length with the programme’s Editor and other senior editorial personnel within BBC News.
To allow us to reply promptly, and to ensure we use our TV Licence fee resources as efficiently as possible, we’re sending this response to everyone. We’re sorry we can’t reply individually, but we hope this will address most of the points raised.
To explain, the BBC commissioned polling company ComRes to recruit an audience reflecting the country demographically and politically.
The BBC Election Debate 2017 involved a discussion between seven different parties, and while some members of the audience were more vocal than others this does not mean its composition was not balanced.
The Conservative and Labour parties had the largest share of supporters in the room.
ComRes has published a fuller summary of its methodology here: www.comresglobal.com/comres-recruitment-for-the-bbc-tv-debate-31-may-2017/.
Many thanks once again for taking the time to get in touch. We do hope our reply here helps to clarify our approach and thus allays any concerns you may have had.
Kind Regards
BBC Complaints Team
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints