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 …
MARDELL: ANTI-BREXIT BIAS CONTINUES
Analysis of 15 editions of World This Weekend from January 24 – May 1 The programme is presented by the BBC’s former ‘Europe’ editor, Mark Mardell. Under his watch, the programme has worked consistently hard to present the arguments for ‘remain’, given more time to ‘remain’ supporters, and has featured most heavily stories which favour the remain side. It has …
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 …
BBC Bias – A Progress Report
News-watch’s monitoring of the BBC’s EU referendum coverage has now been underway for three months and this is a progress report. In one sense, tectonic plates have moved. Speakers who support British exit have invited on BBC news programmes to discuss the topic. For years anyone who was an ‘outer’ was completely ignored, or – in their rare appearances, as …
Radio 4 World Tonight investigation finds more BBC pro-EU bias
A News-watch investigation into one of the BBC’s flagship news programmes has found it to be heavily biased in favour of Britain remaining in the EU. Twenty consecutive editions of the programme – one of the main ‘hard news’ formats on the BBC – between February 22 and March 19 were surveyed. The main finding was that staunchly pro-EU figures …
BBC Environment programme flouts BBC impartiality rules
Costing the Earth; The Environment after Exit (BBC Radio 4 March 15 and 16) h/t Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? The programme, presented by Tom Heap, investigated the current impact on the UK of EU-related policies affecting conservation, fisheries, farming and renewable energy, and explored what might happen in the event of Brexit. The main fulcrum was whether, …