3 days ago
BBC bosses draw up plans to win trust of Reform UK voters
Minutes from a meeting of the broadcaster's editorial guidelines and standards committee from March show that BBC News CEO Deborah Turness gave a presentation in which she discussed plans to alter "story selection" and "other types of output, such as drama" to win the trust of Reform voters.
The minutes, which were reported by The Byline Times, also show the committee identified "the importance of local BBC teams" to their plan to win over supporters of Nigel Farage.
There is reportedly a belief that the coporation's news and drama output is creating "low trust issues" with Farage backers.
The minutes states: "The CEO, News and Current Affairs provided the Committee with a presentation on plans to address low trust issues with Reform voters.
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"The committee discussed the presentation. Committee members recognised the importance of local BBC teams in the plan, given their closeness to audiences.
"Directors discussed how story selection and other types of output, such as drama, also had a role to play. An update on progress would return to a future meeting."
The committee includes former GB News executive Robbie Gibb, who is also a former director of communications at Number 10 and an outspoken Brexiteer.
Gibb was appointed to the board by former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2021.
He was identified by former BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis in 2022 as an 'active agent of the Conservative party'.
Farage has repeatedly used his own GB News platform to attack the BBC, calling it a 'political actor' and threatening to boycott the corporation.
In language also used by the BBC Editorial Committee, the Reform leader suggested that BBC editors were using 'story selection' in order to target his party.
In an incident last year, Farage refused to appear on the BBC until the broadcaster apologised for allowing members of the public to ask him questions during a special episode of Question Time.
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Byline Times said BBC staffers it spoke to are concerned about the plan to win over Reform voters, due to the risk of increasing allegations of bias.
The BBC has previously been criticised by some viewers for heavily featuring Reform UK politicians on its programmes, despite the party only having a handful of MPs.
In July last year, sociology professor Tom Mills – author of The BBC: The Myth of a Public Service – claimed the BBC were giving such a platform to Farage because they are such a big part of a 'political establishment which has drifted to the right'.
'I think the simple answer to why they [the BBC] like Nigel Farage is they are much more comfortable with an anti-establishment figure on the right than the left. It's as simple as that," he said.
'He's on their political spectrum and the political spectrum for the BBC runs from the centrists out to Nigel Farage.
'They still see those guys [like Farage] as being rogue figures of the establishment, but they are just given legitimacy by the fact that there's lots of voices they [the BBC] see to be legitimate in these media organisations which speak from a similar sort of perspective.'
The BBC has been approached for comment.
