NORTHERN IRELAND BIAS: On Friday’s Today programme (May 27), Mishal Husain presented three packages from Northern Ireland about the possible impact of Brexit. In the first she interviewed two Irish farmers – one for ‘remain’ and one for ‘out’- who worked near the Western border with Eire close to Londonderry. In the second she moved to the border itself. She …
Refrendum Blog: May 28
THE DOG THAT DIDN’T BARK? A poster published by the pressure group Operation Black Vote (OBV) showing a skinhead thug intimidating a sari-wearing immigrant – and aimed, say OBV, at encouraging ethnic turnout in the EU referendum – has been strongly attacked by the ‘leave side as divisive, negative stereotyping. But the BBC has virtually ignored the controversy over the tactics …
‘REMAIN’ FAVOURITISM IN FIRST FORMAL BBC REFERENDUM SHOW?
How Should I Vote, the BBC’s first formal programme of the referendum campaign aimed at helping voters to make their minds up, was on BBC1 on Thursday night. It was hosted from Glasgow by Victoria Derbyshire, who presents a current affairs show on BBC2 and the BBC News Channel. The key parts of the audience – all of whom were …
Referendum Blog: May 27
CURRYING EU FAVOUR?: Both Newsnight on Wednesday night and Today on Thursday morning presented what might be called pre-emptive pieces in their EU referendum coverage. ‘ Both carried items about the immigration statistics due to be published during the course of Thursday and expected to show very high levels of new arrivals beyond government targets. They can be described as …
Referendum Blog: May 26
BREAKFAST BIAS: BBC1’s Breakfast programme examined, with glitzy but highly misleading graphics, the UK’s contribution to the EU budget. The peg for the analysis is a claim by Brexit campaigners that membership of the EU cost the UK £350 million a week. Emphatically wrong! said presenter Charlie Stayt. That figure is the headline UK contribution figure but is actually substantially …
Referendum Blog: May 24
NEWSNIGHT BREXIT HELL? When it comes to impartiality, which planet does Newsnight – the BBC’s television news and current affairs flagship programme – inhabit? Over the past six weeks the programme has run six separately-themed referendum specials, a marathon six hours of broadcasting in which it has discussed sovereignty, the impact on the economy, security, immigration, how the EU works, …
Referendum Blog: May 23
FAIR’S FAIR?: With bias, the devil is often in the detail. A sharp-eared listener noticed on his rather congested drive back from London to his home in County Durham that on Radio 4’s PM BBC correspondents were doing some alleged ‘fact-checking’ in response to queries from listeners about aspects of EU operations. One wanted to know about the European Arrest …
Referendum Blog: May 22
BORDER TROUBLES?: On the BBC Weekend News this evening, the main item was hinged on that Vote Leave was wrong to suggest that the UK could not veto Turkey’s application to join the EU. At the end of the bulletin, reporter Chris Buckler presented a package which examined whether border controls would be introduce between Northern Ireland and the Republic …
Referendum Blog: May 21
BLATANT BIAS: Each daily BBC programme does not have to be balanced, due impartiality can be achieved over time. But who at the BBC is keeping check on these equations and where are their findings so that their version of ‘balance’ can be properly checked? Last night the main BBC1 bulletins were blatantly biased against the ‘leave’ side, confirming longer …
Jeremy Vine presides over EU love-in
Has Jeremy Vine presided over the most biased programme so far of the referendum campaign? And possibly the most biased programme that could be devised? Someone on the BBC Radio 2 production team – the same service, it may recalled, that thought Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand’s humiliation of the gentle Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs was acceptable entertainment – …