If you see it, report it

Last week I posted a version of a complaint I sent to the BBC about their outrageously one-sided coverage of Welsh government proposals to ban smoking outside hospitals. I haven't had a reply from the Beeb yet, but Simon Clark reports that some progress has been made.

Six days after publishing their news report, the BBC has added a quote from FOREST opposing the idea of banning smoking shelters and has extended the accompanying propaganda video to include the same quote.

It has also added a screenshot from Facebook in a half-hearted attempt to show that views differ on this controversial issue.

Since nearly everyone who will ever read this story had already done so by the time it had some balance injected into it, this isn't much of a victory, but hopefully it will remind BBC journalists to make an effort to at least pretend to be impartial in the future. We can only dream.

So, the lesson is: if you see it, report.

Read Taking Liberties for the full story.

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