BBC unveils a plan to maintain the impartiality of its content

The BBC will appoint external investigators to assess the impartiality of its coverage of contentious topics, The Guardian reported. Tim Davie, the corporation’s Director General, announced that the company’s entire output – including children’s programming, documentaries and educational material – will in the future be constantly analyzed for any impartiality breaches as part of a series of rolling external investigations.

Programme makers in all areas of the BBC’s output, not just the news division, will be required to show they are representing a broad range of ideologies and voices in their content. According to the company, the new impartiality assessment process would challenge “underlying assumptions and groupthink” in the organization, echoing comments made earlier this month by the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, who told the BBC to stop being so liberal and London-centric.

Each impartiality review will have an externally appointed chair and will seek evidence from the public and interested organisations on how the BBC covers a particular contentious national topic, giving lobby groups an opportunity to formally attempt to influence the broadcaster’s editorial line.

"The BBC's editorial values of impartiality, accuracy and trust are the foundation of our relationship with audiences in the UK and around the world. Our audiences deserve and expect programmes and content which earn their trust every day, and we must meet the highest standards and hold ourselves accountable in everything we do,”   Tim Davie commented.