Public Service Broadcasting and Security Issues: The Case of ‘Blowback’

Abstract

Lynch argues that British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) journalism has been in serial dereliction of its duty, as set out in public service requirements, in its reporting of a prominent and important recurrent news story: incidents of terrorism, with particular reference to those claimed by or attributed to Islamist groups; and debates over how the UK and other affected countries should respond to them. In such cases, BBC journalism tends to display the influence of familiar reporting conventions, but this puts it at odds with the obligations to accuracy and impartiality in its own Editorial Guidelines, obligations that the statutory regulator, the Office of Communications, is now charged with upholding. Lynch also compares selected issues in the coverage of such stories with equivalent issues in the regulation of news provided by the public broadcaster in Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which performs a closely analogous role to that of its British antecedent.