Robert Peston: They pulled my report on indie referendum – over fear of Salmond
BROADCASTER Robert Peston has accused the BBC of pulling a news report on independence because bosses feared it might upset Alex Salmond, who was then the First Minister.
Peston, the BBC’s Economics Editor in 2014 when the independence referendum was held, claimed his report on the vote’s economic implications was ditched minutes before it was due to be broadcast.
Speaking at the 2020 Hugh Cudlipp journalism lecture, Peston said: ‘A couple of days before the referendum, and just ten minutes before going to air on the ten o’clock news, a piece I had made on the economic implications of Scottish independence was pulled, on the orders of the Corporation’s most senior executives, who feared the ire of Alex Salmond.’ Peston, 59, said ‘those who run the BBC’ had a ‘sheer terror’ of ‘prompting a political backlash’. Consequently, he said, the Corporation was now afraid to ‘stick its neck out and give a view’.
He added: ‘The least edifying aspect of the incident is that assorted bosses subsequently rang me to distance themselves from the decision, just in case it leaked and became a cause celebre.’ Peston, now the Political Editor for ITV News and the host of his own weekly political show, said he had ‘watched with disappointment’ the BBC’s coverage of the Brexit referendum, which he said had ‘confused balance with due impartiality’.
The reporter, who spent nine years with the BBC before moving to ITV, also claimed that Jeremy Corbyn had refused to be interviewed by him during last year’s General Election campaign because of concerns about his reporting.
Peston said Seumas Milne, Mr Corbyn’s director of communications, had accused him of ‘slanted editorialising’ when it came to coverage of Labour and anti-Semitism.
A Labour spokesman said: ‘Concerns were raised about Peston’s unbalanced and slanted reporting across a range of topics, including Brexit and economic issues.’