On Being "Unbiased"
On 28/2/98, Andrew Wakefield published a (now retracted) study in The Lancet, supposedly linking the cause of autism to MMR vaccines through a disease in the gut. Unlike most researchers, the first thing he did was call a press meeting. Through his position in the medical field, and his newfound immediate proximity with the press, Mr. Wakefield was able to immediately present his new findings as reasonable concerns. And everything from articles in the Daily Mail to full blown Channel 4 and BBC News segments were concocted on the topic. Interestingly, whilst the Daily Mail and its ilk can immediately adopt a position in support of the study, the radio/tele news broadcasts in the UK are required to be unbiased by law.
So instead, they ask Wakefield and posit a few questions to him, but, incapable of saying that he's wrong, of really saying anything about him, present him as a legitimate side of a two sided discussion. Immediately normalising his perspective. Clips from that early 2000's/ late 90's era are often still circulated today in order to propagate the modern anti vax movement.
This panic lead to a decline in vaccination rates in the UK, US & Ireland, and a subsequent increase in deaths from Measles and Mumps.
"The Centre" is often morally irresponsible in retrospect.
The fundamental problem with being unbiased is the assumption that both sides are acting in good faith. Whilst noble on its face, this assumption makes you easy to manipulate and lie to. A scam becomes a reasonable concern, a grifter must be heard out.
Any contrarian becomes worth their weight in gold
Brexit was the case in point for this. Emily Maitlis, who worked as the host of BBC Newsnight from 2018 to 2021, said that "it might take our producers five minutes to find sixty economists who feared Brexit, and five hours to find a sole economic voice who espoused it. But by the time we went on air, we simply had one of each! We presented this unequal effort, to our audience, as if it was balance. It wasn’t." In other words:
To present both sides equally is often to misrepresent one.
The British press has followed this pattern continuously, on panels about climate change:1, trans rights2 (back when pro trans people existed in the British press circuit) , disability rights3 and the like. Constantly platforming an anti intellectual contrarian as one of two, equally valid sides, does nothing but unwittingly legitimise psuedo intellectual grifters to the detriment of the outlets credibility and the wellbeing of the public.