The boundaries between reporting and campaigning at the BBC are getting ever more blurred.
Earlier today I cited the BBC's Quentin Somerville (a brave reporter) reporting the plight of orphaned children of dead IS parents caught up in dangerous camps in Syria and calling our failure to give them sanctuary "a disgrace".
He's been doing his absolute best today to get three orphaned young children returned to London.
Now, he himself says that it's been "particularly hard" reporting their "traumatic testimony". And that's perfectly understandable. They are very young, their situation is awful and all the fault was with their dead parents. Rescuing children in peril is a powerful and wonderful instinct, and Quentin can't be blamed for being overwhelmed by the feeling to do so.
But it raises all manner of questions about BBC impartiality.
He's going further and further in expressing contentious opinions on the matter.
His reporting of the Shamima Begum and Jack Letts cases left me in little doubt that he was wanting them returned to the UK too, and a tweet from him this afternoon further confirms that:
The SDF repeatedly told Britain to take back the likes of Shamima Begum and Jack Letts. Instead the UK stripped them of their citizenship. It was never a sustainable policy in the long term.
Has he overstepped the bounds, impartiality-wise? And, if he has, is he right to do so?
Discuss (if you wish).
