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 …
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 – …
BBC passes the buck over pro-EU website ads
The eagle-eyed people over at Heat Street website noticed at the weekend that the BBC overseas website was running very prominent ‘remain’ banner ads, targeted at the 2 million ex pats in Europe, from the Britain Stronger in Europe group. They contained the highly misleading Project Fear message from Chancellor George Osborne that exiting the EU would cost every British …
Brexit the Movie – a perspective not on the BBC
This month marks the 17th anniversary of tracking by News-watch of the BBC’s EU-related output. The first survey was commissioned by a cross-party group of peers who were concerned that the case against the EU was not being aired by the BBC. It covered the build-up to the European Parliamentary elections on June 10, 1999. The findings can still be …
Craig Byers: Here is the news. BBC bias revealed hour by hour
Thursday was ‘the big day’ at the BBC, and yesterday morning’s Today was all over Mr Whittingdale’s Charter Review report. Did the BBC treat the story impartially? Well, on Today there was Lib Dem peer Lord Lester QC sticking up for the BBC. And Labour’s Tessa Jowell sticking up for the BBC. And former BBC, Sky and ITV employee Professor Lis Howell half-criticising and half-sticking …
Craig Byers: BBC ‘European’ Correspondent bias ‘off the scale’
Well, ten minutes after posting that piece about BBC Europe correspondent Damian Grammaticas’s Remain-biased piece for Monday’s BBC One News at Six his latest report popped up on tonight’s BBC One News at Six… …and I think we may now have the winner in ‘Most Biased Report in the BBC’s EU Referendum Coverage’ category. I know it’s an early call but I …
IEA BOOK SLAMS BBC BIAS
A book published today by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) about the future of the BBC contains a chapter in which research carried out by News-watch takes centre stage. The key areas of output investigated included the daily religious/spiritual segment Thought for the Day, broadcast as part of the Today programme. News-watch analysed almost a thousand editions and found …
BBC Bias: an EU referendum campaign progress report
News-watch has been carrying out detailed monitoring of news output since mid-January. A large number issues relating to impartiality have been noted, and overall, there is still, despite improvement, significant cause for concern that the ‘exit’ case is not being properly represented. On the plus side: There is definitely and clearly an effort to explore the respective ‘leave’ and ‘remain …
Bbc correspondents’ comments raise impartiality issues
Monday can be seen in referendum terms as the day that the Remain side produced what it believed was an Exocet. Chancellor George Osborne released what he projected – to the point of pro-EU fanaticism – as a killer economic document which, on the basis of complex, algebra-led economic analysis, suggested that if the UK left the EU, every domestic …
Nick Robinson twists history to make Churchill ‘father of European unity’
An earlier blog noted that the first part of Nick Robinson’s series Europe: Them or Us had presented an account of the development of the EU that had badly distorted history by placing wrong emphasis in its role as a force for peace, and had amplified EU propagandists by projecting Winston Churchill as a warrior for a United Europe and …