Complaint
A viewer complained that Newsnight’s Political Editor displayed bias towards the Prime Minister in the course of an interview with him, particularly in that he “spoke as if it had been reported that [the Prime Minister] had survived party-gate and, as a consequence, he was safe in his job because the war in Ukraine had been a convenient distractionâ€. The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ’s editorial standards of impartiality.
Outcome
If the Political Editor had stated as fact that the Prime Minister was now “safe in his jobâ€, issues of impartiality (to say nothing of accuracy) might well have been raised. The ECU noted, however, that the phrasing complained of formed part of a question to the Prime Minister the sharp point of which was “What does it say about your premiership that it takes the most serious war in Europe since the Second World War for you to escape?â€. As the complaint arose from phrasing intended not as a statement of fact but as the premise of an appropriately challenging question, the ECU judged that no issue of impartiality in fact arose.
Not upheld