Fiona Bruce broke accuracy rules over election on Question Time

Fiona Bruce broke accuracy rules over election on Question Time

February 7, 2023

Fiona Bruce broke accuracy rules over general election ‘show of hands’ on Question Time

  • BBC admitted ‘summary’ of audience opinion ‘fell short of accuracy standards’
  • She said ‘almost all’ of audience wanted to go to polls but half did not raise hands
  • Read: Question Time crowd cheers for audience member slamming Prince Harry 

Fiona Bruce was found to have broken BBC rules after she inaccurately claimed that a Question Time audience wanted an immediate general election.

After investigating a complaint about the episode which aired in October, the corporation admitted her ‘summary’ of audience opinion ‘fell short of the BBC’s standards of accuracy’.

She had said ‘almost all’ of the audience wanted to go to the polls, but BBC analysis showed about half had not raised their hands in favour of this.

The corporation is said to have acknowledged that Ms Bruce’s summary of the show of hands had been ‘mistaken’, having ‘only had a few seconds to quickly scan the audience’.

It added: ‘Ms Bruce’s summary fell short of the BBC’s standards of accuracy’ and ‘this aspect of the complaint was upheld’.

The BBC have found that Fiona Bruce’s ‘summary’ of audience opinion ‘fell short of the BBC’s standards of accuracy’

A finding by the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said ‘this aspect of the complaint was upheld’.

On the programme Ms Bruce, 58, had asked for an audience show of hands on whether there should be an immediate general election.

She then went on to summarise the result as ‘that’s almost all of you…not quite all of you but almost..’.

This sparked a complaint from a viewer and said it had been inaccurate and had ‘skewed the subsequent debate’.

The finding said the ‘subsequent discussion’ had ‘included a range of views’ on the subject, which meant the output had been ‘duly impartial’.

For this reason the complaint was ‘partly upheld’ and the finding was reported to the BBC News board and discussed ‘with the journalists responsible’.

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