Samira Ahmed: It was also interesting this week seeing you and other BBC journalists on TV directly answering viewer questions about Brexit. What was the thinking behind that?
Nick Robinson: I think the thinking was that wherever you go around, if you do my sort of job, if you do the job of senior editors at the BBC, people will stop you on the street and say "We don't really understand this". And actually this particular set of items came from a conversation I had in a shop. I was buying a cheap plug in Maplin, when it was about to close down, and a guy came up to me and said, "Nick, why haven't we left? I don't really understand it". And I found myself explaining to him and enjoying the process of saying to him, "Look, you're not hearing this on air? Are we not explaining this to you on air?" And he said to me, "You know what? You've been clearer in this conversation than anything I think I've seen". So I then went to the 10 O'Clock News and said, "How's about I make this conversation as a piece?" And it seems to me every so often we need to correct ourselves and say, we are in too deep, we know too much detail, pull back and try to explain it in a way that people will follow more easily.
Samira Ahmed: With all these questions, some viewers feel that the BBC has focused too much on the potential problems and pitfalls, and that can seem anti-Brexit.
Nick Robinson: Well, there are certainly people who say that, why do you follow this forecast, or that warning, or that projection, aren't you being sort of anti-Brexit as a result? The answer to that is, that is our job. It is our job to report on the warnings made by authorities, whether it is the IMF or the Bank of England, the warning that comes from the biggest companies in the land, for example Jaguar-Land Rover, again, something I put to the Prime Minister and other people this week. It is our job to warn about it. Clearly, in the process, we have to also say to people there is a difference between a worry, a concern, a forecast, and a fact. Forecasts are not facts. That's not what they are. But I think to say that we ought to be positive about Brexit, to say we should be cheerleaders for Brexit, to say we should be patriotic, which sometimes people do, is to misunderstand the role of a journalist. It is not the role of a journalist to be on one team or another. We don't wear the scarf. We don't sing the songs. It is our job to report on the match, to do it fairly and, if you hear things you don't like, I am afraid that is the nature of BBC journalism. You are going to hear people you don't like saying things you don't agree with.
Samira Ahmed: The political pressure for another referendum is getting more and more airtime. Can you see why some viewers feel it is effectively supporting it?
Nick Robinson: No, I can't see that at all. I think that is again to misunderstand how reporting on something is advocating something. If we report there are calls for a second referendum it is not the BBC taking a position on whether there should or should not be another vote of the public. It is reporting. That's what reporting is. The truth is there is now a highly organised campaign for what they call a people's vote. There is evidence in the opinion polls of it picking up some support. There are some prominent politicians, Justine Greening for example, the former education secretary, coming out in support of it. It is our job to report it. It is not our job to say that because it might offend people who don't want a second referendum, or who voted Leave, or who see this as undermining democracy, we mustn't report it. What we ought to do is while reporting calls for a second referendum, also report on the objections to it.
Samira Ahmed: Nick Robinson, thank you.
