Complaint
A viewer complained about the presenter鈥檚 reference to the Daily Mirror as a 鈥渓eft-leaning paper鈥, arguing it was evidence of political bias when no reference was made to the political perspective of other newspapers featured. 聽The ECU assessed the complaint against the standards of due impartiality set out in the 大象传媒 Editorial Guidelines.
Outcome
This was a brief reference to the political leanings of the newspaper in a review of the morning鈥檚 headlines. 聽The ECU accepted聽 it might have been better to refrain from commenting on the leaning of this one paper, but against that the guidelines make clear that impartiality is resistant to precise quantification, and cannot be measured by a stopwatch or a count of words. 聽If the impartiality of the segment were to be judged on that basis, an argument could be made on the basis that more time was given to the Mirror鈥檚 editorial position than to other front pages. 聽Moreover, in the ECU鈥檚 view nothing was said which might have caused viewers to consider that the newspaper should be dismissed as being 鈥渁typical and so irrelevant鈥 as suggested by the complainant, particularly given its strong criticisms of Boris Johnson were explored at length. 聽In that connection, the presenter characterisation of the Mirror鈥檚 political orientation helped contextualise the tone of its headline and drew a contrast with other newspapers.
Not Upheld