Emily Maitlis monologue on Dominic Cummings was ‘more like newspaper op-ed,’ BBC boss says

‘The language with which the intro was phrased ... I felt basically belonged more on the op-ed page in a newspaper than it did as the intro to an impartial broadcast programme’

Emily Maitlis’ Newsnight introduction about Dominic Cummings’ lockdown trip “belonged more on the op-ed page in a newspaper”, the BBC’s head of news has said.

Fran Unsworth said the presenter’s opening monologue breached the broadcaster’s impartiality rules by claiming the entire nation was “shocked” that the government could not see the prime minister’s senior adviser had “broken the rules” during lockdown.

She pointed to a Reuters study which found 30 per cent of the public did not believe Mr Cummings had done anything wrong by driving 260 miles from London to Durham during the lockdown’s most stringent measures in March.

She told a Royal Television Society event: “Just because the majority of opinion is on side, and I absolutely accept they were, and that, as I say, was evidenced by the programme, it was the language with which the intro was phrased, which I felt basically belonged more on the op-ed page in a newspaper than it did as the intro to an impartial broadcast programme.”

Ms Unsworth also disagreed with Ms Maitlis’ assertion that Mr Cummings only survived being sacked because of the prime minister’s “blind loyalty”, saying: “I don’t think we can attribute motivation in that way.”

The day after it aired on BBC Two, the BBC released a statement saying the episode did not meet its standards of due impartiality and that staff had been “reminded of the guidelines”.

Ms Unsworth said she had a “a robust discussion” with the Newsnight team following the incident.

Asked why she stepped in, she said: “Because I was acting on what I believed was the case, that it went further than the editorial guidelines allowed us to do.

“I felt, why would I wait for somebody else to make a judgment which I had already made for myself.

“I didn’t need to wait for some complaints process to take its course here, if actually I felt that the introduction had gone slightly beyond what I felt was appropriate in terms of what our editorial guidelines are.”

However, she added: “I just want to say though that I think that Newsnight has had an absolutely brilliant journalistic run over this pandemic, and have really been on the stories.”

Ms Unsworth spoke hours before the BBC released a report which showed it received 23,674 complaints over the 26 May episode.

The complaints were made on the grounds that viewers felt the programme showed “bias against Dominic Cummings and/or the government”.

Additional reporting by PA