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BBC reporter Laura Kuenssberg misrepresented Jeremy Corbyn’s views on police shootto-kill to make him seem soft on terrorism, the broadcaster’s regulator said yesterday.
The political editor’s News at Six report three days after the bloody co-ordinated attacks, which left 130 dead, breached impartiality and accuracy rules, the BBC Trust’s editorial standards committee ruled.
Her report showed a clip of Mr Corbyn saying: “I am not happy with a shoot-to-kill policy in general. I think that is quite dangerous and I think can often be counterproductive.”
It was presented as the answer to Ms Kuenssberg’s question on whether he would be “happy for British officers to pull the trigger in the event of a Paris-style attack.”
Ms Kuenssberg proceeded to quip: “[the Prime Minister’s] message and the Labour leader’s couldn’t be more different.”
In an unaired part of the interview, Mr Corbyn said it was “essential” to have armed officers patrolling the streets to combat terrorists.
The trust concluded that Mr Corbyn’s statements had been taken out of context. It agreed with the complainant that accuracy was particularly important when dealing “with a critical question at a time of extreme national concern.”
The complainant is not named, but it is neither Mr Corbyn nor “anyone on his behalf,” the committee said. The complaint was rejected four times before the final ruling.
Then-Tory prime minister David Cameron was about to publish his own anti-terrorism proposals.
The trust found that the inaccuracy of Mr Corbyn’s answer was “compounded” by this fact. But the committee claimed that it found no evidence of bias.
BBC News put the entire clip online to make it “clear to anyone who chose to watch it” what the context was, it mused.
BBC News director James Harding rejected the ruling, claiming Ms Kuenssberg has “utmost integrity and professionalism.”
He said: “BBC News reported on the leader of the opposition in the same way it would any other politician.”
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