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Correct. Impartiality is good, 'balance' is bad.
The problem with balance is that if something is patently wrong, balance requires you to give the same air time to fruityloops nutters as scientists.
It's not even consistently applied, if it was flat earthers would get a lot more air time.
A lot of people confuse the two: impartiality allows you to take the facts and draw a conclusion based on those facts. A genuinely impartial approach is evident in the Reuters reporting of the pandemic and it ain't flattering for the government.
The BBC's problem is they make examples of rare displays of true impartiality while being supine to the government who control their funding, while claiming to be impartial when they're not because the government controls the purse strings.
Fox-
The BBC's problem is they make examples of rare displays of true impartiality while being supine to the government who control their funding, while claiming to be impartial when they're not because the government controls the purse strings.
Lived overseas during 2015-2016. The coverage on the BBC presenting both sides (of Brexit) ‘impartially’ seemed very clearly biased towards Remain. The BBC needs increasingly resilient checks and balances, as it’s not going to get easier with increased disinformation, deep fakes, (ed: pressures from government), etc.
Adhiero
The BBC's problem is their foolish belief that impartialty could be satisfied by 'balance'.
'Balance' was ushered in to allow the politically motivated to dispute Climate Change.
Hence we had the (unqualified) Nigel Lawson being given equal airtime as climate scientists who knew what they were talking about.
The blustering Right funded by fossil fuel producers found this 'balance' to be very effective.
Pushed a little further, any criticism of Right wing policies, or continued fossil fuel use is now criticised as a 'lack of balance' or the BBC failing to be impartial.