Media should rethink coverage in wake of Brexit vote, says Justin Webb

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jul/05/media-should-rethink-coverage-in-wake-of-brexit-vote-says-justin-webb

"Webb said some people who campaigned to remain in the EU had felt let down by the media’s coverage of the debate before the the historic poll result on 23 June. “A discussion about holding people to account, a discussion about impartiality in the modern era, is one I suspect the broadcasters would rather welcome, if only to sort out their own thinking,” the BBC’s former North America editor, wrote in the Radio Times. “And it should not be a discussion left to newsrooms and editorial offices and university journalism departments: it really should matter to us all. “One of the clearest messages during the referendum campaign was that audiences were hungry for real knowledge. People wanted to go beyond claim and counter-claim so that they could work out what was true.” 

When broadcasting fairness and balance isn't fair or balanced

When broadcasting fairness and balance isn't fair or balanced - Roy Greenslade  Professor of Journalism at City University London 

Just before the referendum campaign got under way, he noted that the assistant political editor of BBC News, Norman Smith, had said that the facts on the EU were “elusive.” 

Not so, tweeted McKee at the time, “they are easy to find. It’s just that #VoteLeave have lied consistently.” 

He regarded the Smith statement as a typical example of the BBC’s “fairness bias”, an assumption that “claims cannot be objectively verified and everything is a matter of opinion.” He wrote: 

“Crucially, this approach places the views of people who, by virtue of their long years of studying an issue and familiarity with it, on a par with those who have only thought about it perhaps a few hours earlier.” 

To underline his point he quoted Aaron Sorkin, creator of the West Wing and Newsroom TV series: “If the entire House Republican caucus were to walk on to the floor one day and say ‘the Earth is flat,’ the headline in the New York Times the next day would read ‘Democrats and Republicans Can’t Agree on Shape of Earth.’” 

While conceding that it is important to hear all sides of an argument he thought viewers and listeners would be misled when one side in a debate “is simply implausible or demonstrably untrue.”