By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor
Sir Michael Lyons the ex-chair of the BBC Trust has said: “There have been some quite extraordinary attacks on the elected leader of the Labour party.”
The Labour leader has had a tough time from the a large section of the media and Lyons pondered whether BBC big-wigs had abandoned their impartiality of their coverage of Corbyn.
This statement appears to back-up the arguments that corbyn supporters have complained about for some time. He said he can: “understand why people are worried” about impartiality at the BBC.
Lyons also said the Charter Renewal process had “certainly led to very real suspicions that ministers want to get much closer to the BBC”.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4 he said: “I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that the BBC has sought to hedge its bets of late. There have been some quite extraordinary attacks on the elected leader of the Labour Party.
“I mean quite extraordinary. I can understand why people are worried about whether some of the most senior editorial voices at the BBC have lost their impartiality in this.”
“All I’m voicing is the anxieties that have been expressed publicly by others,” he continued.
The BBC has come under intense scrutiny for its perceived lack of impartiality and a campaign was launched to oust the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg, but it was retracted after it became full of hateful and sexist abuse.
Tony Hall, the BBC’s director general, also speaking to Radio 4, called Sir Michael’s claim “extraordinary”.
He said: “That’s not the journalism I know or the journalists in this organisation I know. “I think the journalism of the BBC is impartial. We test all sides. The journalists in the BBC do a really hard job in the midst of controversy bringing a light and calm judgements to what’s going on.”
