Emily Maitlis is wrong about Cummings reprimand, says BBC chairman

Image source, PA Media

BBC Chairman Richard Sharp says ex-News presenter ight, Emily Maitlis, was totally wrong" to suggest that the rebuke she received for her on-air remarks about Dominic Cummings made "no sense". The BBC's decision against her was made "without any form of due process".

She added that it may have been a 'message of comfort' to the government, which the company denied.

Sharp said she was "a great journalist" but had puts opinions before facts.

In 2020, the BBC said Maitlis breached its impartiality guidelines when she opened an episode of Newsnight saying Dominic Cummings, then chief adviser to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, had 'broken the rules' with a lockdown trip to Durham and 'the country can see this, and it's shocked the government can't not".

While giving her MacTag gart speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival last month, Maitli s suggested that growing political pressure has led the media to censor itself.

Emily Maitlis says the BBC's rebuke made no sense during a session of the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, of Media and Sport in the House of Commons on Tuesday on the modern media landscape, Mr Sharp, who became chairman of the BBC in February 2021, said: 'While I think the questions she raised were helpful and very good, she was completely wrong to say that due process [regarding Cummings' comments] was not being followed...