Reforming how BBC impartiality is judged
News-watch’s invited submission and supplementary evidence to the BBC Mid-Term Review, drawing on 23 years of monitoring to examine the Corporation’s impartiality reforms, complaints system and regulation by Ofcom.
Document type
Regulatory Submission
July 2022
July–September 2022
News-watch
In June 2022, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport invited News-watch to contribute evidence to the BBC Mid-Term Review. The review was examining whether the governance and regulatory arrangements established by the 2017 Royal Charter were working effectively.
The invitation followed renewed concern about BBC editorial standards after Lord Dyson’s investigation into Martin Bashir’s 1995 interview with Diana, Princess of Wales. In response to the Dyson findings, the BBC commissioned the Serota Review and announced a ten-point action plan intended to strengthen impartiality, editorial governance and accountability.
News-watch assessed those reforms against evidence accumulated through 23 years of monitoring BBC output and pursuing complaints about accuracy and impartiality. The submission examined the meaning of due impartiality, the proposed thematic reviews of BBC content, the independence of editorial oversight, the BBC First complaints framework and Ofcom’s performance as the Corporation’s external regulator.
The principal submission was sent in July 2022. DCMS subsequently requested further information about the practical effects and costs of News-watch’s proposals, the role of the BBC Board, the composition of Ofcom’s Content Board and the operation of the different stages of BBC First. News-watch supplied a nine-page supplementary response on 29 September.
Together, the two submissions comprised 231 pages. The principal 20-page argument was supported by 11 appendices containing correspondence, complaints data, methodological material, regulatory decisions and examples drawn from News-watch’s dealings with the BBC and Ofcom.
Key findings
1. The BBC’s ten-point plan did not address the underlying problems
The submission welcomed elements of the BBC’s impartiality plan but concluded that its proposed changes were not sufficiently clear, rigorous or independent. The reforms left the Corporation with extensive discretion to define, monitor and judge its own performance.
2. “Due impartiality” allowed excessive editorial discretion
News-watch argued that the BBC’s interpretation of due impartiality enabled editors to determine which perspectives should be represented and what weight they should receive. This made it difficult to challenge cumulative imbalance when the BBC maintained that balance had been achieved across an unspecified range of output.
3. The promised external reviews were not fully independent
The submission questioned the selection of reviewers with extensive professional relationships with the BBC. It also raised concerns about the absence of published, replicable methodology and the limited role afforded to independent content analysis.
4. The complaints system filtered out almost every complaint
Between 2017 and the preparation of the submission, the BBC recorded 1,272,484 complaints. Only 2,168, or 0.17 per cent, progressed to the Executive Complaints Unit, and 112 were upheld or partly upheld. Of 793 subsequent complaints submitted to Ofcom, only six were selected for further investigation.
5. Longitudinal complaints could not be properly considered
The BBC and Ofcom ordinarily required editorial complaints to concern a single item or a closely linked series. The submission argued that this excluded evidence of cumulative bias across programmes and extended periods, even where systematic monitoring was the only reliable way to establish an editorial pattern.
6. Complaints reporting was fragmented and inconsistent
News-watch identified discrepancies between figures published by the BBC and Ofcom. Differences in the treatment of complaints, cases, online material, World Service output and matters outside Ofcom’s remit were not explained sufficiently for the published totals to be reconciled.
7. Ofcom had not supplied an effective external appeal
Ofcom was introduced as the BBC’s external regulator in 2017, partly to provide greater independence in complaints handling. The submission concluded that its low level of investigation and its restrictive approach to appeals had not provided the independent scrutiny originally anticipated.
Patterns cannot always be found in a single programme
An individual broadcast may appear defensible when considered in isolation. A significant editorial imbalance can instead emerge through repeated decisions about contributors, subjects, framing and the prominence given to competing arguments across months or years of output.
News-watch argued that systematic longitudinal monitoring was therefore essential to assessing whether the BBC had represented the range and weight of opinion on major contested subjects. Its methodology combined quantitative measurement with transcription and qualitative analysis, allowing patterns to be tested against the underlying programme content.
The existing complaints framework did not provide an effective route for submitting evidence of this kind. By restricting complaints primarily to individual items, the system excluded the form of research most capable of identifying cumulative editorial tendencies.
DCMS requested greater detail
The supplementary response addressed a series of questions raised by DCMS after receiving the original submission. These focused on how greater transparency would improve the complaints system, whether the benefits would justify the resources required and how the BBC’s governance structure could implement the proposed changes.
News-watch proposed that future BBC annual reports should include complaints case studies, independent analysis of the principal issues raised, clear figures for accuracy and impartiality cases, and details of the action taken when editorial standards had been breached. It also called for the BBC to publish information about its impartiality training and commission a continuing programme of independent academic monitoring.
The response developed the proposed complaints structure in greater detail. It recommended replacing the repetitive Stage 1a and 1b process with an initial complaint, an internal appeal and a final appeal to an independent tribunal chaired by a legally qualified figure. It also argued that published ECU decisions should include both the complaint and the full reasoning behind the determination.
Independent judgement and transparent reporting
The submission called for the BBC First complaints framework to be substantially reformed, with genuine independence introduced into the determination of editorial complaints. It proposed a new right of appeal to an independent tribunal rather than leaving the BBC and Ofcom as the only bodies able to determine the outcome.
It also recommended effective deadlines for resolving complaints, clearer publication of rejected as well as upheld cases, and a standardised reporting structure shared by the BBC and Ofcom. Published data should identify the subject of complaints, the relevant editorial standard, the reason for rejection and whether the material fell outside Ofcom’s remit.
More independent figures should be involved throughout the BBC’s editorial and governance structures, rather than confined to a small number of advisory appointments. External reviews should use transparent methodology and take account of properly constituted longitudinal research.
The submission’s central argument was that public confidence could not be restored through additional internal assurances alone. Impartiality had to be assessed through procedures whose independence, evidence and reasoning could be examined from outside the Corporation.