Complaint
A viewer raised concerns about coverage of speeches by political leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, complaining that the use of a split-screen made it more difficult to understand what the Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu was saying, and other leaders had been treated differently.
The ECU considered whether it met the standards for due impartiality set out in the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines.
Outcome
The News Channel makes extensive use of split screening as it widens the information available to viewers at any one time. Having reviewed the output from the channel that day the ECU did not encounter any difficulty, however, in comprehending Mr Netanyahu’s speech. Nor did it find evidence that the choice not to split the screen the previous day, when another leader was speaking, was editorially motivated, beyond the availability of relevant live material on that occasion.
Not Upheld