James Harding points to four examples of how the BBC challenged politicians to justify his claim that the broadcaster did a good job during the referendum campaign (“A truly balanced view from the BBC: don’t blame us for Brexit”, Comment). There were, indeed, some cases in its thousands of hours of coverage when journalists grilled their interviewees effectively, but there were many times when they didn’t.

I paid special attention to its agenda-setting Today programme in the early period of the campaign and noted many cases of inadequate challenge. For example, it let Andrea Leadsom say falsely that we send £350m a week to the European Union on 8 March and Gisela Stuart say the same on 15 April. During that interview, the Vote Leave chair also promised to use the money for the NHS. As late as 11 May, Today allowed Boris Johnson to say we are sending the EU £20bn a year.

Other failures included letting interviewees spread the myth that the European Union needs us more than we need them. Chris Grayling said this on 10 March, without being adequately challenged, as did John Redwood on 22 March. Meanwhile, on 24 March, David Davis was allowed to get away with saying we can’t stop killers with EU passports coming to the UK when we can.

These examples could be dismissed as anecdotal. Given how the BBC dominates our news coverage, there should be an independent audit of how it fared during the referendum, backed up by recommendations of how to do better in future.

Hugo Dixon

Chairman and editor-in-chief, InFacts

London

The BBC is valued for taking its duty of impartiality between opinions seriously. It does not have a duty of impartiality between facts and lies; indeed, it has a duty to expose clear falsehoods.

The core of the BBC’s Brexit referendum failing was that it allowed itself to be taken for a ride in allowing the £350m a week lie to be presented as a matter of opinion and given credence by continuous repetition.

James Harding points out that Evan Davis challenged that lie but the BBC’s duty with respect to a transparent falsehood is to state that it is false each time it is repeated.

Colin Garwood

Berkhamsted

James Harding’s view of the Brexit debate didn’t reflect mine or that of my friends. We all thought too many times journalists rarely challenged lies and constantly brought on opposing opinion from less credible sources just for the sake of balance. No wonder people were confused.

To balance a credible source, why does the BBC still roll out people such as Nigel Lawson (who have no up-to-date expertise and a proved history of inaccurate anti-climate change evidence)? As for experts, they are no longer credible, it seems; they were openly disregarded by Michael Gove, a position rarely ridiculed by BBC.

Challenging speakers requires background research and it looks as if the BBC can no longer afford this.

CM Retallack

Tywardreath, Cornwall



For the moment, let’s accept that James Harding’s defence of the referendum coverage is valid: a balance between the Leave and Remain proponents. But what he has failed to recognise was the focus of the coverage (a failure of the majority of the media). Alan Johnson was supposed to lead the Labour campaign to stay in the EU, but not once did I see or hear of this reported by the BBC, nor was I aware of coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s meetings around the country.

Why? Because the BBC became fixated on the so-called blue on blue contest between David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Perhaps the anodyne Cameron versus the tomfoolery of Johnson was perceived more interesting than other more serious debate.

George Hudson

Worcester