BBC journalists have been told that it is “not racist” to “air concerns” about immigration as a review investigates the corporation’s coverage.
The independent report – ordered by the BBC board – found that coverage of migration contains “risks to impartiality”.
It also revealed that its own journalists were “anxious” about tackling topics that “could appear hostile to migrants”.
Policy specialist Madeleine Sumption carried out the review and spoke to more than 100 people inside and outside of the company.
The report concluded that although the corporation provides “a lot of excellent content on migration” there are “risks to impartiality that point in multiple directions”, despite there being “no consistent bias towards one point of view”.
The frequent problem identified was that the BBC “often tells migration stories through a narrow political lens, reporting what high-profile people are saying without really getting under the skin of the issue”.
It added that “the perspectives and voices of migrants themselves are often missing entirely from BBC reporting”.
Sumption wrote that migrant voices would not make reporting biased and said “BBC coverage should have equal empathy for migrants and UK residents who worry about the impacts of migration”.
More to follow…
Source Agencies
