The BBC has been roundly criticised after it became the latest to needlessly stick its neck out in defence of Dominic Cummings.
The broadcasting house said that an introduction to Newsnight “did not meet our standards of due impartiality” after Emily Maitlis called the PM’s aide out for breaking the rules.
She pointed out that the rest of the country could see that and it is “shocked the Government cannot” in a bid to hold the non-elected official to account.
But the Beeb didn’t see it that way, bowing pressure from the government and letting their esteemed presenter down very badly, James O’Brien said.
There was a wealth of criticism elsewhere today.
Metro’s deputy news editor Joel Taylor said “I love the BBC in almost every way but boy it can be self-defeating”, while Politics.co.uk editor Ian Dunt chose a more direct appraisal:
“The utterly spinelessness of the BBC really is extraordinary sometimes. Maitlis deserves better treatment. But so do the public. If it won’t allow reporters to speak accurately, it cannot inform them. And no amount of Wii Tennis false equivalence balance will compensate for that.”
Guardian writer Hannah Jane Parkinson pointed out that she doesn’t recall Andrew Neil, John Humphrys or Jeremy Paxman ever being yanked from the air after Maitlis sat out the show last night.
TLE contributor James Melville also reminded the BBC:
“If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out of the window and find out which is true.”
Related: In the end, you get what you voted for
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