BBC reply to my complaint re Brown love-in

On the day of Gordon Brown's address to Labour Party loyalists in the East End of London, I filed a complaint on the BBC's complaints website.

My main concern was the length of air time given over to this love-in with the Prime Minister - 1 hour of uninterrupted speech AND supine Q&A session. I believe that whilst it is undoubtedly newsworthy to broadcast the speech of a Prime Minister in trouble, to stick with the event throughout the ridiculously sycophantic Q&A session was appalling.

The BBC response to my complaint appears below:

Thanks for your e-mail regarding the BBC News Channel on the 7 June.

We understand you felt our coverage of Gordon Brown's speech to Labour activists was biased in favour of the Labour Party.

The pressure on Gordon Brown has been intense and mounting this week and so to hear from the man at the centre of the story was clearly a journalistic necessity.

As a live event on the News Channel it would have been irresponsible not to take it up in full. That said, it was clear that this was an orchestrated event with only "loyal" activists and politicians allowed to be there.

However this was a point that we emphasised in our introduction to the event, during the event itself and in our analysis afterwards, including in our later packages. Our correspondents spoke of "loyal, supportive, sympathetic" people in the audience. Some went further, talking of a carefully stage-managed event and even a "parallel universe" where everything in the Prime Minister's world was rosy.

Furthermore, while the event was ongoing, one of the on-screen captions read:

BROWN UNDER PRESSURE

PM appears before supportive audience in London

So the Prime Minister's meeting was an essential part of the main story of the day. But we recognised - and made very clear to the audience - that this was an event carefully managed and orchestrated by Labour.

Our obligation is to provide impartial coverage and we do that through providing consistent news judgments and offering critical analysis. In this case we would have taken entirely the same approach regardless of which party was in power or had it been an opposition leader whose leadership was under intense scrutiny in the same circumstances.

We'd like to assure you that we've registered your comments on our audience log. This is the internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily for all programme makers and commissioning executives within the BBC, and also their senior management. It ensures that your points, and all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your concerns.

Regards

BBC Complaints