Samira Ahmed was impressed with today's The World This Weekend:
It met her criteria for responsible broadcasting by featuring only 'responsible' guests - namely, (a) an immigration lawyer, (b) a Democrat congresswoman, (c) an Iraqi activist, (d) a former Labour foreign secretary and (e) a Conservative MP, all of whom are opposed to President Trump's executive order on refugees/immigration.
No 'irresponsible' defenders of the Trump order were given airtime - a situation the Newswatch presenter appears comfortable with, however one-sided the resultant coverage might be.
In fact, this edition of TWTW has been typical of most of what I've seen and heard on the BBC over the past day.
Last night's PM on Radio 4 was just as 'responsible' in its 'guest choices', featuring three interviews in a row about President Trump's executive order on immigration - one with an Iraqi politician, one with an American Muslims campaigner, one with a British MP - all of them appalled by the presidential order. Again, there were no 'irresponsible' balancing voices to be heard.
On Radio 4's Broadcasting House's paper review, a similar uniformity of view prevailed. Oddly, the earlier debate between a Guardian and an Independent journalist provoked the most disagreement on any of these programmes.
Watching this morning's The Andrew Marr Show, every guest who expressed an opinion on the subject also expressed the same view. They too were all appalled by the order.
On BBC Breakfast and the BBC News Channel early this morning, it's was also wall-to-wall critics of the order (often highly vehement ones) - from interviewees to press reviewers.
Only The Sunday Politics broke Samira's Law and invited on an 'irresponsible' Trump defender, Nigel Farage (someone Samira believes is on the BBC far too much anyhow. As she repeatedly writes on Twitter, she thinks he shouldn't be 'normalised').
The BBC is clearly as relaxed as Samira Ahmed about the narrowing of debate on this issue to merely various shades of one particular viewpoint (with very limited and controlled exceptions).
Only The Sunday Politics broke Samira's Law and invited on an 'irresponsible' Trump defender, Nigel Farage (someone Samira believes is on the BBC far too much anyhow. As she repeatedly writes on Twitter, she thinks he shouldn't be 'normalised').
The BBC is clearly as relaxed as Samira Ahmed about the narrowing of debate on this issue to merely various shades of one particular viewpoint (with very limited and controlled exceptions).
