Last week in BBC Watch, it was noted that as referendum polling day fast approached, that in 17 years of monitoring the BBC’s coverage of the EU, one factor had scarcely changed: the casting of Nigel Farage and the party he leads as xenophobic incompetents. By both implication and direct association, that means – as a core feature of the …
Craig Byers: Mishal Husain distorts immigration debate
I’ve been a little bit surprised at how little has been written (so far) about Mishal Husain’s BBC Two documentary Britain & Europe: The Immigration Question. I’ve seen barely a comment about it anywhere. For me, however, it was one of the most striking ‘landmark’ programmes of the BBC’s entire EU referendum coverage. Why has there been so little comment? Was …
For Europe, Against the EU
The case for leaving the EU has never been put by the BBC in a programme wholly dedicated to the ‘out’ case. By contrast, the Corporation has, over many years, broadcast an unbalanced barrage of pro-EU material – as is documented on this site – and in March 2015, presented in prime time The Great European Disaster Movie, made by …
Kathy Gyngell: Farage is no racist despite ITV’s bid to load the dice against him
Tuesday night’s ITV ‘debate’ was not just a travesty of this term – you could hardly called this pre-planned, separate tables, Q&A format a debate – it was also a case of helping mud stick with a supposedly impartial broadcaster applying the brush. Nigel Farage may be an old fashioned beer drinking and fag smoking bloke but that hardly makes …
Bias by Omission? BBC under-reports latest EU assault on Internet freedom
BBC bias comes in many forms. One of the most insidious is bias by omission, when the Corporation chooses not to report key developments or perspectives in areas of major controversy. It is a major issue in the referendum campaign. For example, the Corporation barely touched the story about a poster – ostensibly designed to encourage ethnic minorities to vote …
BBC1 NEWS ‘MAKE YOUR MIND UP’ FEATURES STRONGLY FAVOUR ‘REMAIN’ SIDE:
The BBC1 News at Ten flagship bulletin is carrying a series of reports which it says are about ‘asking about the factors that are likely to influence the way people vote’. They are obviously intended to inform the audience’s choice, and of course, the BBC will insist that they are balanced. Analysis of the six reports broadcast as part of …
Mark Mardell wins Vince Cable award for balanced reporting as Germans warn of Brexit ‘nightmare’
Mark Mardell, presenter of Radio 4’s The World This Weekend, has been on his travels again, this time to Berlin. His purpose was to find out whether Germany – in his words the country that ‘ran Europe’ – would treat a UK exit from the EU with kid gloves or a mailed fist. The structuring of the report left no …
‘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 …
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 …