Ofcom

Ofcom ‘harmed the public’ in its Covid/Steyn ruling against Mark Steyn

Ofcom | 21st August 2024 | by Andrew

Pictured: Kathy Gyngell, left; Norman Fenton, second left; Mark Steyn, right.

Kathy Gyngell, the founder and editor of the TCW (The Conservative Woman) website, has published a powerful blog by an expert risk assessment professor about Ofcom’s and the High Court’s ham-fisted – and arguably dictatorial – role in discrediting Mark Steyn, a courageous campaigning journalist/blogger in highlighting the massive growing concerns about the dangers of the Covid-19 vaccines.

News-watch has been campaigning for more than a decade to make the BBC and Ofcom more accountable for its decisions about impartiality – including its own (ultimately rejected)High Court application for judicial review in 2019 about the BBC’s cavalier rejection of complaints.

The latest developments in the Steyn saga underline that Ofcom, just like the BBC, makes highly questionable rulings – with itself as judge and jury – which seriously threaten free speech held by the so called ‘right’ in British politics.

Mr Steyn was censured by Ofcom on March 2023 for two broadcasts he made on GB News in 2022. In them, he stated that, despite strong claims to the contrary by the government and the NHS ‘establishment’, there was unequivocal mounting evidence that the Covid-19 vaccines were potentially a serious danger to the public.

In brief, Ofcom ruled that the first Steyn show breached its rules as it gave a “materially misleading interpretation” of the figures “without sufficient challenge or counterweight”, which it said risked “harm to viewers”.

Mr Steyn’s application for judicial review was heard at the High Court in June and the sweeping rejection verdict was handed down at the beginning of this month.

The TCW blog by Norman, Fenton, emeritus professor of risk at the Queen Mary University in London, published in full below, contains a damning rebuttal of the Ofcom evidence against Mr Steyn and the High Court judge’s ruling.

News-watch also has another application for judicial review – due to be heard in the High Court in February 2025 (after a delay in listing of an unbelievable two years since the application was submitted) – about Ofcom’s rejection of complaints. More details will follow during the autumn.

It was Ofcom, not Mark Steyn, that misled and harmed the public

By Norman Fenton

August 19, 2024

IT’S BEEN three weeks since the judge (Mrs Justice Farbey) in Mark Steyn’s case ruled against him, upholding Ofcom rulings against him for comments made in two of his GB News shows back in 2022. The full judgement can be found here.

One of the Ofcom rulings (claim AC-2023-LON-001656) focused on a programme in which Steyn claimed that UKHSA (UK Health Security Agency) data showed triple-vaccinated people were at much greater risk of contracting, being hospitalised, and dying from covid than unvaccinated people. Ofcom ruled that Steyn misled the public on these claims.

The other ruling (claim AC-2023-LON-002280) focused on a show in which his guest Naomi Wolf made claims about vaccine adverse reactions. Ofcom ruled that these claims were inaccurate, and that Steyn failed in his duty as the presenter to challenge Wolf on them.

The Ofcom rulings led to Steyn losing his job at GB News (while he was in hospital following the second of two heart attacks in quick succession after the rulings). Ofcom, who act as judge and jury, did not allow him to provide any defence against the rulings so he decided to mount a judicial review against their rulings in the High Court.

A couple of weeks before the case went to court on June 11 2024 I was asked to provide a report about the statistical issues in the case. As the claim regarding the Naomi Wolf programme was not about statistics, I focused entirely on the claim made against Steyn regarding the UKHSA data. My findings bear on Mrs Justice Farbey’s final decision (point 106 relating to claim AC-2023-LON-001656) that: Ofcom was not ‘obviously wrong’ to insist that broadcasters avoid the risk that vaccinated individuals be caused alarm.

Hence, it is important now to bring the facts into the public domain that show that Ofcom was indeed ‘obviously wrong’. Sadly, it seems the judge did not have these full facts at her disposal.

The full Ofcom complaint against Steyn is detailed here. In particular, their ruling with respect to claim AC-2023-LON-001656 stated: ‘Mark Steyn said in the programme that UKHSA data on those people that had, and those that had not, received a third Covid-19 vaccination dose could be compared because the two groups included approximately the same numbers of people. However, his interpretation that there was “only one conclusion” from this comparison – that the third vaccination caused increased levels of infection, hospitalisation and death – was misleading because it did not take account of key factors such as the significant differences in age or health of the people in these two groups. The programme also failed to reflect that the UKHSA reports made clear that the raw data should not be used to draw conclusions about vaccine efficacy, due to the biases inherent in the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.’

The details of my report, which includes relevant links to the data and evidence, is provided below. In summary what I found was that:

Ofcom’s editorial judgement/ruling that ‘Mark Steyn misled the viewer’ is based on the narrow examination of the available UKHSA data and only that to which Steyn specifically referred. Ofcom took no account of the full data available at that time which categorically supports (and strengthens) the contention, suggested by Steyn, that the vaccinated were more likely to be hospitalised than the unvaccinated. Analysis of all the data in fact shows Steyn’s assessment not just to be correct but to underplay or underestimate the negative hospital outcomes for the vaccinated categories when compared with the unvaccinated. Their ruling made no reference to the full data published at that time, which showed negative hospital outcomes for the vaccinated to be the one clear conclusion that could be taken from it.
It is somewhat ironic that the only editorial criticism they could have validly made was that Steyn did not provide an analysis in support of his contention using the full published data – and that if he failed in anything it was to insufficiently alert the audience to the risks from booster vaccination. Not only were the boosters ineffective, but the covid case rates in the ‘ever vaccinated’ were higher than those in the ‘never vaccinated’ in almost all age groups, and at least three times higher in the boosted than the never vaccinated.
With respect to covid mortality data, Steyn’s comparison between the UKHSA boosted and unboosted vaccine categories was over-simplified but this was understandable given the obfuscated way in which the UKHSA presented the data. Even had he broken it down by age to avoid ‘age confounding’ (as the Ofcom counsel claimed he should have done) it would not have changed the overall conclusion to be drawn from the data that, for a reason known only to Ofcom, they failed to take into account.
What was missing from Ofcom’s analysis was that for the much more important statistic – all-cause mortality (as opposed to just covid mortality) – in most age groups the all-cause mortality rate was higher in the boosted than the unboosted. And, once we take account of systemic biases in the data, all-cause mortality was higher in the ever vaccinated than the never vaccinated in each and every age group.
Once the systemic biases in both the relevant UKHSA and the ONS datasets are accounted for, both show a consistent lack of efficacy for the vaccines. Ofcom in its ruling against Steyn has encouraged the suppression of this critical information while the public has continued to be offered booster vaccines, exposing them to risk and thereby subjecting them to harm.
If Steyn missed addressing the effect of age confounding, Ofcom’s omission was much more serious and fundamental. It is guilty of using this narrow point to ‘disprove’ a thesis which in every other respect stands up. They are in fact guilty of the ‘blowfish fallacy‘. This is the technique of laser-focusing on an inconsequential methodological aspect of scientific research, blowing it out of proportion in order to distract from the bigger picture. If you persuade people to focus hard enough on specific details, they can miss the gorilla walking through the room.

As stated on its website, ‘OFCOM’s principal duty is: (i) to further the interests of citizens, and (ii) to further consumer interests in relevant markets, where appropriate by promoting competition.’

Ofcom is supposed to be independent and dispassionate. It is neither its role to endorse Government policy nor to prevent criticism of it. Yet an infamous programme segment was screened on ITV which insisted that the (subsequently withdrawn) AstraZeneca vaccine was 100 per cent effective against hospitalisation and death with no interrogation from the presenters about risk, at great potential harm to the public. Ofcom did nothing about this despite hundreds of complaints to them about this segment.

Detailed analysis from my report

Mark Steyn OFCOM case: the UKHSA data

Norman Fenton, 21 May 2024

Summary points

The thrust of Mark’s comments were correct and, if anything, understated because even at the time of the broadcast it was known that, not only were the boosters ineffective, but the covid case rates in the ‘ever vaccinated’ were higher than those in the ‘never vaccinated’ in almost all age groups and at least three times higher in the boosted than the unvaccinated.
With respect to covid mortality data, there are issues with age confounding in what Mark said about the UKHSA data comparing the boosted to the unboosted; this was understandable given the obfuscated way in which the UKHSA presented the data. However, other data and relevant information does indeed confirm the gist of Mark’s statements. Moreover, for the much more important all-cause mortality (as opposed to just covid mortality) in most age groups the rate is higher in the boosted than the unboosted. And, once we take account of systemic biases in the data, all-cause mortality is higher in the ever vaccinated than the never vaccinated in each age group.
If Mark had taken all data that were available at the time into consideration, he could have made even stronger statements showing lack of effectiveness and risks of the booster (and the vaccination in general).

Background/context: The UKHSA data

In week 44 of 2021 the UKHSA weekly vaccine surveillance reports stopped publishing graphs that consistently showed the covid case rates in almost all age groups were higher in the ‘ever vaccinated’ than the ‘never vaccinated’. This was well documented in ‎[1]. However, despite attempts at obfuscation, the reports still provided tables of raw data that enabled us to produce the case rate comparisons as shown in Figure 1. Note that in this week the case rates were higher in the ever vaccinated in all age categories above 30.

This (and subsequent) UKHSA data caused such embarrassment that some key academics who strongly supported the vaccine programme attempted to argue that the UKHSA data should not be used at all and that the ONS data should be used instead. This dispute is discussed in ‎[1]‎[3], where we argue that there are problems with both the UKHSA and ONS data, but that, once we account for systemic biases both datasets show consistent lack of efficacy of the vaccines. Key biases of both datasets include the curious definitions of the different categories of vaccinated people. For example, a person is defined as ‘unvaccinated’ in the first 20 days after the first dose, single vaccinated in the first 20 days of the second dose, etc. These definitions grossly exaggerate vaccine efficacy as explained in ‎[4]‎[8] especially as people are disproportionately likely to test positive within the first two weeks of vaccination (such vaccinated people are classified as unvaccinated!).

What Mark said about the number of boosted (‘triple vaccinated’) versus unboosted:

‘Let us start with the basics. There are approximately equal numbers of triple vaccinated as the combined total of single, double and unvaccinated’;

Based on Table 7 of week 15 report ‎[2], this statement is correct.

‘As you can see, from a pool of 63million, down at the bottom there, 63million, there are 32million who are triple vaccinated. That leaves just under 31million who are either double, single, or unvaccinated. So, we have two groups of similar size, 31, 32million. So, it’s relatively easy to weigh the merits of the third shot upon group A vs group B.’

While this statement is correct for the population as a whole, the numbers of boosted versus non-boosted in each of the different age categories are not roughly equal. For example, in the 70-79 age category, almost all are boosted (4,655,045 compared to 442,667 unboosted), whereas in the 30-39 age category more are unboosted than boosted (5,2103,368 against 4,211,897)

What Mark said about the (covid) mortality rates:

‘We matched these numbers across all age groups. So, the point is, an 80-year-old with a booster shot is more likely to die than an 80-year-old without a booster shot. And likewise, a 30-year-old with the booster shot is more likely to die than a 30-year-old without a booster shot.’

While it is true that, for the overall population those boosted are much more likely to die with covid than those unboosted, this is because the boosted population is made up of disproportionately older people. We call this ‘age confounding’. To avoid age confounding, what we need to do is compare the covid mortality rate in each of the different age groups. In fact, for the 70-79 age group there were 1,668 covid deaths in the boosted compared with 341 in the unboosted. When we divide by the number in each group, we get a covid mortality rate of 36 per 100K people in the boosted group compared with 77 per 100K people in the unboosted group. So, in the 70-79 group the mortality rate is higher in the unboosted (but see later comments about this). However, in the 30-39 age group the story is very different. Here, there are 10 deaths in the boosted group and 9 in the unboosted, meaning that the mortality rate is lower in the unboosted, 0.17 per 100K people, compared with 0.23 per 100K in the boosted.

‘There’s 32million who had the third booster shot, there’s 31million who didn’t. So, we can directly compare the numbers, overall numbers, because they’re the same size. So, if you got the booster shot, you’re dying at three times the rate of the people who didn’t get the booster shot.’

Again, while that statement is true for the overall population it is not true for each age group based on the UKHSA data. In some age groups the mortality rate is higher, but in others it is lower as the examples above demonstrate. However, both the definitions of the vaccination categories and the bizarre definition of a covid ‘death’ (as anybody who dies within 28 days of a PCR positive test irrespective of cause of death) mean that comparing covid mortality rates between the vaccinated and unvaccinated is almost meaningless. It is for this reason that vaccine efficacy is best measured by comparing all-cause-mortality in the vaccinated against the unvaccinated ‎[7]. Moreover, what was missing from Mark’s analysis, is that there is extensive evidence, as documented for example in ‎[3]‎[4]‎[5]‎[6]‎[7]‎[8], that all-cause mortality is higher in almost all age groups in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated once we adjust for systemic biases.

What Mark said about the covid case rates:

While there is again some age confounding in what Mark said about the case rates, there is no dispute that the UKHSA data shows that covid case rates are much higher (generally at least 3 times higher) in all age categories (except the under 18s) in the boosted (3 doses) compared to the unvaccinated. This is shown in Figure 2.

A comprehensive thread on X ‎[9] deals with this and the attempts made by the ONS and UKHSA to cover up the embarrassing data.

It is also extremely important to point out that all UK Government claims – including in both the UKHSA and ONS data that (at the time of the programme) the unvaccinated were at higher risk of hospitalisation and death were based on a combination of fraudulent definitions and deliberately murky record-keeping as explained in ‎[10].

The recent report ‎[8] is important to this case because it is a new systematic analysis that shows the extent to which every major study that has claimed vaccine efficacy is biased/flawed due to inappropriate vaccination classification and statistical tricks by which you could show that even a placebo is highly effective.

References

[1] ‘UKHSA Efficacy Stats Death Watch: Week 44’, https://www.eugyppius.com/p/ukhsa-efficacy-stats-death-watch

[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1069290/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w15_v2.pdf

[3] ‘Official mortality data for England suggest systematic miscategorisation of vaccine status and uncertain effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccination’, http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.28055.09124

[4] https://wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/how-to-create-the-illusion-your-vaccine

[5] ‘Official mortality data for England reveal systematic undercounting of deaths occurring within first two weeks of Covid-19 vaccination’, http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12472.42248

[6] ‘What the ONS Mortality Covid-19 Surveillance Data can tell us about Vaccine Safety and Efficacy’, http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.30898.07362

[7] https://probabilityandlaw.blogspot.com/2021/09/all-cause-mortality-rates-in-england.html

[8] ‘The extent and impact of vaccine status miscategorisation on covid-19 vaccine efficacy studies’ http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.09.24304015

[9] https://x.com/Jikkyleaks/status/1675005406274523137

[10] https://wherearethenumbers.substack.com/p/claims-the-unvaccinated-were-at-higher

Here is my report (pdf).

This article appeared in Where are the numbers? on August 16, 2024, and is republished by kind permission.

Grade’s Herculean task to tackle the biased, woke BBC

BBC Bias, BBC Complaints Process, Ofcom | 3rd May 2022 | by Andrew

MICHAEL Grade – Baron Grade of Yarmouth – becomes chairman of Ofcom today.

He takes over days after Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries published Up Next, her White Paper on the future of broadcasting.

Main points include that the current BBC licence fee funding regime will eventually come to an end, Channel 4 will be privatised and that ‘TV-like’ content will be subject to ‘harmful content’ restrictions regulated and policed by Ofcom.

The latter point apart – which Big Brother Watch fears will presage a new age of government censorship – many of the aspirations in the White Paper make sense and can be seen as necessary and often overdue adaptations to developments in the fast-changing broadcasting arena.

Lord Grade – who takes the Conservative whip in the House of Lords – has a formidable industry track record, from being director of programmes of the former ITV company LWT in the 1970s, controller of BBC1 and chief executive of Channel 4 in the 1980s and 90s, to chairman of the BBC and then executive chair of ITV in the noughties.

It is rumoured in Westminster that he intends to be especially tough on the BBC and in particular to use Ofcom’s regulatory leverage over the BBC to ensure impartiality. He apparently has the full backing of Mrs Dorries, who, it is understood, pushed hard for his appointment.

But ambition will not mean a fig unless the Corporation’s epidemic-scale wokery and groupthink is rooted out. BBC bias is now so blatant that it is impossible to keep track, as Peter Hitchens eloquently pointed out at the weekend.

On issues such as diversity and climate alarm, BBC troops see themselves as warriors of change and activists rather than chroniclers of events.

Changing the licence fee could have a powerful corrective impact, but there is no definite date or detail as yet. So in the short term, the only hope of rooting out bias is through Ofcom.

Against this background, in the 22,000 words of the White Paper, there are only six mentions of impartiality. The key passage at Chapter 2, section 1 states:

‘Looking forward, the government also wants to see the BBC taking steps to reform over the next six years. This includes taking action to improve on its impartiality, which is central to the BBC’s Mission and to maintaining trust with audiences. In that context we welcome the BBC’s 10-Point Impartiality and Editorial Standards Action Plan, published in October 2021, which aims to raise standards by ensuring that BBC programmes and content are fair, accurate, unbiased, and reflect the UK public. Alongside this, the BBC adopted the findings of the Serota Review into the BBC’s governance and culture in full. While the Action Plan is a good start, changes are necessary and they need to be delivered.’

Does that suggest definite action of the sort required? Only time – and Lord Grade – will determine.

His task, though, is Herculean.

Ofcom’s track record as BBC regulator – which it became at the start of the current Charter in 2017 – can only be described as complacent and inept. One of its key tasks in this domain is as appeals body on complaints. But in the four years since it took over, the Content Board has decided to investigate only six of the hundreds referred to it; none has been upheld. This chart illustrates vividly how dire the position is:

Part of the problem here is the Content Board is stuffed full of figures who have worked for the BBC, and is thus not independent.

Also in Lord Grade’s in-tray related to impartiality is the Jewish bus incident on December 1 last year. A party of Jewish youths innocently celebrating Hanukkah in Oxford Street were terrorised and spat at by racist thugs. The BBC initially claimed they had evidence which showed that the attack had been at least partially provoked by an anti-Islamic insult from someone on board the bus. The Jewish community was outraged, and eventually the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit issued a highly-qualified apology of the sort routinely deployed to make issues go away.

At this point, Ofcom stepped in – and keen to make it look as they took their regulatory responsibilities seriously – announced that they would also investigate.

More than three months on, the Content Board has not yet published its findings. This defies belief. With the board having never yet ruled against the BBC, the suspicion is growing that that the inquiry announcement was a PR ploy to deflect criticism.

This is just a starter in the list of mammoth tasks Lord Grade will face in the coming months.

Mail on Sunday editorial slams ‘useless’ BBC complaints process

BBC Bias, BBC Complaints Process, Ofcom | 28th December 2021 | by David Keighley

The Mail on Sunday December 26, 2021

The BBC is Silencing the viewers who should be heard

THE BBC’s existence is an attempt to answer a series of linked riddles. How can you sustain a national broadcaster to pursue the best in everything, free from commercial pressure? How can the state collect the funds for such a body, without turning it into a lapdog of the ruling party? How can such a corporation be regulated to ensure impartiality? Once, the BBC contained so many men and women who profoundly believed in its mission that this task was easier and governments worried about it less. But since the 1960s, a growing number of BBC personnel have decided these high principles do not apply to them. If nobody stops them, they turn the Corporation into a megaphone for their largely Left-wing opinions. And, increasingly, nobody does stop them. The public have noticed and so they turn to the BBC’s own complaints system in the hope of having some influence. But as we report today, that system is more or less useless. Its supposed backstop is the quango Ofcom, crammed with ex-BBC staffers and marinated in the same ideas. And the first stage of the complaints procedure itself is just a sort of spongy layer, outsourced to the service company Capita, apparently designed to soak up and ignore public discontent. As we report today, only a tiny number of complaints – roughly one in a thousand – ever reach the real complaints department, the grandly named Executive Complaints Unit. Most viewers almost certainly do not know how to get their grievances past Capita’s software. This is a mockery of the licence-payer. Whatever the right answer is to the BBC’s complaints, this is the wrong one. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is correct to be worried and should act swiftly to ensure the voice of the viewers is actually heard in the Corporation’s sequestered corridors.

… while broadcaster investigates less than 0.1% of its complaints

By Anna Mikhailova

DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR

THE BBC’s complaints process faces being overhauled by the Culture Secretary amid concerns too few are being treated seriously. Analysis presented to Nadine Dorries shows that out of almost half a million complaints in the year 2020-21, less than 0.1 per cent were investigated by the Corporation’s Executive Complaints Unit. It follows concerns from MPs that the BBC is ‘marking its own homework’ and needs to Stop handling complaints from viewers and listeners in-house.

The data, seen by The Mall on Sunday, shows that just 455 of 462,255 complaints were looked at by the Executive Complaints Unit in 2020/21. Of these, only 185 were escalated to the media regulator Ofcom – 0.04 per cent of the total. That year – a record number for complaints – included 23,674 about Emily Maitlis’s critical monologue about Dominic Cummings on Newsnight in May 2020. In 2019-20, 759 out of 368,377 complaints were looked at by the Executive Complaints Unit – or 0.2 per cent -while 233 were escalated to Ofcom, some 0.06 per cent.

The unit represents the second stage of the BBC’s complaints process. The first stage is out-sourced to private firm Capita. Ian Paisley, the DUP MP for North Antrim, said:

‘The figures are absolutely astounding. No other credible complaints process would justify those outcomes. There is something systemically wrong with the system that has to be changed.’

Ms Dorries is expected to look at the complaints system as part of next year’s mid-term review of the BBC’s Royal Charter. A Government source said:

‘The process needs to maintain public confidence. With so few corn-plaints being reviewed, it raises serious questions.’

The BBC said referring cases to the Executive Complaints Unit is down to complainants. However, it is up to them to tell the BBC they are unhappy with the response they received from the network. The process of referring to the unit is contained in a lengthy 52-page document that has to be downloaded from the BBC website.

Last night, the BBC refused to reveal how many complaints are handled entirely by Capita on its behalf. A spokesman said.

‘The BBC has a thorough, transparent and easy to use complaints process, We keep the process under review. This includes a public consultation held last year following which we made changes to increase transparency and the information provided to audiences.’

An Ofcom spokesman said: ‘We have consistently called for the BBC to be more transparent.’

Shock news: BBC-dominated Ofcom backs the BBC

BBC Bias, Ofcom | 6th November 2019 | by David Keighley

The 2017 BBC Charter bestowed for the first time supervisory regulatory powers on Ofcom, which had previously been in charge of only the independent sector. Its first review of BBC news and current affairs performance shows that this has achieved nothing except to confirm that the broadcasting ‘establishment’ is deeply biased and complacent, and that there is an urgent need to cleanse the Augean stables.

The naive aim – based on recommendations by Sir David Clementi, who subsequently, of course, became BBC chairman – was to create independent scrutiny of complaints and impartiality.

In March 2016, when the Clementi proposals were first published by then culture secretary John Whittingdale, I wrote on TCW:

‘Disaster! The malaise of the BBC is principally that it is run by broadcasting establishment figures with no desire to think radically or independently – and Ofcom is no different. It is a quango, peopled by liberal left quangocrats cast from exactly the same mould as the BBC Trustees . . .

‘Even worse is Sir David’s suggestion that Ofcom becomes the final court of appeal. . . nearly every. . . member of the [content] board has cosy links to the BBC and has spent considerable parts of his or her career in the BBC orbit. Thus, the handling by Ofcom of BBC complaints will not make one iota of difference to the current regime.’

Sadly, the predictions have proved to be spot-on. Recent examples of folk appointed to the Ofcom advisory committee for England are:

· Paula Carter, whose career has been principally at Channel 4 and the BBC;

· Aaqil Ahmed, the former head of religion ethics at both the BBC and Channel 4, and famed, for example, for mounting a BBC Songs of Praise from the Calais migrants’ camp and claiming that inmates could be likened to Joseph, Mary and Jesus nhttp://isthebbcbiased.blogspot.com/2015/08/songs-of-displeasure.html;

· Matthew Littleford, who is a trustee for the theatre companies Frantic Assembly and Paines Plough. He was previously a joint managing director of the TV production company Betty, editorial director for digital at BBC Worldwide, controller of UKTV (joint-owned by the BBC), and controller of entertainment for ITV’s digital channels.

Despite the relentless tide of anti-Brexit bias, the Ofcom content board – eight of the 13 members are ex-BBC – has dismissed the vast majority of BBC complaints appeals referred to it with the same cavalier liberal-Left disdain as the BBC itself.

Most strikingly, a meticulously researched complaint about the anti-Brexit bias of BBC1’s Question Time was dismissed on the basis that a single contribution from Theresa May crony Damian Green proved that the ‘hard’ Brexit perspective had been adequately represented in 25 editions.

Ofcom has now completed at significant expense – it includes a glossy focus group report from PwC – a year-long review of the BBC’s performance in the news and current affairs domain. Is there any sign that its approach to its new responsibilities might be improving?

In a word, no. I will analyse in more detail the huge inconsistencies of the findings in a second blog, but for now, an outstanding feature of this so-called review is that while it was designed to examine impartiality, it has in reality done no such thing.

As well as the PwC report, Ofcom commissioned the School of Media, Journalism and Culture at Cardiff University to undertake content analysis of elements of BBC output.

That in itself was a biased decision, because Cardiff, as has been demonstrated by News-watch, is deeply biased towards the BBC. For example, its director of journalism is Richard Sambrook, the BBC’s former director of global news. Irrespective of the personnel, Ofcom unbelievably asked the academics to focus mainly on the depth and range of coverage rather than impartiality.

One of their areas of investigation was Brexit. But none of it was about potential bias and its only finding, from a minuscule sample size, was that in terms of range and depth there might not have have been enough speakers from the EU. Given that most of the Remainer Parliament was made up of those who spoke passionately about the need to stay within the EU, this defies belief.

So how did the wise people of Ofcom decide that output was impartial? A main plank was that they had considered 300 complaints about BBC bias in 2018-19 and upheld none of them. Well, that’s okay then. Or maybe – more likely – it confirms the need for an urgent external investigation of Ofcom itself into confirmation bias – the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that affirms one’s prior beliefs or hypotheses.

The second main plank of their approach was the PwC report mentioned above. A key element of this was based on 13 interviews and workshops around the country, each attended by a dozen consumers of BBC output. How precisely these were framed is not disclosed – it is assumed by Ofcom that PwC knew what they were doing. But a striking feature of the exercise, at a time when the news agenda was dominated by Brexit, was that those with strong views about the topic were deliberately excluded.

Finally, what were the recommendations of the Ofcom report? News and current affairs is largely tickety-boo – with one major caveat, the ‘D’ word. Wait for it: not enough diversity!

Postscript

Cardiff University’s journalism department has strong links with the BBC other than Richard Sambrook. One is that Ian Hargreaves, who is Professor of the Digital Economy at the university, was Professor of journalism there from 1999-2010, and is now on the BBC board of management (the body which replaced the former Trustees), and according to the BBC is is ‘responsible for upholding and protecting the independence of the BBC by acting in the public interest and exercising independent judgement’

Further, the BBC is currently moving into a new £100m HQ building in Cardiff. Joining them there is the Cardiff University media department – and students there are offered placements by the BBC. In that context, it is hard to see how the Cardiff report for Ofcom can be considered even remotely ‘independent’.

OFCOM BBC BIAS WHITEWASH

BBC Bias, Ofcom | 17th February 2019 | by David Keighley

In its first major ruling on BBC impartiality, media and telecoms regulator Ofcom – which became BBC complaints watchdog under the new 2017 BBC Charter – has starkly rejected any suggestion of bias in the Corporation’s news and current affairs coverage of Brexit.

Ofcom claims that requirements of ‘due impartiality’ in the Brexit debate were met in the 50 hours of monitored BBC Radio 4 programmes – which included 24 editions of the Today programme as well as ‘Britain at the Crossroads’, a special day-long strand of Brexit-related material – simply through the inclusion of a range of voices and opinions.

Ofcom’s programme standards team – which took in total nine months to consider its response – also ruled that because the debate about Brexit in the survey period was no longer ‘binary’ (divided into Leave and Remain, as it had been during the 2016 referendum), there was no requirement to ensure that coverage reflected these viewpoints on an equal basis.

In reaching their conclusions, the Ofcom verdict astonishingly ignores completely the specific, detailed claims of bias against the Brexit case in the News-watch reports, and maintains that balance on Brexit matters can be achieved simply by including an unspecified range of voices and opinions, apparently without consideration of by whom those opinions were delivered.

The major problems highlighted by News-watch, and based on rigorous scrutiny of every programme transcript, are detailed in the executive summaries which follow, and include:

In all the surveys, those who were pro-EU and Remain outnumbered figures who wanted a decisive Brexit by ratios of up to 5:1 and never less than 2:1.
BBC presenters and correspondents were not neutral in reports and interviews, but exaggerated the problems of leaving the EU while ignoring the potential benefits of developing new trade policies and restoring national sovereignty.

Ofcom justified its ruling by stating baldly:

“The public debate had. . . developed from a discussion of a binary question – whether the UK should ‘leave’ or ‘remain’ in the EU – into a much more complex and nuanced discussion comprising many different viewpoints on the form that the UK’s exit from the EU should take, and the potential implications on a range of different areas. In Ofcom’s view, it was likely that the audience of the programmes assessed would have expected the discussion of Brexit-related issues to reflect a range of different viewpoints on the UK’s exit from the EU and its implications, and how the public debate on these issues shifted and developed over time”.

A spokesman for News-watch commented:

“This ruling raises very disturbing issues about Ofcom’s neutrality in handling BBC complaints. It has completely sidestepped the very voluminous and meticulous evidence of bias, and has given the BBC a clean bill of health despite the abundant evidence to the contrary conducted using internationally-recognised techniques of assessing media content.

“Ofcom’s assertion that ‘due impartiality’ can be achieved simply including a range of opinions in coverage creates ‘due impartiality’. This is an absurd stance at odds with broadcast research practice followed by, among many others, bodies such as the former BBC Trust.

“The BBC’s handling of the Brexit debate is of major national importance because of its vast resources and reach. But Ofcom, who assumed backstop regulatory responsibility for Corporation impartiality as part of the BBC’s new Charter in 2017, seem to have adopted an extreme laissez faire approach, which is also reflected in the length of time it has taken to reach its ruling”.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES:

Report 1 (Today, October 9, 2017, November 4 2017)

The latest News-watch report assessed EU content in 24 editions of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme between October 9, 2017 and November 4, 2017. There was an unusually high level of such coverage hinged mainly on the Brexit negotiations. It amounted to 451 minutes, 93 per cent of which was devoted to Brexit.

The main finding is that there was an unjustified heavy bias towards exploring the difficulties and potential negativities of Brexit. In this context, there is a special investigation of the pervasive and indiscriminate use by this BBC coverage of the word ‘divorce’ – with all its negative overtones – to describe the EU exit process. In academic media analysis, it is held that such value-loaded ‘framing’ of issues by the editorial process can negatively influence audiences. The point here is that with all the resources available to the BBC news-gathering process, the use 47 times of such a controversial word to describe Brexit was at best poor journalism; at worst a sign of deliberate intent to frame Brexit in a particular light.

There was also an almost complete absence in the coverage of ‘ordinary’ people who had voted Leave, and of UKIP, the only political grouping with substantial electoral backing which supported without reservation the need for a decisive Brexit. Only 76 words, 0.2 per cent of the total words spoken on the EU by guest contributors, were in this category.

Another main finding is that in the news bulletins, there were 13 items which projected major problems in the Brexit arena, against none which were positive. The problems highlighted in bulletin stories included plummeting registration of nurses from across the EU, a Brexit cost to every household of £500, the loss of thousands of jobs in the City of London, the government denying ‘panic’ in its attempts to deal with Brexit talks, along with claims from Hillary Clinton that the Brexit vote was based on a ‘big lie’.

Overall there were 199 speakers in Today’s EU coverage, of whom 102 (51.3 per cent) were broadly pro-EU or were negative about Brexit, against 54 speakers (27.1 per cent) who were positive, a ratio of 2:1 (the remainder were neutral). Thus, Today, despite the Leave vote in the EU referendum , inexplicably gave substantially greater prominence to anti-Brexit opinion.

The imbalance was worst among programme guests who were not allied to political parties in the House of Commons, where there were only 16 appearances by supporters of Brexit, or who were against the EU, against 52 from those opposed to Brexit or in favour of the EU. This was 4 a ratio worse than 3:1. In words counts there were 13,498 in the former category against 3,433, a ratio of 4:1.

These 52 non-allied speakers opposed to Brexit or ‘no deal’ predicted a litany of woe for the UK, including the intractable difficulties of reaching new free trade deals; collapsing farm incomes; exports hit by new red tape, tariffs, customs delays and rising prices; Brexit causing a ‘massive energy suck’ against the British economy; ‘panic’ in the government camp because Theresa May’s Florence speech had not worked; that the UK’s xenophobic approach to Brexit would lead to long-term decline; that the cost of dairy exports and imports could soar; and that Brexit was hitting car exports from the UK.

The picture of negativity against Brexit was worsened throughout the period by comments from BBC correspondents and presenters, who projected a picture of a government in panic, insuperable difficulties related to reaching agreement with the EU and in striking new trade deals, and collapsing business confidence. Of course the government’s progress towards negotiations was not smooth, but the BBC’s editorial focus was disproportionately and relentlessly negative.

Report 2 – Brexit a Guide for the Perplexed (February-March 2018)

The third series of the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Brexit: A Guide for the Perplexed’ was broadcast on five consecutive days between 19 February and 23 February, 2018. Each programme was 12 minutes long and was presented by the BBC’s EU ‘Reality Check’ reporter, Chris Morris. Each edition dealt with the projected impact of Brexit and there were five separate themes: the UK pharmaceuticals sector, food and agriculture, the future of British Overseas Territories (the featured ones were Gibraltar and Anguilla), the regions of the UK outside London, and the socalled ‘transitional phase’ after March 2019.

The series was projected as an objective examination of the issues of Brexit, but it was not. Instead, Chris Morris and the programme team assembled and edited a range of contributions which were overwhelmingly biased against Brexit and pro-EU in their outlook.

There were 46 speakers in total but 22 made very short contributions, often as part of montage sequences, amounting to 285 words in total, and equating to just 3 per cent of the overall programme airtime.

The ‘meat’ of the programme was delivered by the 24 main interviewees who provided longer contributions. This group accounted for 48 per cent of the total airtime. 18 of the 24 were pro-EU/anti-Brexit; only three were anti-EU/pro-Brexit; two contributors made points both for and against; and one was neutral. The imbalance was startling. The 18 who made negative points on Brexit delivered 3,824 words (76 percent of words spoken by guests in this category), those speaking positively 352 words (seven per cent), and mixed/neutral speakers 838 words (17 per cent). The anti-Brexit to pro-Brexit word count ratio was thus almost 11 to one. The ratio of pro-EU to anti-EU speakers in this category was 6:1.

Bias in broadcasting, of course, is not measured by metrics alone, but such calculations are held in academic methodology to be a reliable pointer to its existence. Transcript analysis confirms that the negativity from these contributors against Brexit was very strong. At a headline level, it included predictions of serious problems in the regulatory regime governing the pharmaceuticals sector and huge delays in Britain being able to use pioneering medical drugs; the danger of food price rises of up to 46 per cent; the sovereignty of Gibraltar and the economic well-being of both Gibraltar and Anguilla coming under unprecedented attack; the West Midlands, as the chosen main example of a region of the UK, facing serious threats to its prosperity; and a transition period likened to walking the plank, with the likelihood of a UK ruled by the EU without any say.

The overall pessimism was heavily compounded by the comments and opinions of Chris Morris, who spoke 49 per cent of the words across the five programmes. His positive points were a very minor part of the programmes. Mostly, Mr Morris amplified the negativity of those gloomy about the impact of Brexit, and he strongly challenged or cut short those who made positive points. His primary intent seemed to echo the ‘walking the plank’ metaphor introduced in the final programme. Mr Morris did not tell listeners in his introductions and commentary that some of the key contributors who were negative about Brexit had clear pro-EU views and had been campaigners for Remain since before the EU Referendum. One, Professor of Law Catherine Barnard, held the Jean Monnet chair at Cambridge, and was thus at least partly paid for by the EU.

Thus, BBC ‘Reality Checking’ is a complete misnomer. In this series, the BBC seemed intent to cram into 60 minutes as many potential problems about Brexit as it could, with only a fig-leaf acknowledgement of the belief that it presents the UK with vibrant new opportunities.

Report 3 – ‘Britain at the Crossroads’, March 29, 2018

On March 29, 2018 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a day of programmes about Brexit designed to reflect the issues involved one year before the EU departure date. Eight separate programmes were involved: special editions of Today, The Long View (a historical discussion programme), The World at One, Dead Ringers and the World Tonight, along with ad hoc commissions The Channel, The Brexit Lab and The EU after Brexit.

News-watch transcribed and analysed all the programmes. With the exception of The Brexit Lab, the word-counts and speaker totals established by the survey found a heavy bias against Brexit. Only 15 speakers out of 92 during the day were confirmed withdrawalists. 49 were in favour of remain, pro-EU or critical of the government’s approach to the negotiations with the EU 28 supported Brexit or were anti EU

The overall word-count was 15,554 from those who broadly favoured Remain (the 49 above) against 6,889 from those making contrary points. In Today – which accounted for one third of the day’s output – the bias was much worse, with only eight guest contributors pro-Brexit against 26 negative about it, or positive about the EU.

But, as noted in the introduction, the textual analysis shows that the bias was much worse than the figures.

Of most concern, was that BBC presenters and correspondents, especially in the Today programme, seemed on a mission to highlight every possible snag in the Brexit process, and played down or ignored the opportunities.

The sequences which explored the future of the EU contained heavily pro-EU comment from BBC correspondents, and guest speakers – though pointing out some structural problems – were at core in different ways all strongly in favour of the EU. Entirely missing were any commentators calling for drastic reform – or withdrawal – who were part of so-called ‘populist’ or ‘right-wing’ movements within the EU.

The Brexit Lab, though clearly – and possibly uniquely in BBC history – an attempt to examine post-Brexit opportunities, was announced by the BBC immediately before transmission to be a ‘strongly personal view’ from the freelance journalist Iain Martin. 5

Overall, despite the exploration in The Brexit Lab, ‘Britain at the Crossroads’ was deeply skewed against Brexit. This has been the case in all eight News-watch surveys completed since the EU referendum. It is a matter of major national concern that the BBC is breaching its Charter requirements towards impartiality in this way.

Ofcom Ruling: BBC1 Question Time’s alleged pro-Remain bias

BBC Bias, Ofcom | 18th December 2017 | by David Keighley

A central part of the New BBC Charter is that appeals about complaints are now handled not by the BBC itself, but Ofcom, the independent sector media regulator.

This change – recommended in a report to the former culture secretary John Whittingdale by Sir David Clementi, who has since become BBC chairman – was trumpeted as a way of ensuring independence of outlook and greater fairness in the complaints process.

So how is this panning out? Well, it has taken nine months for what seems to be the first BBC-based complaint to find its way through to the Ofcom Content Board.

The complaint was submitted by Gavin Hunt, an avid viewer of BBC1’s Question Time, who tracked the 25 editions of the programme in the series running from January 2017, and found that 22 had panels which contained a majority of EU Remainers. This, he claimed, showed significant bias against the Leave case.

The Ofcom response is contained in a five-page letter which can be read here.

They based their findings on only two of the editions of the programme. This was because the Content Board thought it would not be ‘proportionate’ to examine all 25. Instead they picked the two programmes which had five Remainers and no supporters of Leave.

One of these, the Board decided, was irrelevant to the complaint because it was broadcast from Salford soon after the Manchester Arena bombing, and there was no EU-related content.

Thus their inquiry was into the edition – from Oxford – broadcast on April 27, the panel on which was Damian Green (then Work and Pensions Secretary), Clive Lewis, the shadow Defence Secretary, Jo Swinson, the former Liberal Democrat MP, Stephen Gethins of the SNP, and Camilla Cavendish, a non-affiliated peer who was an adviser of David Cameron.

Two questions posed during the edition were deemed by Ofcom to be relevant to the complaint:

Has the General Election been called for the benefit of the Conservative Party and not the country?

Is tactical voting undemocratic or a way to prevent Hard Brexit?

The conclusion? A key passage of the Ofcom letter relating to panel composition said:

…we considered that there were also views expressed which could be described as supporting Brexit in some form, or otherwise challenging the Remain position. For example, Damian Green disagreed with various statements that were supportive of a Remain position. He said most people had not changed their mind since voting in the 2016 EU Referendum (“the referendum”), and although he was part of the referendum campaign for Remain, he respected democracy and the referendum outcome. He also: rebuked Tim Farron for saying the Liberal Democrats would frustrate the Parliamentary process for introducing Brexit; stated a strong and stable government would get a good Brexit deal; the referendum outcome ruled out membership of the Single Market and being subject to the European Court of Justice; and argued that Brexit had to mean more control over immigration and our budget. We considered that these were views that could be reasonably described as supporting what may be termed a form of “Hard Brexit”.

The second key element of the Ofcom finding related to David Dimbleby’s handling of balance issues, The Content Board letter said:

There are a range of editorial techniques that broadcasters can use to preserve due impartiality. In the case of Question Time, the role of the presenter, David Dimbleby, is crucial. In our view, and as evidenced in the Oxford and Salford programmes, Mr Dimbleby consistently provides critical challenge to panellists’ stated positions, summarises with due objectivity and, where necessary, offers alternative viewpoints. Panellists themselves also challenge viewpoints put forward by their fellow panellists. Alternative viewpoints are also expressed by audience members, who are given the opportunity to challenge statements made by panellists.

In essence, therefore, they turned the complaint down, basically on the ground that first, Damian Green expressed the Hard Brexit perspective, and also because, in Ofcom’s judgment, host David Dimbleby ensured that debate was marshalled fairly and impartially.

Was this ruling robust, independent and fair? Eyebrows might be raised by that Ofcom only looked in detail at one of 25 programmes, and considered that Damian Green’s remarks added up to an expression of support for a ‘Hard Brexit’ perspective, especially as Mr Green is on record as not supporting it. Some would also wonder how on the basis of only two programmes out of 25 – one of which contained nothing of EU coverage, the subject of the complaint – the Content Board were sure that David Dimbleby’s handling of his ringmaster’s role was always as balanced as they decided.

Confirmed: BBC complaints process is unfit for purpose

BBC Bias, BBC Complaints Process, Newsnight, Ofcom | 6th December 2016 | by David Keighley

At the heart of the BBC’s reform under its new Charter – due to come into effect imminently – is that for the first time, an outside body, Ofcom, will become the final court of appeal in complaints about impartiality.

The idea is that this will clean the Augean stables and the Corporation will end its rampant bias towards Brexit, climate alarmism, the impact of immigration, multiculturalism and rafts of other issues.

This is looking increasingly like poppycock. For a start, the members of the Ofcom Content Board are drawn from exactly the same prejudiced background as the BBC Trustees. But putting that aside for one moment, the tale below illustrates precisely why.

On August, 31, Arkadiusz Jozwik, a Polish man living in Harlow, was killed in a late-night fracas in the pizza parlour where he worked.

In the immediate aftermath of the crime, police arrested six local youths (all under 16) but quickly released them on bail without charge. There were no further developments until this week when a 15-year-old from Harlow was charged with Mr Jozwik’s manslaughter. Of fundamental importance, it has also emerged that a race hate charge in connection with the death is not being pursued.

When news of the killing emerged, the BBC’s news operation went into hyper-ventilating overdrive.

On the BBC1 News at Six, reporter Daniel Sandford compiled a report in which the fulcrum was there were now fears that this was a ‘a frenzied racist attack triggered by the Brexit referendum’.

A few hours later, John Sweeney, on BBC2’s Newsnight – one of the Corporation’s main investigative journalists – took matters a step further in the editing of his report. He included as the conclusion so that it could not be ignored this inflammatory sounbdbite from another local Polish man:

But I mean, Nigel Farage, I mean, thank you for that, because you are part of this death, and you’ve got blood on your hands, thanks to you, thanks for all your decision, wherever you are, er . . . yeah, it’s your call.

Clearly in play and being reinforced to maximum extent by the Corporation was the central idea – evident in other programmes, too, as is documented on the News-watch website here – that June 23 had unleashed a torrent of racist venom. In the BBC’s world the jackboots were now out – and on the march.

The following Monday, Guardian columnist and political activist (sorry, ‘rights campaigner’) Garry Younge was allowed to put together for a BBC Radio 4 series a barrage of sensationalist allegations in the same vein: that Britain, overnight since June 23, had become a seething cesspit of race-hate. Attacks were underway in terrifying, unprecedented volume.

On the advice of a senior BBC news executive – who claimed that the Corporation was listening to problems about post-Brexit coverage – News-watch submitted a formal complaint about the coverage of Harlow killing to the BBC Complaints Unit, focusing principally on the Sandford report.

Over seven-pages, it detailed that his approach was sensationalist, deliberately contrived to give maximum impact to the race hate claims, and also pointed out that it was seriously irresponsible and premature – in the light of the facts known to the police on August 31 and more generally about race-hate crime – to speculate so prominently either about race-hate motivation or about the crime’s possible link to Brexit.

The BBC’s response? A curt high-handed letter. It asserted that such speculation was legitimate because there had been a rise in reports of race-hate crime since June 23, and because other possible motives for Mr Jozwik’s death had been included in Sandford’s report.

The letter – which was mostly in an obviously standard format, and was so slipshod that it even spelled the name of Sandford incorrectly, omitting the ‘d’ – glossed over with what can only described as haughty arrogance the key points.

In response, News-watch submitted a second complaints letter pointing out the omissions and stating that the reply was totally unsatisfactory. That was on October 20. On November 30 (ironically, the day of the manslaughter charges were laid) came the Complaints Unit’s second reply. It states:

‘We are sorry to tell you that we have nothing to add to our previous reply. We do not believe your complaint has raised a significant issue of general importance that might justify further investigation. We will not therefore correspond further in response to additional points, or further comments or questions made about this issue or our responses to it.’

The lessons learnt? The core BBC complaints process, which will remain as the conduit which will deal with most of the complaints submitted to the BBC after Charter renewal, is intrinsically and, irrevocably unfit for purpose. The Corporation remains the primary judge of what is deemed a ‘significant issue of general importance’

The second Complaints Unit letter does point out that the BBC Trust, in some circumstances, does entertain appeals. But the fact is that – as Richard Ayre, one of the current Trustees, has admitted – it has not upheld a complaint on EU-related matters in its entire existence.

Will Ofcom change that approach? Don’t hold your breath. And meanwhile, the totally inaccurate BBC assumptions about Brexit and race-hate continue to spew forth.

Ten of 13 ‘independent’ Ofcom Content Board members have close BBC links

Ofcom | 19th October 2016 | by David Keighley

At the heart of the BBC’s new Charter – due to be formally adopted within the next fortnight – is that the new ‘independent’ court of appeal for complaints against the BBC will be the Ofcom Content Board.

The end of the BBC being totally its own judge and jury on these matters is supposed to herald the dawn of a new, more rigorous impartiality regime.

A criticism of the BBC Trustees in this respect was that far too many of them were ex-BBC employees, such as (in the current line-up) Mark Damazer, the former Controller of Radio 4, and Richard Ayre, a former Controller of BBC editorial standards.

So how does this compare with the Ofcom line-up? Astonishingly, nine of the 13 board members have spent several years of their careers in direct employment by the Corporation, and one, Mary Anne Sieghart, is currently paid by them for semi-regular work as a presenter.

This is a complete list of the BBC connections of the Content Board:

Aled Eirug was, for 14 years, BBC Wales’s head of news and current affairs and a member of BBC Wales’s Board of Management.

Zahera Harb is now a university lecturer in journalism at City University, but earlier in her career as a journalist in the Middle East was a correspondent for the BBC Arabic service. Her first job in the UK was at Cardiff University, which has strong links to the BBC, and is commissioned by them to do most of the Trustees’ ‘impartiality’ reports.

Andrew Colman was, for 13 years, head of news and current affairs for BBC Northern Ireland, and was editor of all BBCNI’s election programmes between 1986 and 1998.

David Levy worked for the BBC from 1982 until 2007, and from 2000-2007 was Controller, Public Policy, which involved him leading the Charter renewal negotiations. He was Head of Policy Development and chief adviser and head of European Policy (1995-2000),

James Thickett was Controller of Business Strategy at the BBC, responsible for ‘all the BBC’s performance and measurement functions’, as well as leading editorial and business process change across the organisation. He was involved in the BBC’s Charter review process and Greg Dyke’s ‘Making it Happen’ culture change project.

Janey Walker, currently Deputy Chair of the Board of Governors of Brighton University, began her career at the BBC and worked there as a journalist from 1982-94. She then joined Channel 4, where she became managing editor for commissioning.

Nick Pollard began his broadcasting career in BBC Television in 1977 and worked there for around five years before joining ITN and then Sky News, where he became Head of News. He led the inquiry into the BBC’s handling of the Newsnight investigations of Jimmy Savile (appointed by the BBC).

Robin Foster, an economist, worked at the BBC from 1993 to c.2001 in ‘senior strategy positions’ and was responsible for developing its online and digital channel services.

Andrew Chitty has worked in software production at the BBC and has produced BBC2 programmes. More recently, he participated as a board member in David Puttnam’s report A Future for Public Service Television: Content and Platforms in a Digital World. This strongly defended the licence fee.

Mary Anne Sieghart, the journalist, has worked principally on newspapers, but also extensively for the BBC as presenter of programmes such as Radio 4’s Start the Week, Profile, One to One and Beyond Westminster.

Those who do not appear to have employment links with the BBC are:

Tony Close, who is currently Ofcom’s Director of Content Standards. He joined Ofcom in 2003, and before that worked for the Broadcasting Standards Commission (which Ofcom superseded). There is no trace of his earlier career.

Professor Philip Schlesinger holds the Chair in Cultural Policy at Glasgow University. He has written about using communications to expand the legitimacy of the EU. During the Scottish referendum on independence, he warned that an independent Scottish broadcaster (envisaged by the SNP) would be inferior to the BBC.

Dame Lynne Brindley is a former CEO of the British Library (2000-12), and spent her career in that sphere. A connection with the BBC is that in 2009, she signed a wide-ranging deal with the BBC involving collaboration over digital rights and access to archives. Roly Keating, a former BBC executive, succeeded Dame Brindley as CEO of the British Library.

Overall, therefore, the Content Board has ‘BBC’ etched through it like a stick of Blackpool rock. Looking at the various affiliations of the members – for example Andrew Chitty’s membership of David Puttnam’s group or Zahera Harb’s board seat on the so-called the Ethical Journalism Network (which advocates that the Syrian war was caused in part by climate change) – it is not hard to see that they are likely to share the same biased mindset as their former BBC colleagues.

Joe, Smithies, a spokesman for Ofcom, said: “Ofcom is scrupulously independent and our track record shows that. Members of the Content Board, which plays an advisory role for Ofcom, have experience across the broadcasting industry including Sky, BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and S4C.”

Mr Smithies also pointed out that James Thickett has now left the Content Board. He has been replaced by Graham Mather, who, he says, has not ever worked at the BBC.

Photo by Matt Biddulph

Pro-EU zealot quietly dropped from Ofcom content board

BBC Bias, Ofcom | 5th October 2016 | by David Keighley

Hallelujah! Quietly, a significant positive development in the broadcasting establishment may have occurred.

Might it be that the government is at last waking up to that the liberal figures who occupy the key regulatory posts are a menace to Brexit?

The current deluge of anti-Brexit propaganda emanating primarily from the BBC, but also from Ofcom-regulated services such as Channel 4, is the consequence of their current stranglehold over the regulation of broadcast services.

Back in January, the Department of Culture – as the referendum debate snapped into gear – incredibly appointed arch-Europhile and former editor of The Economist, Bill Emmott as chairman of Ofcom’s content board.

It meant he was in charge of investigations into allegations of bias in commercial radio and television’s coverage of EU affairs.

On The Conservative Woman, I wrote that this was, in effect, appointing a fanatical fox as guardian of the hen house. Emmott, with funding from the EU – and in close collaboration with the BBC – had made The Great European Disaster Movie, which envisaged right-wing Armageddon if the supremacy of the EU was challenged or changed.

Not only that, through his Wake Up Foundation, Emmott was engaged in a full-scale propaganda exercise – with Richard Sambrook, a former BBC Director of News, and using the BBC film as ammo – around the universities of Britain and across Europe to brainwash students into believing that exiting the EU would indeed be a disaster.

Immediately after the piece appeared, however, Emmott’s appointment began to unravel. On this website, I wrote:

‘After the publication of this post, an Ofcom spokesperson has contacted Newswatch with the following statement: “Any conflicts of interest involving non-executive Board members are managed appropriately and Bill Emmott would not be involved in discussions or decisions related to the EU referendum.”

Ofcom thus formally acknowledged that – at a crucial time in the coverage of EU affairs – Emmott’s interests and pro-EU passions were a conflict of interest.

That was back in February. In the meantime, Analisa Piras, Emmott’s partner in the making of The Great European Disaster Movie, wrote to News-watch:.

the piece… (about The Great European Disaster Movie) is slanderous and full of falsities. Please remove the slanderous comments or take it down immediately.

Please note that in the absence of any action from you I will be taking legal action.

That was back in June. News-watch replied robustly that the item was fair comment on a matter of public and national importance and there has been nothing back since.

There matters hung. It seemed that Emmott was gradually taking up his role at Ofcom, despite the contradictions and his unbridled campaigning pro-EU zealotry. But then – without fanfare – it has been announced that he is definitely leaving. The Guardian here discusses the reasons without – surprise, surprise – mentioning the elephant in the room, Europe, at all. Neither side is commenting ‘for legal reasons’ but it is clear that Ofcom finally woke up to the massive conflict of interest issues.

This begs the question of why the hell the Department of Culture sanctioned the appointment in the first place – it was plain as a pikestaff to anyone with access to Google that Emmott’s pro-EU passions were a central driving force in his life.

But could now it be that the new Culture Secretary Karen Bradley has seen – and is taking action on – the crucial issue that such appointments are the core reason why the broadcasting establishment is so fundamentally biased?

Ofcom will become the court of appeal for complaints against the BBC from next year when the new Charter comes into force. Meanwhile, BBC Trustee Chairman Rona Fairhead – drawn from the same mould and outlook as Emmott – has also been given her marching orders. The crucial next phase will be the appointment of the new BBC management board. Watch this space.

Photo by UK in Italy

Charter Renewal Review Fails to Tackle BBC Bias

BBC Bias, BBC Trust, Ofcom | 4th March 2016 | by David Keighley

Former deputy governor of the Bank of England Sir David Clementi’s review of BBC governance as part of BBC Charter renewal looks impressive at first glance – but he has badly misunderstood what is required.

What he proposes will leave the Corporation entrenched at the heart of the broadcasting establishment and almost impervious to real change; even worse, the proposals will do nothing to attack endemic BBC bias.

It’s an elegantly worded, absorbing read, and contains some good logistical proposals for improving the Corporation’s internal administration, including the creation of a beefed up BBC executive board, with a full-time chairman who would be more senior in the pecking order than the director-general.

That could provide a much-needed counterweight to arguably the most powerful figure in world media; Lord Hall, the current incumbent, is – almost uniquely in big media organisations – effectively both chief executive and editor-in-chief.

Sir David has also recommended that, as widely predicted, the current Trustees should be abolished. Bravo. But here, his good ideas ran out because his solution is that the BBC should then be placed under Ofcom.

Disaster! The malaise of the BBC is principally that it is run by broadcasting establishment figures with no desire to think radically or independently – and Ofcom is no different. It is a quango, peopled by liberal left quangocrats cast from exactly the same mould as the BBC Trustees.

For example, Ofcom’s current chairman, is Dame Patricia Hodgson, who spent a quarter of a century as a BBC producer, strategy executive, and a BBC Trustee. She has never worked outside the public sector.

All that will happen as a result of Sir David’s proposals is that the Corporation will be absorbed into the overall broadcasting establishment. There might be a few more challenges to some of its more nakedly commercial activities – such as the dominance of the internet – but the chances of radical reform, for example of the licence fee, will vanish, because Ofcom overwhelmingly favours the status quo. To them, it’s an article of faith that taxpayer funding is the highest good.

There’s a further vital area that Sir David missed altogether – so glaring an omission that it negates and renders virtually useless the whole exercise.

The rot in the BBC is not as Sir David appears to think, primarily about management systems. It is that almost every aspect of the Corporation’s output is biased – and the staff are so much in a liberal left bubble that they are blind to it.

That’s because the BBC is its own judge and jury in the handling of complaints and over the years, has constructed a hugely complex complaints procedure that is designed primarily for one purpose: to protect the Corporation and its journalists. In the same vein, editorial guidelines have been fashioned around the false yardstick of ‘due impartiality’, a concept that allows BBC editors and executives to interpret balance in areas such as climate change and immigration entirely on the Corporation’s own terms.

The upshot is that most complaints are rejected on highly cavalier grounds, and the BBC is totally out of touch with its audiences. It despises ‘populism’ in all its forms – and especially the Brexit variety.

Over the years, the Corporation has become cumulatively more biased in line with the prevailing liberal left ideology that forms the stifling orthodoxy at the heart of British public life. Those who work at the BBC would never acknowledge this in a thousand years; but to any outside observer of a different mindset it is blindingly obvious.

Against this background, Sir David’s proposal is that complaints are still handled in the first instance almost exactly as before by the BBC itself and those focused on impartiality that are not resolved at that level will be passed on to Ofcom’s content board. He glibly concludes that this will hold the BBC ‘more publicly to account’ – but he’s badly wrong.

His ‘Broadcaster First’ internal complaints handling approach will solve nothing. The ‘unitary executive board’ will go native and like the boards of all public sector organisations, their primary drive will be to defend themselves against outside criticism.

Nothing will change about the editorial guidelines, a grotesque creation that allows BBC producers, executives and journalists to get away with blue murder in the name of ‘editorial judgment’.

There is no insistence on regular, robust assessments of content, only a vague requirement that the same sort of (biased) impartiality reviews that the Trustees have been trotting out for years continue.

Even worse is Sir David’s suggestion that Ofcom becomes the final court of appeal. Ofcom’s content board – which deals with impartiality issues – is chaired by Bill Emmott, a fanatical Europhile whose current main objective is to spread propaganda on a massive scale warning that Brexit would spell disaster for the UK.

Bizarrely, when this was pointed out in a previous TCW and News-watch blog, Ofcom’s response was to acknowledge that this was a potential problem. A spokesmen said Emmott would be forced to stand down when any matters connected to the EU were discussed.

But that would not help either, because as the same TCW post also pointed out, nearly every other member of the board has cosy links to the BBC and has spent considerable parts of their career in the BBC orbit. Thus, the handling by Ofocm of BBC complaints will not make one iota of difference to the current regime.

Culture secretary John Whittingdale told an audience of the broadcasting establishment after he received Sir David’s report that he was impressed by it. This TCW blog last year warned that the BBC consultation that he ordered could easily become an empty exercise – that David Cameron wanted the BBC to remain unreformed so that it would help him win the referendum. If Whittingdale adopts the Clementi report, there will be no change. ‘Biased Broadcasting Corporation’ will become a fully accurate description of our most powerful broadcast institution and be set in stone for another generation.

Photo by Matt From London