BBC Election Complaint 2

Arguably a tad tenuous but hey.

******

Dear Sir/Madam

I note again that you have spent huge amounts of money covering what is now clearly a left-wing, socialist-promoting event, in Glastonbury.

This is completely against the BBC’s charter to specifically be spending so much money and time on one long political event, designed to brainwash the young and middle classes into supporting what would be destructive socialism.

It is not only the coverage of his speech, but also the reporting of it, and the tweeting of his “ace” speech – looking at you Radio One.  Deleted, of course but not before the damage was done.

And now Glastonbury is a full-on left-wing, socialist political event, there should not be any coverage of it whatsoever.

Would you cover Jacob Rees-Mogg doing a speech at Creamfields?  No.  Would you cover George Osborne doing a speech at T In The Park?  No.  Would you cover Jeremy Hunt doing a speech at Secret Garden Party?  No.

It may be in the BBC’s interest that the United Kingdom becomes Venezuela, as Corbyn’s potential socialist dictatorship would likely require the full support of the BBC and the closing of all other forms of media – your competition, to be able to sustain such regressive policies.

And I expect that I will only receive another generic response – possibly generated by AI (that’s not very socialist of you – Corbyn won’t be happy).

However I live in hope that there may actually be someone in the BBC that understands the dangers of socialism and decides to take action to stop your constant promotion of socialism, such as the covering of Glastonbury.

Regards
An ex-viewer

******

Dear Mr Winfield

Thank you for getting in touch about our recent news reporting from the Glastonbury Festival.

We were naturally concerned to learn that you felt our coverage was biased or inappropriate, so we’ve reviewed our output and discussed audience concerns personally and at length with 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.

The key point to make is that the organisers of the Glastonbury Festival chose to invite the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as their guest speaker on the Pyramid Stage.

His appearance was not screened in the BBC Music at Glastonbury television programmes, but like other news outlets BBC News reported on his speech as it was a newsworthy event.

Some later BBC News bulletins included comments from Mr Corbyn’s speech in relation to the Grenfell Tower fire. Here we also heard directly from the Prime Minister Theresa May, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Sajid Javid, as well as Council leaders and others thus ensuring a wide range of views were heard.

BBC News also comprehensively covered a wide range of other stories, including that day’s Armed Forces Day by providing extensive coverage from the Liverpool event which the Prime Minister attended.

We appreciate that not everyone will agree with our choices on which stories to cover, and the prominence that we give to them. These decisions are made by our news editors, taking into consideration the editorial merit of the stories at hand, and we accept that not everyone will think that we are correct on each occasion. These decisions are always judgement calls rather than an exact science, but we appreciate the feedback that our viewers and listeners give us.

Many thanks once again for taking the time to get in touch. We do hope our reply here helps to clarify matters and thus allays any concerns you may have had.

Kind Regards

BBC Complaints Team
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

******

On balance, I do think a fair response by the BBC.