The former Newsnight presenter highlighted the role of Sir Robbie Gibb, who previously worked as Theresa May’s communications director and helped found the right-wing GB News channel. Last year he was appointed to the BBC board by Boris Johnson’s government and has since influenced a series of ongoing reviews of the broadcaster’s editorial output. Maitlis also raised concerns about the BBC’s relationship with the Conservative government, saying the broadcaster was doing everything it could to “pacify” Downing Street after criticizing Dominic Cummings for flouting lockdown rules during the pandemic. The presenter said company bosses panicked when Maitlis told Newsnight viewers in 2020 that Johnson’s former aide had “broken the rules” and “the country can see that and is shocked the government can’t”. Maitlis said the program initially “went through with some pleasantries from BBC editors and frankly little else”. He added: “It wasn’t until the next morning that the wheels fell off. A complaint phone call was made from Downing Street to BBC News. This, for context, is not unusual. “What was not anticipated was the speed with which the BBC sought to appease the complainant. Within hours, there was a very public apology, the program was accused of failing to be fair, the recording disappeared from iPlayer and there were paparazzi outside my front door. “Why did the BBC immediately and publicly seek to confirm the government spokesman’s view? Without any kind of legal process? Doesn’t it make sense for an organization that is admirably, famously strict about procedure – unless perhaps it was sending a message of reassurance directly to the government itself? “Put this in the context of the BBC board, where another active Conservative party operative – a former Downing Street doctor and former adviser to BBC rival GB News – now sits, acting as an arbiter of BBC impartiality.” Maitlis, who left the BBC earlier this year to do a podcast for commercial broadcaster LBC, made the comments during the MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. Reflecting on her time at the BBC, Maitlis said the company often slipped into a “both sides” approach to impartiality that gave a platform to people who didn’t deserve airtime. He recalled how during the 2016 EU referendum the BBC would create a false equivalence by putting a pro-Brexit economist on air to debate an anti-Brexit economist, even though the vast majority of economists thought Brexit was a bad idea. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Acknowledging her own mistakes while seeking to achieve impartiality, she also said attacks on the media can force journalists to “censor our own interviews to avoid backlash”. Maitlis warned that traditional media are increasingly afraid to stand up for themselves in an era where “facts are lost, constitutional rules are broken, claims often go unchallenged.” He said that “sections of both the BBC and pro-government newspapers seem to go into an automatic crouch position whenever the issue of Brexit looms large.” Despite queues at the UK border and mounting financial issues, such outlets are still reluctant to discuss the impact of Brexit “in case they are branded pessimistic, anti-populist or worse, as above: unpatriotic”. He added: “And yet every day we skirt these issues with glaring omissions looks like a conspiracy against the British people. we drive the audience further away. Why should our viewers, our listeners, come to interpret and explain what is going on when they see our own reluctance to do so?’ With her new podcast with former BBC North America editor Jon Sopel, The News Agents, due out next week, Maitlis warned that while journalists don’t need to be activists, they should avoid they are “complaining, complicit spectators.” And he concluded: “Our job is to understand what we see and predict the next move. It’s time, in other words, the frog should jump out of the boiling water and call all his friends to warn them. But by then we’re so far down the path of passivity, we’re cooked.”
