When TV news journalists on both sides of the Atlantic report on comments from Donald Trump or one of his allies about how the 2020 presidential election was rigged or stolen, it’s become standard for them to add: “But these claims are false and baseless. The 2020 election was not rigged and Joe Biden won it fair and square. Mr Trump has provided no evidence to dispute this.” They do that on the basis, as the adage goes, that it’s not the job of journalists to provide balance between one person who says it’s raining and another person who says it’s dry – their job is instead to stick their heads out of the window, discover the truth, and report it.
That can’t be a selective principle, though – it can’t only apply to the comfort zone of Donald Trump as an international bogeyman. It has to apply fearlessly to every other politician, regardless of political persuasion or status, who says things that objectively simply do not stand up. Which brings me to the formulation that the BBC have used for an extremely long time, and used again on the day of the Supreme Court ruling, about the positions of different parties on the holding of an independence referendum: “The SNP say that the result of the 2021 Scottish Parliament election gives them a mandate to hold a second referendum in October 2023, while the Conservatives say that the result of the 2014 referendum should be respected.” These two positions are presented as direct opposites – which implicitly endorses the Tory nonsense that if you want a second referendum, you’re not respecting the result of the first.
What the BBC should be saying, of course, is: “The Conservatives say that the result of the 2014 result should be ‘respected’. However, the result of that referendum has indeed been respected by all sides, and the SNP have made clear that they will continue to respect it. There is no suggestion from any significant part of the Yes movement that independence can be declared without a fresh referendum or equivalent democratic event. The Conservatives have provided no evidence to dispute this.”
So how about it, BBC? Or do you see your role as to provide balance between truth and lies?
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