Laura Kuenssberg left viewers angry after her reporting of Gary Lineker’s impartiality row (Picture: PA)
People are not happy with how Laura Kuenssberg has reported on the whole Gary Lineker situation.
Lineker, 62, has been at the centre of a media storm this week after he was asked to step back from hosting Match Of The Day ‘until an agreement is reached on his social media use’.
The controversial decision from the BBC came after the football pundit compared the UK government’s language around migrants to the language used in 1930s Germany, on his personal Twitter account.
Naturally, the whole thing has been all anyone has been reporting on, including the BBC itself, but journalist Kuenssberg didn’t seem to quite get the impartiality memo.
While discussing the saga on her show this weekend, the 46-year-old actually read out anti-Lineker messages, causing viewers to brand her reporting ‘extraordinarily biased’.
‘Surely the more important question is why any licence payers’ funding goes towards such an enormous salary for Gary Lineker? Maybe it would be good to let him go’, one email read.
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Another said in a similar vein, a view named Jim, who calls himself The White Van Man, said: ‘Me and my boys would do his job for 10% of the fee and we’d keep our thoughts to ourselves.’
‘There you go, it’s always great to hear from you,’ Kuenssberg said with a smile before her Sunday programme concluded.
Reacting to the segment online, one Twitter user said they are ‘sick to my back teeth hearing about the supposed BBC impartiality.’
Tagging the UK’s independent communications regulator, another tweeted: ‘Hey @Ofcom this is an extraordinarily biased ending to a politically impartial program!’
Another branded it ‘shocking’, while one even told Kuenssberg to ‘resign’, calling her behaviour ‘disgraceful’.
Lineker was asked to step back from Match Of The Day after tweeting criticism of the government’s immigration policy (Picture: Getty)
Kuenssberg has come under fire in the past for failing to be ‘unbiased’ (Picture: BBC)
‘Wow. Just wow. LK should be ashamed of herself. BBC certainly not ready to admit they made a mistake’, one viewer penned.
‘But Kuenssberg will never get sanctioned. Because her bias is in the right direction’, another suggested.
This isn’t the first time Kuenssberg has received calls to be investigated for failing to be impartial.
In 2022, viewers demanded that she and fellow BBC presenter Fiona Bruce were also investigated after backlash to another BBC News presenter who said she was ‘gleeful’ that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson had dropped out of the Tory leadership race.
They accused the two broadcasters of being unable to conceal their own biases on-screen.
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As for the BBC’s guidelines, they make it clear that employees are prohibited from expressing any bias on a matter.
Section 4.1 of their editorial guidelines states: ‘The term “due” means that the impartiality must be adequate and appropriate to the output, taking account of the subject and nature of the content, the likely audience expectation and any signposting that may influence that expectation.’
The BBC has been contacted for comment.
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Viewers said she should be ‘ashamed’.