BBC Staff Discourse one Twitter around the BBC’s Impartiality Rules

The next speakers in this Future of Journalism 2023 conference session are María Luengo and Teresa Gil-López, whose interest is in the BBC’s breaches of its impartiality rules. Examples for such breaches were a presenter’s criticism of PM advisor Dominic Cummings for his breaches of lockdown rules; a presenter’s glee over the news roundup; and the well-publicised case of sports presenter Gary Lineker’s criticism of the UK’s inhumane treatment of refugees.

This presentation explores the analytical distinction between regulative and constitutive news rules, and uses social network theory to explain actors’ opportunities and constraints; together, they mean that some news presenters are more likely to get away with breaches of impartiality rules than others. The focus here is especially on Twitter, where criticism of the BBC’s latest impartiality rules was especially pronounced, and which serves as a platform for both traditional patterns of reporting and more disruptive change. What impartiality narratives do BBC journalists construct on Twitter, then – emphasising regulative aspects related to the current rules, or highlighting constitutive aspects relating to the fundamental norms of journalism? How do they position themselves within the network provided by Twitter – does a central network position enable them to better challenge the rules?

The project constructed a network of some 325 BBC accounts on Twitter, and gathered their (limited number of) posts about impartiality; the network is well-connected with some central nodes. Discourses were not affected by new impartiality rules, and often sought to defend other journalists from accusations of partisanship; they also engaged in some more general discussion of impartiality in journalism and at the BBC. Actor centrality did not play a role in how they spoke about the issue, but determined to some extent who spoke about it. Messages often appeared in clusters.

There is some emergence of a constitutive idea of impartiality, then, and central actors are more likely to speak up about impartiality.