BBC ‘fairness and balance’ won’t woo the young to vote

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/24/eu-referendum-bbc-coverage-balance-apathy

Version 0 of 1.

Phew! “So far we’ve stayed out of trouble,” said one of my BBC friends the other day. He meant that neither side on the Brexit trail had yet blamed our beloved corporation four-square for some gross presentational infringement or bias blunder. Keeping out of trouble seemed the height of his ambition.

But talk to people – especially young people – and trouble comes running. The great enemy, you’ll soon gather, is apathy. At a moment when voting on your future has never been so important, millions may stay in bed. And, of course, that’s supposedly the campaigners’ fault: too cautious, negative, non-inspirational.

But the next time you reach for a remote, put our old chums Fairness and Balance into the scales. For every Gove, there must be an Osborne. For every Dave, a Nigel or Boris. For every Obama, a Marine Le Pen. Early morning starts on Today? The answer’s a Liam, no charge ever knowingly under-answered. And it’s excruciatingly tedious because (a) you never get a clear case delivered without interruption; (b) Nick, John, Justin and co are always ritually sceptical towards whoever they’re interviewing, so that everyone sounds querulous or shifty; and (c) F and B is in any case a self-cancelling routine.

True fairness and balance might factor in the unbalanced power of Project Calm Rationality. It could even extend to supplying a little background about those “experts” it fields. (Has the ubiquitous Daniel Hannan, for instance, ever negotiated a trade deal, as opposed to writing leaders for the Telegraph?) And why pretend that the accumulated weight of the IMF, OECD, Bank of England, White House, NFU, TUC, CBI and IFS can somehow be wiped away when Chris Grayling demands his rebuttal moment?

Fairness – a pretty dodgy concept anyway when you try to refine it – includes context and transparency, not merely he-says-she-says. But, then, it also needs to be balanced against a quiet life.