Complaints about bias of the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg
Dear Office of Communications,
Could you please provide information on:
1. The number of complaints received about bias or unbalanced reporting from the BBC between August 2015 and August 2016.
2. The number of complaints about bias specifically in the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg's reporting.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Yours faithfully,
Miss Y Georgieva
Dear Miss Georgieva
Ofcom ref: 00348225, Freedom of Information: Right to know request
Thank you for your e-mail of 8 October 2016 in which you requested:
o “The number of complaints received about bias or unbalanced reporting
from the BBC between August 2015 and August 2016”; and
o “The number of complaints about bias specifically in the BBC's
political editor Laura Kuenssberg's reporting”.
We have considered your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
For your information, Ofcom’s Broadcast and On Demand Bulletin, published
every fortnight on our website, includes decisions about the complaints we
have received as well as a summary of the complaint. Issues of the
Bulletin are available via the following link to our website:
[1]https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/lat...
As you may be aware, complaints about bias on BBC services funded by the
licence fee fall outside Ofcom’s current remit and we do not therefore
assess such complaints. However they are logged on our complaints
database.
We log complaints on this database by category of the complaint issue
(with reference to the rules in our codes). There is no specific category
(or rule) used exclusively to identify the individual subject of a
complaint, such as Laura Kuenssberg.
For the first part of your request, we have searched for all complaints
relating to BBC services logged for the 12 month period between 1 August
2015 and 31 July 2016, under the categories “Due accuracy”, “Due
impartiality/bias” or “Elections/Referendums” (which would capture
complaints relating to bias). There were 597 complaints.
For your second request, 14 complaints specifically referred to Laura
Kuenssberg in the description field of the complaint.
These complaints were reported as outside our remit in the section of the
Bulletins titled “Complaints outside of remit” from Bulletins 285 to 311.
I hope this information is of assistance. If you have any queries then
please contact [2][Ofcom request email]. Please remember to
quote the reference number above in any future communications.
Yours sincerely
:: Alistair Hall
[3][Ofcom request email]
:: Ofcom
Riverside House
2a Southwark Bridge Road
London
SE1 9HA
020 7981 3000
[4]www.ofcom.org.uk
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