Gary Lineker and the BBC: How a pundit raises critical questions about British media culture

Gary Lineker, the man who opened the media floodgates last March with his criticism of Tory migration policy, has described the new BBC impartiality guidelines as “very sensible.” While I could not possibly disagree – their specificity really is scrupulous – I fear this guideline change represents only a drop in the ocean for the BBC.

It seems the British media landscape is transforming, pandering to the divisiveness and “post-truthisms” of the US. Yet the BBC’s inability to face contentious issues head-on, prizing impartiality at the expense of authentic exploration of public opinion, puts the British public in danger of falling further into a media landscape marred with populism and disinformation.

An implication of this is my own consumer choices as a Politics student keen to enter the world of current affairs. Whereas the BBC’s Newscast topped my “most listened to” podcasts only a couple of years ago, today I tune in daily to Global Player’s News Agents with Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel, and Lewis Goodall. And here is where the problem lies: the sharp scrutiny of all these top journalists, who have mutinied from the BBC, is exactly the edge the BBC is missing.

Maitlis’ own words reflect this. In a lecture given to the Edinburgh TV festival in August 2022, she insisted the BBC’s absolute commitment to impartiality has led to a “myopic” style of news coverage that obscures the complexity of public opinion. Upon further inspection, this was most discernible under the BBC’s ‘stopwatch’ method of Brexit coverage. Rather than their customary ‘due impartiality’ style, which considers audience and political context, for instance, insider testimony suggests the BBC broadly allocated equal airtime to both sides of the ‘leave/remain’ debate.

In one instance, Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s former energy and environment analyst, recalls the Today programme taking steps to consistently invite equal numbers of pro- and anti-EU business leaders as guest speakers – despite the much narrower pool of Eurosceptics. Can we really say ensuring impartial news coverage includes the inflation of anti-EU sentiment in the name of striking a so-called ‘balance’ of public opinion?

Now, this is not to say I am dreaming up a kind of post-BBC utopia. In truth, as our media landscape slips further into the post-truth stratosphere, I think this vision of a solely private media is proving increasingly dangerous. I am very aware that the sanctity with which BBC coverage is viewed offsets the volatile and politically charged nature of, for instance, Murdoch-owned platforms like Talk TV and The Sun. One must only cast their mind back a few weeks to Lawrence Fox’s hideously misogynistic rant on GB News to feel appreciative of the BBC’s steadfast reportage.

Nonetheless, the BBC must work harder to assure the fee-paying public that they are not merely a media juggernaut upholding the UK’s centre-right status quo.

For instance, only a year after the appointment of Director General Tim Davie, whose self-proclaimed first priority was restoring trust in the outlet’s impartiality, the BBC quit the Stonewall’s Diversity Champions staff scheme. The BBC made clear that donations to the LGBTQ+ charity had not impacted their coverage of social issues, but they simply wanted to avoid external perception issues. Such a defection at a time when culture wars rage proves BBC impartiality is not matched by a receptiveness to the cultural climate; in recoiling at the prospect of divisive public opinion, the BBC too often lets the loudest voices go unquestioned.

And, of course, one’s mind can’t help but jump to the Richard Sharp/Boris Johnson loan-gate. How is it that a corporation’s staunchly impartial values could lead to the suspension of a pundit defending the basic rights of vulnerable peoples or the forgoing of support for the LGBTQ+ community, yet allow their chairman to subsidise the political project of a sitting Prime Minister?

Instead of exploring the ebb and flow of public opinion on matters like Brexit or LGBTQ+ political policy, which is often complex and imbalanced, the BBC shrouds a sometimes uncomfortable reality in a fiction of near-constant harmony. It is because of this that I believe radical consumption is creeping up, especially among the right-wing where trust in unconventional news sources is growing. To avoid a media landscape dominated by divisive and populist news outlets where viewers must ‘pick a side’ (think Fox News vs. CNN), the publicly owned corporation must face contentious issues head-on and place greater value on the validity of imbalanced public opinion.