Lineker free to ignore new BBC neutrality rules
STARS including Gary Lineker and Chris Packham will not be bound by new rules on BBC impartiality.
Tim Davie, the corporation’s new director-general, told staff this week: ‘If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media then that is a valid choice... but you should not be working at the BBC.’
However, his planned crackdown will apply only to staff working in news and current affairs, with those in other departments reassured yesterday that they will be exempt.
The new rules on the use of Twitter and other social media will also be difficult to apply to those who work for the BBC on a freelance basis.
These include Match of the Day host Lineker, who frequently pontificates on issues such as Brexit and migration. He has previously boasted that he can ‘tweet what he likes’.
When one social media user suggested he should be concerned about Mr Davie’s warnings over impartiality, the former footballer succinctly replied: ‘Nah.’
A BBC spokesman said yesterday: ‘[Lineker] is not involved in any news or political output for the BBC and, as such, any expression of his personal political views does not affect the BBC’s impartiality.’
Springwatch presenter Packham is also set to escape any censure for his use of social media.
In 2016, a complaint by the
Countryside Alliance about Packham’s desription of those involved in hunting and shooting as ‘the nasty brigade’ was dismissed by the BBC Trust.
It said he ‘was a freelancer and did not count as staff or a regular BBC presenter or reporter, nor was he working in news or current affairs, and thus was not bound by strict rules against expressing opinions on public policy issues’.
Countryside Alliance chief executive Tim Bonner said exempting stars from the new BBC rules ‘will undermine the reform agenda Tim Davie has laid out before it has even started’.
He told The Daily Telegraph: ‘The commitment that the new director-general has given is utterly worthless if it only applies to some presenters [while] the most high-profile stars... are immune from any changes.
‘If this is about the reputation of the BBC and BBC impartiality it has to cover all of those figures who represent the BBC in public, whatever they are talking about and whether they are employed on a contract or not.’
Corporation insiders insist the new rules will have ‘ripples across the BBC’ beyond its news journalists. One source said: ‘We do not want people to get involved in political debates.’