BBC R4 ‘Today’ impartiality fail in item on Polish Holocaust bill

BBC Radio 4 listeners hear that 'hundreds of thousands died' in Nazi camps in Poland.

h/t GB

The February 2nd edition of the BBC Radio 4 news and current affairs programme ‘Today‘ included an item (from 02:33:57 here) about the controversial ‘Holocaust complicity’ bill that is currently making its way through the Polish political system.

Listeners may well have been astounded to hear presenter Nick Robinson’s portrayal of the number of people who lost their lives in Nazi camps located in Poland in his introduction. [emphasis in bold added, emphasis in italics in the original]

Robinson: “Hundreds of thousands died during the Holocaust in Polish death camps. I could be imprisoned in Poland for simply uttering those words if a law voted for in the Polish senate is enacted into law. Poland’s prime minister says it’s to lift a slur on his people and his country and to put the blame where it really belongs: on the Nazis. Israel’s prime minister has warned Poles not to try to change history. We’re joined now by Wojciech Roszkowski. He is professor of history at the institute of political studies at the Polish Academy of Science and also by Konstanty Gebert who is a columnist with Gazeta Wyborcza.”

As regular readers are aware, the BBC’s editorial guidelines on impartiality state:

“We should not automatically assume that contributors from other organisations (such as academics, journalists, researchers and representatives of charities) are unbiased and we may need to make it clear to the audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint, if it is not apparent from their contribution or from the context in which their contribution is made.”

The bill that is the subject matter of this item is being advanced by Poland’s ruling ‘Law & Justice’ party (PiS). Listeners should therefore have been informed that the person they heard defending it  – who was twice described by Nick Robinson only as a “professor of history” – is not just an academic: for five years he was (as the BBC itself reported in 2007) a member of the European Parliament (MEP) on behalf of the political party that is currently promoting the controversial legislation.  

Related Articles:

BBC ignores its own previous reporting in coverage of Polish bill

 

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