14-03-2023, 12:40 AM
Surely part of the problem relating to sports presenters and impartiality comes from how there seems to be a growing crossover between BBC news and sports coverage - I'm thinking of the likes of Ros Atkins appearing before the World Cup opening game, Dan Roan appearing on the World Cup draw coverage or BBC Rome correspondent Mark Lowen appearing on the Euro 2020 preview show.
Obviously this has gone the other way as well for much longer with people like Jonathan Agnew or John Murray appearing on (mostly the radio) news as Cricket/football correspondent, TV sports news bulletins being clearly branded as BBC Sport and so on.
And that's not even mentioning Dan Walker who walked the line between the two.
With sport being so politicised generally, as seen with the bans on Russian players, the human rights criticism of Qatar and the wrangling over sportspeople taking the knee it would seem reasonable to have the same level of impartiality for TV sports presenters as news presenters. Obviously this past weekend has shown the BBC don't have any idea how to implement it.
Obviously this has gone the other way as well for much longer with people like Jonathan Agnew or John Murray appearing on (mostly the radio) news as Cricket/football correspondent, TV sports news bulletins being clearly branded as BBC Sport and so on.
And that's not even mentioning Dan Walker who walked the line between the two.
With sport being so politicised generally, as seen with the bans on Russian players, the human rights criticism of Qatar and the wrangling over sportspeople taking the knee it would seem reasonable to have the same level of impartiality for TV sports presenters as news presenters. Obviously this past weekend has shown the BBC don't have any idea how to implement it.