The BNP on the BBC

Thursday night's Question Time on BBC1 hosted a major event, a controversial discussion with a controversial politician, leader of the British National Party's Nick Griffin. For me it was such an interesting occasion to get a deep insight of a hot topic like this; my "aspiring journalist spirit" was ready and went out to look for a television, as it sadly lacks here at home.
Various protests took place in front of BBC in London that day, for many thought it was not admissible to let him take part in the show. As BBC pointed out (and i share those words), however, it is not the media task to silence and censor. If BNP is suitable enough to be voted by citizens, why would it not be suitable for political debate on TV?
Griffin is known to be a racist, a pure-white fascist craving for a white Britain, where all the "non-British" would be gently kicked out of the country. Most protesters reckoned these elements to be enough to prevent him from taking part to the programme; personally, I believe they confused the journalists job with the government job. BNP, for as much controversial and absurd as it may look, is a proper party (in theory) like all the others, accepted and regulated by the law and suitable for elections.
This party's proclaims and beliefs do not influence the aim of the media, which is that of providing balanced information. It is a fact that BNP has 2 seats in the European Parliament, gained with 900.000 votes; Question Time focuses on political debates, Griffin has a voice (politically speaking), so it is perfectly fair to host him on the TV show.
Others said that by direct confrontation on serious matters, Griffin would have just shown what lied behind the facade and the slogans (clearly not much), and this is basically what really happened. His performance was poor, far from coherent and insecure; he wouldn't answer questions properly and, in short, wasn't talking much. A few times he was not given the time to speak and explain, but in any case, he did not struggle at all to have the chance to answer when they didn't let him.

Memorable: "I changed my mind, I don't know why and I can't say how"...pretty confused, eh?!

With all probability, such a performance didn't persuade any new voter to slide to the BNP side; wheter it was right or wrong to host the event, the protesters outside the BBC studios should find a few minutes to think about what democracy is about. They might get to a slightly different conclusion.