Forum for former BBC staff

Forum for former BBC staff
http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> Shocking!! Is this the end for unbiased reporting? http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1580750530 Message started by JohnW on Feb 3^rd, 2020, 5:23pm

Title: Shocking!! Is this the end for unbiased reporting?
Post by JohnW on Feb 3^rd, 2020, 5:23pm

I quote the Huffington Post here, perhaps because it has published this before other News outlets have the opportunity??
Will it make the 1800, I wonder?

Journalists have walked out of a planned Downing Street briefing in protest at “Trump-style” attempts by the PM’s communications chief to restrict it to selected media outlets.
The incident happened after No.10 invited political journalists to a “technical briefing” on Boris Johnson’s plans for a trade deal with the EU.
The briefing was set to be conducted by the PM’s lead Brexit negotiator David Frost in Downing Street itself. Paid for by the taxpayer, he is obliged to behave in a neutral manner.
But when political editors from other newspapers and websites arrived with their colleagues, they were split up by a security guard into two groups in the foyer of No.10, directly behind its famous black door.
Those on No.10’s favoured list were told to stand one side of a carpet, while everyone else – including HuffPost UK – was told to stand the other side and then ordered to leave.
Following objections from the journalists, communications director Lee Cain then arrived to declare: “Those invited to the briefing can stay – everyone else, I’m afraid, will have to leave.”
When asked directly what grounds he had for selectively briefing to some political editors and not others, Cain said: “We’re welcome to brief whoever we like, whenever we like.”

Among those who refused the briefing and walked out were the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, ITV’s Robert Peston and political journalists from Sky News, the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Financial Times and Guardian.