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 noting that on the Brandenburg Gate – in the tourism centre of Berlin – you could not miss the EU flag. Contributor Nicklaus stepped in to say:
The flag symbolise (sic) unity, freedom . . . freedom of rights, freedom of speech.
Dawson expanded on the theme, and noted that the flag also flew from ‘several buildings here, even the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament’. He added:
You don’t get that in Westminster.
Now it was the turn of contributor Hendrik. He declared:
The pride is not coming from seeing the flag, but more like seeing Germany as a part of Europe.
In case the listener had missed it, Dawson then chipped in to emphasise their point, and noted that they were both ‘proud Germans’ – but ‘feel strongly tied to the European Union’. Hendrik reinforced the theme. He said:
The EU encourages peace all over Europe, so that’s basically the achievement of the whole European Union. And maintain this peace.
Dawson now warmed to the peace theme. He suggested that Berlin was a city ‘with a lot of history, much of it bleak’, and pointed out that reminders of World War II were never far away. He observed:
People here think the decades of peace since then has much to do with the EU.
The next contributor reinforced that. He warned that if Britain left the EU, the stability (created by the EU) would not be guaranteed any more. To ram home his message about the need to stay, he added:
If Britain would leave, I feel like this stability would not be guaranteed any more. I think the UK at the moment is a very strong player in the European Union, if they don’t see it sometimes maybe.
Next up was Arthur, a Briton who had moved to Germany to work. He, too, seemed very unhappy about the prospect of the UK leaving the EU. He declared:
My name is Arthur, I’m from Essex in the UK, I moved out here to take a job, I basically had to fill in no paperwork, there was no risk for me, I just turned up and it’s weird to think that all of that might disappear after June 23.
Mel, from Derby, also working in Berlin, also warned about the problems of leaving:
Being in the EU it’s kind of, it’s kind of . . . it’s brought a lot of benefits more than it brings negatives I think.
Dawson then piled in with an explanation, He said:
That’s probably not very surprising to hear British people living in another EU country being so in favour of Remain. But it’s not just the expats. Germany does a huge amount of trade with the UK. That noise you can hear in the background is one of the big sellers – last year, about one in five German cars was sold in Britain, and there are worries here about what Brexit means for business.
To magnify how important those concerns were, Dawson then spoke to Markus Kerber, who, said Dawson, ran the German Federation of Industries, ‘a group of more than 100,000 German companies including BMW’. He helpfully explained – presumably to emphasise the importance of the latter company to UK trade – that BMW made the Mini, ‘a car make in the UK’. Kerber said:
Hundreds of Britons involved in producing that car regularly travel and get trained in Germany, and all that, I think, would become a little bit more difficult – and I’m not sure whether the parent company BMW would see that necessarily as an incentive to invest more in that company.
Dawson wondered whether Germany was acting in self-interest to push the ‘don’t leave’ message.
No, said Kerber:
I don’t think we’re acting in self-interest, we’re acting out of the common interest between Britain and Germany that together we cannot only shaped the European Union, but we can shape many, many other parts of the world.
Analysis
This was not a news item, but rather could have been put together as a party political broadcast on behalf of the ‘remain’ camp. Every aspect was positive towards the EU and the UK remaining within it – the framing around the EU flag, the selection of the first vox pop contributors, the observations of the Britons working in Germany and finally the warning from a nigh-level German businessman that if the UK withdrew, BMW was likely to cut back on investment in the Mini. The feature was edited to put across the core message that the EU was responsible for peace in Europe, that it brought co-operation and jobs between member countries and was the passport for industrial expansion in the wider world.
Questions the BBC must answer here are whether equivalent balancing material has been broadcast elsewhere. News-watch monitoring suggests otherwise, and – for example – Mark Mardell on the World This Weekend and World Tonight have broadcast from Berlin similarly pro-EU material.
It seems scarcely credible that with the referendum just days away, such a blatantly one-sided piece was broadcast. It would have been relatively easy to introduce contrasting opinion in this item.
An issue here is that the BBC are not transparent about how they are keeping track of bias – the Complaints website has no record of any EU-related complaints, and programmes such as ‘Feedback’ have also carried minimal material on the referendum.
Full Transcript:
BBC Radio 1, Newsbeat, 13th June 2016, EU Referendum and Germany, 5.53pm
PRESENTER: We’re off to Germany next, just ten days to go now before many of us make a massive decision about our future. So should that future be inside or out of the European Union? Our politics reporter Greg Dawson has been to Berlin, where the main message seems to be ‘please don’t go’
GREG DAWSON: We’re in Pariser Platz, one of the most touristy areas of Berlin, all the cameras here point towards the Brandenburg Gate, one of the city’s main landmarks. And here’s another thing you can’t miss:
NICKLAUS: The flag symbolise (sic) unity, freedom . . . freedom of rights, freedom of speech.
GD: The EU flag flies from several buildings here, even the Reichstag Germany’s parliament. You don’t get that in Westminster.
HENDRIK: The pride is not coming from seeing the flag, but more like seeing Germany as a part of Europe. My name is Hendrik, I’m from Düsseldorf in Germany.
N: I’m Nicklaus, I’m from Flansberg, a northern town in Germany.
GD: Nicklaus and Hendrik say they’re both proud Germans, but feel strongly tied to the European Union.
H: The EU encourages peace all over Europe, so that’s basically the achievement of the whole European Union. And maintain this peace.
GD: Berlin is a city with a lot of history, much of it bleak. The reminders of World War II are never far away, with memorials and even the shells of bombed out buildings. People here think the decades of peace since then has much to do with the EU.
If Britain would leave, I feel like this stability would not be guaranteed any more. I think the UK at the moment is a very strong player in the European Union, if they don’t see it sometimes maybe.
GD: Another thing you notice as you move around Berlin: British accents. In recent years, the city’s become home to thousands of young people who’ve left the UK to settle here.
ARTHUR: My name is Arthur, I’m from Essex in the UK, I moved out here to take a job, I basically had to fill in no paperwork, there was no risk for me, I just turned up and it’s weird to think that all of that might disappear after June 23.
MEL: Hi, I’m Mel, I’m from Derby.
GD: How long have you lived in Berlin?
MEL: About five months now. Being in the EU it’s kind of, it’s kind of . . . it’s brought a lot of benefits more than it brings negatives I think.
GD: That’s probably not very surprising to hear British people living in another EU country being so in favour of Remain. But it’s not just the expats. Germany does a huge amount of trade with the UK. That noise you can hear in the background is one of the big sellers – last year, about one in five German cars was sold in Britain, and there are worries here about what Brexit means for business.
MARKUS KERBER: Britain is our second biggest trading partner. We’re probably not closer to anyone else but, er, Britain.
GD: Markus Kerber runs the German Federation of industries, a group of more than 100,000 German companies, including BMW who own mini, a car made in the UK.
MK: Hundreds of Britons involved in producing that car regularly travel and get trained in Germany, and all that, I think, would become a little bit more difficult – and I’m not sure whether the parent company BMW would see that necessarily as an incentive to invest more in that company.
GD: Is this Germany acting in self-interest to say, ‘don’t leave’, because of the impact it might have on your economy?
MK: I don’t think we’re acting in self-interest, we’re acting out of the common interest between Britain and Germany that together we cannot only shaped the European Union, but we can shape many, many other parts of the world.
