John Simpson: "We let our viewers and listeners down"

Here's a post from early this morning, 'bumped up' to the top of the blog as it's a particularly striking example of BBC thinking:

And here's yet another senior BBC figure calling for the BBC to behave differently during electoral campaigns such as the EU referendum vote...

The BBC's world editor John Simpson, speaking at the One Young World summit, told the Huffington Post:

The BBC is obliged legally to be balanced between different political ideas and different political viewpoints. That enabled all sorts of people, on both sides, to lie their heads off about what would happen, what might happen, if we left or if we didn't leave the EU. 

So I would say if people looked to television and radio for a clear guidance about what to do, well, we certainly didn't give them clear enough guidance about the lies that were being told. 

I suspect that if people had known the facts and had judged in a more balanced way the outcome would have been a bit different, yes. 

We let our viewers and listeners down.

To paraphrase, Mr Simpson is saying that the BBC could have changed the result of the referendum (i.e. brought about a Remain win) if it had been more active in giving "clear guidance" to its viewers and listeners, and that the BBC should have given them such "clear guidance".

So says the BBC's world editor, sounding for all the world like an embittered Remain campaigner.


Update: You may have heard it here first (or nearly first), but now the Express is onto it.