BBC CONTINUES ‘PROJECT FEAR’: How is the BBC going to report Brexit? The early signs are not good. News-watch, via its sister BBC Complaints website, has been inundated with submissions – many more than during the referendum campaign itself – that the Corporation is treating the Brexit vote as an aberration and a disaster. One exasperated viewer of BBC1’s news …
Referendum Blog: June 22
COX BIAS: The lead posting on News-watch about Nigel Farage demonstrates that since the murder of Jo Cox, much BBC coverage has emphasised that those who are opposed to the EU because of related immigration pressures are fired by ‘hatred’. It has become a ‘dog-whistle’ word. In the BBC1 debate from Wembley last night, London Mayor Sadiq Khan amplified this …
Referendum Blog: June 20
HUMPHRYS PRO-IMMIGRATION BIAS: John Humphrys on Saturday presented a 27-minute Today feature on immigration. It was unusually long and amounted to a documentary inside the Today format. What was the purpose? Humphrys opined that the topic was causing a debate of a kind that he had never seen in his 50-year career. He said he wanted to explore whether concern …
Referendum Blog: June 15
EASTON BIAS: At what point does a BBC ‘editor’ such as Laura Kuenssberg (Politics) or Mark Easton (‘Home’) cross the line between offering expert opinion and expressing their own political prejudice? Easton certainly strained that line on his report on the impact of views about immigration on referendum voting intentions in an item for BBC1’s News at Ten last night …
Referendum Blog: June 14
BERLIN BIAS:BC Radio 1 decided to visit Germany in its Newsbeat bulletin yesterday evening. The referendum vote is now fast approaching…and the need for balance, it would be thought, would demand a variety of opinions would be included. Wrong. It was what could best be described as a deluge of pro-Remain propaganda. Reporter Greg Dawson first set the scene by …
Referendum Blog: June 12
MORE ANTI-FARAGE BIAS: An earlier blog noted that the coverage by BBC1’s News at Ten of remarks made by Chancellor George Osborne in his high-profile interview by Andrew Neil, was sharply skewed to the ‘remain case’, and, indeed, that the editing out of Neil’s questions made his comments into what amounted to a party political broadcast. The earlier blog also …
Referendum Blog: June 11
DID BBC FAVOUR ‘REMAIN’ IN VOTER REGISTRATION PUSH? The specially-extended deadline to register to vote in the EU referendum passed on Thursday night. According to the BBC, an extra 430,000 voters registered, approximately half of whom were under 35. The official registration site crashed on Tuesday not long before midnight under pressure of sheer volume as the actual pre-set deadline …
Referendum Blog: June 10
PRO-OSBORNE, ANTI-FARAGE BIAS: Two successive days, two key studio events in which the respective sides in the referendum debate put their respective arguments. One was George Osborne’s appearance (Wednesday) with Andrew Neil and the other, the ITV programme on Tuesday evening in which a studio audience put questions to Nigel Farage and David Cameron. BBC1’s News at Ten covered both …
Referendum Blog: June 8
MORE BIAS BY OMISSION: The respected Pew Research Centre in the US released today a survey based on more than 10,500 responses in 10 of the main EU countries. At its heart were some very strong findings that suggest that in many vital respects, support for the EU is sharply declining. Britain is far from alone in its concerns about …
Referendum Blog: June 8
MERTHYR TYDFIL BIAS: On this morning’s Today programme, BBC reporter Sima Kotecha visited Merthyr Tydfil. There were three features. In the first, she spoke to three locals whom she said were undecided, ‘leave’ and remain’ in the referendum debate. The first, Val Williams said she was undecided because the two sides were not making convincing arguments. And were ‘just scaremongering’ …