<\/p>
Emily Maitlis has reflected on her time as the host of Newsnight and suggested journalists have yet to \u2018catch up\u2019 with a wave of populist politics, in a wide-ranging speech following her departure from the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n Maitlis made the comments during the 2022 MacTaggart Lecture which she delivered at this year\u2019s Edinburgh TV Festival. In the lecture, she said that journalists were falling prey to \u2018both-sidesism\u2019 in the effort to provide balance in news reporting.<\/p>\n Incidents she recounted included the introductory speech she gave to an episode of Newsnight on 26th May, in which she said that \u201cthe country can see\u201d that Dominic Cummings had broken lockdown rules. The BBC said that the monologue did not meet their standards for impartiality, something Maitlis disputed.<\/p>\n Maitlis also referred to her interview with Robert De Niro during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that he \u201cwanted to rage about President Trump\u2019s mishandling of the pandemic\u201d and she was left wondering whether the interview would breach the BBC\u2019s impartiality rules. She recalled telling her output editor, \u201cWe can\u2019t possibly put this out. It\u2019s too anti-Trump\u201d, but was now glad that the interview was aired.<\/p> She used these examples to demonstrate her thesis that journalists \u201care primed to back down, even apologise, to prove how journalistically fair we are being\u201d and that this can be \u201cexploited by those crying \u2018bias\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Maitlis said: \u201cThis is often a precursor to the rejection of legitimate checks and balances. We should ask why they\u2019re so afraid of scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n She added that her statement was \u201cnot a critique of left or right, Conservative versus Labour, Democrat versus Republican\u201d and said \u201cnone of this has anything to do with policy\u201d.<\/p>\n She argued that this is \u201cwhy populist parties can shape shift between the right and left, attract voters of traditional parties or none. It\u2019s not an ideology. It is a means to achieve and retain power.\u201d<\/p>\n Maitlis\u2019 speech comes as she is about to launch her own podcast The News Agents on the Global Player with Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall.<\/p>\n The broadcaster announced her resignation from the BBC in February, following a 20-year stint at the broadcaster. Her time at Newnight included multiple notable moments, including her 2019 interview with Prince Andrew<\/a>.<\/p>\n Looking for something to watch? Visit our TV Guide<\/a> to see what\u2019s on tonight.<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest issue of Radio Times is on sale now \u2013 subscribe now<\/a> to get each issue delivered to your door. For more from the biggest stars in TV, l<\/strong>isten to the Radio Times podcast<\/a> with Jane Garvey.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By James Hibbs Published: Wednesday, 24 August 2022 at 12:00 am Emily Maitlis has reflected on her time as the host of Newsnight and suggested journalists have yet to \u2018catch up\u2019 with a wave of populist politics, in a wide-ranging speech following her departure from the BBC. Maitlis made the comments during the 2022 MacTaggart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":20813,"template":"","categories":[5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/08\/emily-maitlis-reflects-on-newsnight-career-and-impartiality-in-impassioned-speech-scaled.jpg",2560,1683,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/08\/emily-maitlis-reflects-on-newsnight-career-and-impartiality-in-impassioned-speech-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/08\/emily-maitlis-reflects-on-newsnight-career-and-impartiality-in-impassioned-speech-300x197.jpg",300,197,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/08\/emily-maitlis-reflects-on-newsnight-career-and-impartiality-in-impassioned-speech-768x505.jpg",768,505,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/08\/emily-maitlis-reflects-on-newsnight-career-and-impartiality-in-impassioned-speech-1024x673.jpg",800,526,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/08\/emily-maitlis-reflects-on-newsnight-career-and-impartiality-in-impassioned-speech-1536x1010.jpg",1536,1010,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/08\/emily-maitlis-reflects-on-newsnight-career-and-impartiality-in-impassioned-speech-2048x1346.jpg",2048,1346,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By James Hibbs Published: Wednesday, 24 August 2022 at 12:00 am Emily Maitlis has reflected on her time as the host of Newsnight and suggested journalists have yet to \u2018catch up\u2019 with a wave of populist politics, in a wide-ranging speech following her departure from the BBC. Maitlis made the comments during the 2022 MacTaggart…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/20812"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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