The latest Kuenssberg Kontroversy – can her supporters get her out of THIS one?
The BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, who has come under considerable criticism for pro-Tory, anti-Jeremy-Corbyn reporting.
Commentators on Laura Kuenssberg’s latest failure – this time, her misrepresentation of Jeremy Corbyn’s views on armed police – seem too keen to deal with the matter in isolation. Have they forgotten that the BBC’s errant political editor has a history of having to be lifted out of trouble by other people?
Who can forget the 38 Degrees petition, calling on the BBC to address Ms Kuenssberg’s apparent anti-Labour, pro-Tory bias? It was taken down after Kuenssberg supporters claimed it was being signed by sexist trolls, but research later showed that this was a lie – only one comment out of many hundreds could, in fact, have been taken as sexist. Just one.
I commented at the time that the accusations seemed to be a classic ‘diversion’ tactic, intended to take attention away from Ms Kuenssberg’s misreporting of Jeremy Corbyn’s cabinet reshuffle of January 2016, and focus it on a false accusation against her critics.
And Change.org put up a new petition (which is still running, it appears), making reasonable and legitimate points about her reporting.
And then there’s the so-called ‘hissy fit’ thrown by the media and Kuenssberg supporters including Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, after Ms Kuenssberg received a hostile reception when she tried to ask Mr Corbyn a question after he gave a speech in the run-up to the EU referendum last June.
She was initially prevented from speaking by a wave of hissing that erupted spontaneously around the hall, and Mr Corbyn had to ask for her to be allowed to speak.
This gave the mainstream media all the incentive they needed to report on Ms Kuenssberg’s reception, rather than the speech itself – and for Tom Watson to make a ridiculous protest against this spontaneous, direct and heartfelt response to the BBC political editor’s journalistic bias.
I passed comment on that as well.
Now the BBC’s own Editorial Standards Committee has upheld a complaint about an interview with Mr Corbyn (always Mr Corbyn, isn’t it?) – and sent the draft decision to the complainant. But this has since been withdrawn after (it seems) BBC News complained about it.
So, again, Ms Kuenssberg staggers on, with the aid of heavyweight supporters.
Meanwhile the BBC’s commitment to impartial reporting lies in tatters and it faces regular attack on the grounds that it is a mouthpiece for the Conservative Party.
How long will this farcical situation be allowed to continue?
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Goes to show that “It’s not what you know, but who you know”. In a company not funded by tax payers (everyone pays tax of one form or another) who have to pay a fee to fund the bbc, she would have been fired for being “bad for business”.
Let’s hope it continues until a majority come to the same conclusion as the USSR in the post war cold war era.
The mainstream media are never to be trusted.
The likes of yourself, beastrabban, Tom at AAV, Johnnyvoid, Kerry Anne at Scriptonite and her new venture The Canary and other independents who have helped and supported your blog have been invaluable over the last 6 years.
Long may you all continue
Thank you!
And I thought things might look up after getting shot of Nick Robinson. This bitch is an embarassment to Glasgow. I’ll reword that. She’s an embarassment to journalism and it makes me wonder who votes for Journalist of the Year.
As a journalist, I wonder the same thing!
Unfair to take a pop at Nick Robinson, he has openly questioned the BBCs stance towards Corbyn. He is a known Tory, but I think this doesn’t show in his reporting.
My comment about Nick Robinson had nothing to do with his attitude to Corbyn. I was merely indicating the similarity between Kuenssberg’s use of omission/misplacement of question to answer to that of Robinson’s omission/lie when reporting on a talk with Alex Salmond during the Scottish Referendum. He used the same tactic for bias against the Yes side as Kuenssberg did against Corbyn.
The BBC should be renamed the Biased Broadcasting Corporation because it seems to take a stance and never veer from its position with the news and current affairs programmes these days, no matter how much evidence there is that it is wrong.