Sky News and the BBC played recent Reform press conference for an hour uninterrupted
The BBC and Sky News have been criticised for giving Reform’s press conference almost an hour of uninterrupted airtime on Monday.
The broadcaster covered Reform’s announcement on axing indefinite leave to remain for almost an hour, only occasionally cutting back to the studio when Reform’s live feed was interrupted.
Campaign group Best for Britain posted on X: “For 56 minutes Sky and BBC interrupted all else and carried a Reform UK feed live, uninterrupted, unchallenged. The stream spluttered, froze, pixelated – dozens of times – still they stuck with it. FOR ONE HOUR.
“This is an editorial choice. No other party gets this coverage.”
Another X user wrote: “Hi @Ofcom I realise you’re very busy letting British media become the propaganda arm of the far right but can you explain how Sky News played an hour straight of Nigel Farage telling lies unchallenged today?”.
Reform’s plan to scrap indefinite leave to remain and force people to re-apply for visas every five years has been widely condemned.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has been critical of the BBC’s coverage of Reform.
On Sunday, Davey told LBC: “I think the BBC needs to do a lot better job exposing [Farage] for the snake oil salesman that he is. Sometimes I look at the BBC website and it’s almost as if they’ve taken a Reform press release and copied and pasted it.”
In response, the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason suggested in an interview with Davey at party conference that he was using “Trumpian tactics” and peddling “straightforwardly a falsehood”.
A recent study into the impartiality of political news, found that Reform, a party with 5 MPs, featured in 25% of the BBC’s news bulletin. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems, who have 72 MPs, appear in a fifth of bulletins (17.9%).
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward doesn’t have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.
