Guido Fawkes has 'done a DB' (internet slang, 'to catch out a BBC reporter/editor's bias by monitoring their Tweets').
The BBC editor he's caught out is Jasmine Lawrence, a BBC News Channel assistant editor whose Linkedin profile boasts "I have impeccable editorial judgment (sic)."
According to Mr F, her Twitter feed apparently "largely consists of retweets of Labour MPs and left-wing journalists" and...
Today she has been sharing her thoughts on UKIP, joining those using the anti-UKIP parody #WhyImVotingUKIP hashtag to attack the party:
#WhyImVotingUkip – to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views, totally under represented in politics today—Jasmine Lawrence (@journomummy) May 21, 2014
Guido makes the obvious point:
The BBC’s Charter requires its journalists to be impartial, something you would have thought they might be particularly careful about at election time. For such a senior BBC journalist to openly broadcast an attack on a political party the day before an election is inappropriate to put it mildly…
Guido is yet to update his post with the breaking news that Jasmine Lawrence's Twitter account has disappeared. She has left Twitter.
Whether she leaped or whether she was pushed by the BBC is hard to know, but if I were her I'd have left Twitter pretty sharpish too.
What will her bosses at the BBC do though?
Update 22/5:
What will her bosses at the BBC do though?
Update 22/5:
BBC Gags Anti-UKIP News Editor After Media Guido Story » BBC bans her from tweeting and Euro-election reporting. #Winning ++ MORE FOLLOWS ++
— Media Guido (@MediaGuido) May 21, 2014
What was the point of suspending Lawrence for a couple of days, just until after the election results come in? On Tuesday morning she'll be back at work, and are we really supposed to believe that her obvious hatred for UKIP and UKIP sympathisers will not colour her decisions as BBC News Channel editor?
ReplyDeletehttp://semipartisansam.com/2014/05/23/at-long-last-will-the-bbc-take-editorial-bias-seriously/
Are we really supposed to believe that the editorial decisions that Lawrence makes (and has made since taking on the role) will be fair and impartial?