The definition and logic of impartiality was debated by CNN‘s Christiane Amanpour and CEO of BBC News Deborah Turness at the 2024 Sir Harry Summit.
Following on from a comment Amanpour had made about Trump supporters being pulled into dangerous echo chambers, Turness asked her how to engage with a Trump-voting audience without isolating oneself.
Turness said: “If we corner ourselves, those audiences won’t come to us, they won’t receive our impartiality or our pursuit of truth.”
Amanpour responded: “I have a problem with the word impartial because I don’t really know what it means, is it neutral or objective?”
Turness defined impartiality as: “Fairness and respect for audiences.”
But Amanpour explained: “What if World War Two was about to explode – would we say we’re impartial to the Nazis’ desire to overrun the world?
“No, we are not impartial, and we should not be, we should be objective and truthful.”
Amanpour said earlier: “I’ve never subscribed to this idea that truth is subjective, because it’s empirical, evidentiary, and factual.”
On the other hand, Turness argued that due to subscription culture and the power of algorithms, people create their own echo chambers. When they “come up for air”, she argued, they meet impartial news and feel that it is an attack on their values.
They were joined by founder of Bellingcat Eliot Higgins and co-founder of Newsguard Steven Brill. The panel discussion entitled ‘How Do We Know What’s True?’ was moderated by Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy.
Higgins expanded on the echo chamber debate: “It’s not just about what the media can do, but what we can do as a society…
“We must look at the state of education in the UK around media literacy.
“We need to go a lot further, we need to show them how to find the truth and most importantly, why that truth matters.”
Brill mentioned how trustworthy media organisations have had their logos “hijacked” by those spreading disinformation, with Tiktok videos spreading fake news using BBC logos.
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