The BBC lacked objectivity in its election coverage, Labour MP Douglas Alexander said today.

Speaking on a panel at the Value of Journalism Conference, Alexander, who was Labour's election co-ordinator, said the BBC had changed its tack from previous election coverage by using its experts as fact-checkers. Their role, he suggested, was solely to point out what they saw as lies or loopholes in Labour policy.

"In past elections the health correspondents took a look at all three parties health policies. I think it was a disappointment that during various points of the campaign it wasn't going to use its correspondents to do a bulletin looking at the main policies," said Alexander.

An unplanned move away from daily press conferences had an impact on this, a combined result of the new focus of the TV debates and less media interest in policy debates, he said.

Fellow panellist and BBC chief political correspondent Laura Kuennsberg defended the broadcaster’s coverage, suggesting that fact-checking radio programmes were balanced with a use of the BBC Radio 4 Reality Check show format on TV and online to look objectively at each of the party's main policies. This and other objective information, such as an election timeline and information on voter registration, were some of the BBC News website's most popular items during the election, she said.

The corporation had expected to attend three party press conferences a day, but said each party did not follow this structure, despite initial conferences from the Liberal Democrats, she said. This was partly down to the preparation time given over to the TV debates and partly because focusing on party policies had to be balanced with questions of where future public cuts would come, she said.

Full Journalism.co.uk coverage of the Value of Journalism Conference at this link.

Tags: Click tag to find related articles; click icon for feed

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).

Related articles