BBC Bias Digest

12:00 am
09 May 2024

Search Results for: eu referendum

News-watch general election survey finds heavy anti-Brexit bias

News-watch general election survey finds heavy anti-Brexit bias

2017 General Election, BBC Bias | | by David Keighley

The survey covers EU content in the campaign period (3 May to 7 June) of the 2017 General Election on BBC1’s News at Ten and BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.  In the 74 hours of combined airtime, 10 hours and 59 minutes were devoted to EU affairs – 14.7% of the available space.

There was clear Europhile bias in guest speakers. Of the 375 contributors, 189 (50%) were pro-EU or negative about Brexit; 140 (37%) were anti-EU or positive about Brexit; and 46 (12%) were neutral. Thus, in an election where Brexit was a pivotal issue, across the two BBC flagship programmes there were a third more pro-EU/anti-Brexit speakers than those who supported leaving the EU. The differential on the Today programme was greater: two-thirds more contributors were opposed to Brexit than supported it. Across the two programmes, only 62 speakers (16.5%) had campaigned or voted ‘Leave’ in the 2016 referendum, with only four from the business community appearing on Today and just one on News at Ten.

This bias applied across all areas of coverage, and was made worse by BBC correspondents and presenters. They one-sidedly emphasised the difficulties of Brexit; examples are detailed at pages 61-63. This was compounded by the BBC’s so-called Reality Check Team, which put further undue weight on the disadvantages of leaving the EU.  For example, Chris Morris, the unit’s EU ‘expert’, posited as certain that halting immigration would have negative economic consequences, when this was disputed by many.

Coverage of the political parties was clearly inspired by the negative editorial input, and Conservatives who appeared in relation to EU issues were toughly scrutinised. By contrast, the Labour party’s policy towards the EU was hardly examined at all. There were only two interviews with a serving shadow minister about Brexit, both with Angela Rayner, whose portfolio was actually education. Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit minister, was not interviewed at all.  This severe  bias by omission is detailed in our other report ‘Leave and the Left, 2002-2017.’  It left ambiguous and almost unexplored the party’s approach to the key issue of the election.

These headline criticisms of the coverage, supported by the detail of our 164 page report, show that the BBC’s coverage of the 2017 General Election was not impartial and was therefore in breach of its Charter.

Full Report:

News-watch Methodology:

 

BBC Continues to Push Brexit ‘race hate’ despite fall in prosecutions

BBC Continues to Push Brexit ‘race hate’ despite fall in prosecutions

BBC Bias, EU Referendum, Immigration | | by David Keighley

It’s national hate crime awareness week.

This is a full-scale effort, involving the Crown Prosecution Service, police forces, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, and sundry anti race hate groups, many of which are tax-payer funded.

‘Hate’ in this context covers such crimes generally – against the disabled, religions, different sexual orientations, and race – but the principal focus is on race because the bulk of such crimes (78 per cent, according to late Home Office data) fall into this category.

Centre stage in this campaign, of course, is the BBC.  True to form, they last week produced a Panorama programme in which sinister Brit thugs – fired up by the Brexit vote – were attacking anyone from the EU they could find. Over on This Week, they then gave a platform to a transgender person who declared that ‘the white race’ is ‘the most violent and oppressive force of nature on earth’.

Aiding the Corporation?  Step forward Superintendent Paul Giannasi OBE, the National Hate Crimes Coordinator, who runs for the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) the portal for reporting hate crime. No, he is not a secret member of UKIP. Rather, he is part of a Facebook group called ‘We Love Europe’, and boy, does he. Mr Giannasi believes that the Brexit vote was a change ‘unwanted and unexpected’ that was an ‘expression of the tyranny of democracy’ which was ’caused by political arrogance, thirst for power, idiotic fears, prejudice, bigotry and incredible stupidity’.

And let’s not forget the special contribution of Hillary Rodham Clinton. On a book-plug visit, she was given oodles of BBC airtime to reject  Brexit. Nigel Farage, she claimed,  duped the British people with the ‘big lie’ – about topics such as immigration – and then went on also to sabotage her own election as US President.

In fact, the BBC declared war on Brexit, using race hate claims as a main weapon, over a year ago. It was among the most avid in reporting an alleged ‘spike’ in such offences after June 23 (of which more later) and then wrongly claimed on August 31 that the death of a Polish man in Harlow was a ‘frenzied’ murder triggered by post-Brexit race hate.

But what is the truth about ‘race hate’? Everything about the way it is framed and reported should send alarm bells about the veracity of any figures involved.

First, it’s almost certainly the easiest crime on the statute book to register, because, uniquely, alleged incidents are recorded by the police on a self-report basis via their specially-established website, True Vision (run by Supt. Giannasi). All a ‘victim’ has to do is register the ‘crime’ – and hey presto, it’s in the stats.

At a time when – as The Sun reported this week – police forces are working flat-out to limit ‘by hundreds of thousands’ the number of recorded burglaries, shop thefts, and even minor assault charges, they are simultaneously transferring their efforts to the ‘hate crime’ domain.  The key supporters of the Stop Hate UK charity, for example, include a clutch of police forces.

Second, the definition of a ‘hate crime’ is also unusually loose. Such an offence is deemed to have been committed if the victim, or any witness of the incident, thinks they have been subjected to ‘hate’.

This ease of reporting has been accompanied by a mushrooming of associated interest groups, spearheaded by the government’s primary service provider, Capita, and this has no doubt contributed to rising volume of ‘race hate’ claims.

This ‘increase’ was trumpeted yet again this week in the annual hate crime figures released by the Home Office, covering until the end of March.  True to form, the BBC’s report of the statistics is accompanied by a pic of one of the sinister-looking, Pole-hating thugs it had trawled Britain to find for its special Panorama edition.

These statistics show that there has indeed been a rise in recorded hate crime, from 62,518 in 2015-16 to 80,393 in 2016-17. But in the context of the lax self-report procedures, what does this prove? Does it reflect a rise in actual incidents?  Or perhaps far more likely – in tandem with the vast amounts of money being spent in this arena, combined with publicity from the BBC, and the Remain faction generally –  simply that there is increased awareness that such ‘crimes’ can be reported?

Whatever the reason, Amber Rudd’s Home Office was keen to stress the alleged ‘spike’ in race attacks and crimes after June 23 last year because of the Brexit vote. But drill down deeper into the report, and it quickly emerges that this, too, must be treated with a great pinch of salt because it is, to quote the report, based only on ‘anecdotal evidence’.

These figures also fail another vital acid test. The Crown Prosecution Service is responsible for bringing hate crimes to court and made clear in its annual report, also published this week, that this is a major priority.

What do their stats show? Well in the last year – despite everything noted above –  the number of hate crime prosecutions fell by almost 1,000 over the previous year to 14,480. In other words, the number of so-called hate crimes with sufficient evidence to go to court is in sharp decline, despite all the resources and efforts being expended.  On that basis, of the 80,000 race hate ‘crimes’ reported to True Vision, only about 18 per cent will be tested in court.

And the reaction? This BBC report emphasises in great detail the rise in number of recorded ‘crimes’, does not enumerate the fall in prosecutions, and has a long sequence about a Muslim ‘victim’ who concludes: “I really think it’s important for us to report, no matter what.” Of course.

 

Talk Radio’s Julia Hartley Brewer slams BBC post-Brexit bias

Talk Radio’s Julia Hartley Brewer slams BBC post-Brexit bias

BBC Bias, EU Referendum, News-watch | | by David Keighley

Transcript of Talk Radio, Julia Hartley-Brewer interview with David Keighley, News-watch, 13 September 2017, 12.03pm

JULIA HARTLEY-BREWER:  First up, a fascinating story that I wanted to get to, because it was something that did concern me at the time, this is something that went back all the way to the end of August last year,  a couple of months, of course, after the Brexit vote. Now, Nigel Farage, one of the keen, leading figures of the Brexit campaign was somebody who was accused of having ‘blood on his hands’ after, we were told, there had been an increase in violence against EU migrants and indeed migrants from other parts of the world in the wake of the Brexit attack (sic) this was reported repeatedly on the BBC, and in particular, on August 31, news broke that a Polish immigrant in Harlow had been killed.  Rumours circulated that it was a gang of feral youths who were responsible, and that it could have been a racist attack, because he was Polish and triggered by Brexit.  This was reported on by the BBC repeatedly.  But, last Friday we had the sentencing at Chelmsford Crown Court of the youth responsible for that man’s death, and now we know the full story, and it’s really rather different. So I’ve invited David Keighley on, he’s the managing director of the media monitoring company News-watch, and himself a former BBC producer who has written about this. Now, and to tell us the full story, David – thank you very much for joining us.

DAVID KEIGHLEY: Good morning and thank you very much for having me on the programme.

JHB:       Well, thank you very much for talking to us.  I saw your article you wrote on this online yesterday and I wanted to ask you about this, because it is something . . . it was a report that, I suppose, I  accepted on face value when I heard the reports but talk us through what happened and what the reporting claimed.  And then, if you could outline for us what actually were the real, objectively true events that have now been proven in a court of law?

DK:         Right, yes, basically, this man, Mr Jozwik who was a Polish man living in Harlow, well-liked by all accounts, was killed in a . . . after a fracas of sorts, late night, few days before the reports broke out.  He banged his head and a couple of days later the story broke.  Basically, what the BBC said that evening, very excitedly and very sensationally was that he had died after what some were saying was ‘a frenzied race hate attack’ following, or ‘triggered by’ – was the exact phrase – the Brexit vote. Now . . .

JHB:       But was this just the BBC claiming this, or did other news outlets claim the same.

DK:         Yeah, no, other outlets also took that line, though to a lesser extent than the BBC. And of course, the BBC has got extra responsibilities as a public service broadcaster to check out the facts before reporting something quite so sensationally. Now, to be fair, the report, the main report on the 6 o’clock news did have the alternative theory that this was youths and nothing to do with Brexit, but the overriding impression in the reports, the sensationalist side of it was that this was a race hate attack. And that was added to by John Sweeney, later on in the evening, on Newsnight, and he actually interviewed a friend, or someone who was said to be a friend of the killed . . . the dead man, who said, as you said in your intro, that Nigel Farage . . . he said, ‘Thank you Nigel Farage, you now have blood on your hands.’ Now this wasn’t a live interview, it was a package, it was recorded, so John Sweeney deliberately included that in the report that he presented that evening, and there were lots of other lines about the level of race hate going on.

JHB:       And we have discovered since that a lot of research into what was now considered to be these supposedly race hate crimes, but actually that doesn’t even have to have been even a police investigation, there doesn’t even have to have been a complaint from the person who was supposedly the victim, it is an entirely subjective view of a person who may have just been an onlooker, an exchange between two friends where there was a . . . perhaps there was a word used that perhaps most of us wouldn’t use in our daily lives, someone else might say, ‘Well, I thought that was racist’ – they can report it to the police, whether there’s an investigation, any conviction or anything at all, any charges brought, that now stands as a race crime that has been reported and there stands in the stats?

DK:         Absolutely, it’s a self-report crime, which is almost unique on the British statute books. For the police to record such a crime there has to be . . . there need not be any evidence whatsoever, it’s just that somebody perceives there’s been an offence. Now, what’s happened subsequently is that, first of all the police . . . the point was on the day, the police said they hadn’t ruled out race as a motive, but any journalist knows that if you ask the police when they’re opening an investigation if they’ve ruled anything out, they will routinely say, ‘No, we’re looking at all possibilities’ – they don’t know, so they’re cautious. The BBC weren’t cautious in their approach . . .

JHB:       No, but what’s emerged when it came out in court with the actual sentencing, and a 16-year-old has eventually been sentenced to 3 years in a youth detention centre, not for murder, but for manslaughter, but it’s also emerged, categorically accepted in court by all sides that the gang, so-called gang involved, didn’t instigate this incident which led to the punch, but they, the defendant and his friends were provoked, and that this man, the man who sadly lost his life was very drunk and very aggressive with a bunch of his friends, and had actually started the fight, very taunting, very aggressive towards this bunch of young youths, and they had made, themselves, racist remarks to the youths and invited violence from the youngsters, and that was when the punching, the punch happened and then very sadly this Polish man died.  So, in no way was this a racist attack on a Polish immigrant because of anything to do with Brexit, it wasn’t a racist attack at all, on the contrary it was a youth who felt that he was under attack himself.

DK:         Yes. That sums it up very neatly. And the point was that however you look at this, it was nothing to do with what the BBC actually reported. Now, as I say, the BBC has responsibilities as a public service organisation, special responsibilities to do with impartiality and getting balance in their reporting, and yet when the sentencing hearing happened on Friday and all these final facts emerged, that it was the polar opposite of what had been said, what did they do? They had, basically, one piece on their website which was on their Essex section, so it wasn’t even the national part of the website, and it didn’t mention their role in their reporting. This was surely a case where they should have done a full apology, they should have outlined that they’d got it wrong, that this was not anything to do with race hate. People are saying that what they did last August amounted to racial provocation by them and yet . . .

JHB:       But . . .

DK:         . . . and yet, they’ve just glossed it over as if they’ve done nothing . . .

JHB:       (speaking over) But this is the interesting thing, the attempts to get newspapers to make sure that they give correct reporting and that they correct mistakes and they apologise when they get things wrong would require a newspaper that’s signed up to that plan, post-Leveson, for them to give exactly the same prominence to that story, to do the correction, not a small, little ‘news in brief’ on page 16, it would have to be a full page apology, effectively, in a newspaper, on the front page, probably, equivalent. And I remember, certainly, how prominent that story was and its been brought up in debate after debate in the last year, when people say, ‘Well, yes, but, you know, all those racists who voted Leave and how they all started being more racist because of the Brexit vote, and isn’t it your fault?’ – I mean, I personally have had tweets from people saying that I’m partly responsible for Joe Cox being murdered.  I know Nigel Farage has had those, because I’ve spoken to him about it.  Now he has actually asked for an apology on this himself, hasn’t he?

DK:         Indeed, yes, he . . . on his show on your rival station – perhaps not rival, your . . .

JHB:       (speaking over) We don’t know who they are!

DK:         Yes, he actually said he wants an apology from the Director General of the BBC, Tony Hall. And it will be very interesting to see now how the BBC reacts, because of course, they so often just brush off complaints, they pretend that they have done balanced reporting when they haven’t, there’s loads of evidence of that on the News-watch website. And, it’s just an endemic, systemic problem in the BBC. They are incapable of admitting their own errors, and the bias seems so deeply entrenched now in their Brexit coverage.

JHB:       Well, I mean, there’s been lots of complaints about this recently, haven’t there, and there’ve been, you know, formal complaints from the Conservatives, because we know during election periods, during referendum periods, I mean, there are strict laws. I don’t work for the BBC, I’m allowed to give my own opinion but not during election campaign periods, I mean, I quite, absolutely . . . as much as it’s tying my hands behind my back, I completely agree with it as someone who believes in democracy, that we shouldn’t be having bias, but I mean, it is something . . . and I say as someone who loves the BBC and does a lot of work for the BBC as well, freelance, that I am stunned on a daily basis by their reporting on this issue. But then, is it that ‘I would say that wouldn’t I, because I’m a Brexiteer, and you would say that, wouldn’t you, because you’re a Brexiteer, and Nigel Farage would say that, wouldn’t he, because you’re a Brexiteer’ – isn’t it the case that everyone sees bias against their own personal viewpoint?

DK:         Of course that’s true to an extent, but again, if you go to our News-watch website, the way we measure bias is not just on an impressionistic basis, we look at coverage over a long-term period, we do it properly and academically. And basically, what we’ve looked at is, for example, the Today programme’s Business News coverage after Brexit, and . . . for the six months after Brexit, every single edition, and transcribed every single word that was said, and the amount of . . . the number of people who have appeared on the programme who were pro-Brexit was minuscule, the numbers are so small as to be vanishing. They just are not taking into account properly pro-Brexit opinion.

JHB:       Well, we shall see, David Keighley, thank you for talking to us, managing director of the media monitoring company News-watch, he’s a former BBC producer himself. I wanted to highlight that because, you know, I was as horrified as everyone else, I think, at the thought that there could be an increase in violence and certainly racist violence, violence against EU migrants, that wasn’t . . . that wasn’t what the Brexit campaign was about, that’s got nothing to do with Brexit, nothing whatsoever, and I really object to any racist hijacking [of] a cause for democracy, to carry out such crimes.  It would appear that they just haven’t been those crimes, and claims that there have are just totally unfair. I absolutely, if I was the Director General of the BBC, Tony Hall, I would issue that apology, because I think, you know, you’ve got to admit when you get it wrong, and we don’t always get it right.

 

Photo by alexindigo

Evan Davis cranks up BBC anti-Brexit rhetoric

Evan Davis cranks up BBC anti-Brexit rhetoric

BBC Bias | | by Kathy Gyngell

Scenting Tory blood, the BBC cranks up its anti-Brexit propaganda. That was the conclusion I reached at the end of the BBC’s shameless last week of anti—Brexit coverage a year on from the referendum victory. The Tories’ election debacle appeared to have given them carte blanche to revolt.

Now they have declared all-out war. Last night on Newsnight Evan Davis used that time-honoured tactic to justify what is clearly now the BBC’s official stance. He rewrote history – in this case the very recent history of the election result.

In an aggressive and rude interview with David Jones MP – a minister in the Brexit department until the election – Evan Davis asserted as a fact that the ‘Theresa May plan for Brexit’ was one ‘which clearly didn’t grab the population in the election’. How he was party to this knowledge we were to find out.

“I don’t think it was that,” Jones immediately countered, “I think frankly the big issues were other non-Brexit-related issues, most particularly the issue of social care but also one or two other issues too. But I think so far as Brexit is concerned, we are now in the position where 80 per cent of the electorate of this country voted for parties who want to take Britain out of the EU.

To which our insolent BBC apparatchik replied: “Sorry, what planet are you on?

“Loads of swing voters who might have voted Tory voted for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party because they so detested the Theresa May version of Brexit. Metropolitan, liberal Remainers . . .”

Yes, of course, this was why the swing voters voted for Corbyn!

Quite rightly, Mr Jones retorted: ‘I don’t see how you can …’ but  before he could finish, Evan bulldozed over him: “….We cannot vote for Theresa May because we don’t like her Brexit . . .’ This was his theory of the election result and that was that.

David Jones once more attempted  to question this thesis: “I don’t see how you can possibly read that into the election result – 80 per cent of the population voted for parties that clearly support Brexit.”

No, they didn’t – not at least according to Newsnight’s mind reader: “ … the polls show more people didn’t like her version of Brexit than did like her version of Brexit. You can’t say that anybody who voted Labour was endorsing Theresa May’s Brexit, because they voted for a party . . .”

Mr Jones tried again, once more to be ridden roughshod over.

Davis was not letting go of his cherished theory:  “But hang on, you were saying if somebody voted Labour they were effectively endorsing Theresa May’s Brexit and that is completely untrue isn’t it? They voted Labour as a protest against Theresa May’s Brexit.”

If that is not a fake fact I am not sure what is.

The valiant David Jones had one more go: “Well, I don’t see how you can possibly read that into it”.

And guess what, Evan couldn’t wait to explain to this poor idiot Tory what was going on in the mind of the man on the Clapham omnibus on the way to vote (according the Book of Evan, and the Holy Gospel of the BBC, that is). It was, he avowed:

“Because they thought they’d get a softer Brexit from Labour and potentially stay in the customs union, because they thought it was bonkers to leave it.”

Is that so? How many voters I wonder would have passed a quick test outside the polling booth on exactly what the customs union is?

You have to be quick with your repartee if you are not going to be a lamb for the slaughter on the BBC. By now poor Mr Jones, like a torture victim who manfully keeps repeating his name, rank and serial number, could only respond: “I think that that is a complete misreading of the election if I may say so”.

It was, of course. But that didn’t stop Evan triumphantly snarling: “Do you accept polls that show more people believe that Theresa May’s Brexit should be amended than support it?”

The much tried Tory didn’t contradict him. A pity. The polls show no such thing.

What one showed with quite crystal clarity on the eve of the election was nine out of 10 people rejected the idea that this was a “Brexit election” at all – insisting that it should also be about public services. A poll for The Independent showed quite simply they did not believe her. They saw the election as being about public services. This, not Brexit, was uppermost in their minds. It was, of course, the ground Mr Corbyn’s Labour fought on and what dominated the public debate – certainly from the ‘dementia tax’ cock-up onwards.

Evan Davis’s interpretation of the election was bizarre. In contrast to his assertions about a lack of support for Mrs May’s Brexit plan, eve of election polling showed that the Conservatives had a strong lead when people were asked which party has the best policy on Brexit – 47 per cent named the Tories against only 19 per cent naming Labour, and of Labour voters one in five thought the Tories had the best approach to Brexit.

I must say I am looking forward now to Evan’s creative take on the rejection of Chuka Umuna’s Remoaner amendment to stay in the single market and customs union in Parliament yesterday – by 322 votes which included the Labour leadership and the majority of Labour MPs.

I can’t imagine he will he let the truth get in the way of a good story. Especially when that story supposedly justifies an all-out BBC assault on the Brexit process over the next 19 months.

 

Transcript of BBC2 Newsnight, 28 June 2017, Interview with David Jones, 10.41pm

EVAN DAVIS:         Well, I’m joined now by Conservative MP David Jones, who was, until very recently, the Minister of State for Exiting the EU. A very good evening to you. How long do you give Theresa May?

DAVID JONES:       Well, I think we have to acknowledge that it was a difficult election campaign, we didn’t do as well as we wanted to. But I think that most Members of Parliament were very impressed by what she did immediately afterwards. She came to the 1922 Committee, she acknowledged that there had been mistakes, she put her hands up to it, and she got a great deal of support from everybody who was present in the room. And I think that slowly but surely, she is building up her credibility with the party and I think that she’s got quite a long time ahead of her.

ED:           It’s interesting you say she’s building up her credibility, because today, the first vote in Parliament, so it was a vote on a Labour amendment to get rid of the public sector 1% pay cap. You stuck with the vote, you voted against the Labour amendment, the morning briefings were you were going to get rid of the cap, despite voting against the Labour amendment, this afternoon retreated on the change on policy. It was like complete confusion. Can the next 1722 days of this Parliament carry on like that?

DJ:            Well, I have to acknowledge that today was not one of the best days. But nevertheless, looking at what has happened over the last two weeks, I have seen Theresa May stabilising the ship, and I think . . .

ED:           (interrupting) Sorry, stabilising the ship? Since the election, which was a disaster, Grenfell – she’s had to apologise to the nation for the reaction to that. And she’s . . . we’ve had today, a complete confusion over policy?

DJ:            It has been a very difficult time, I don’t deny that.

ED:           But you said she’s building up her credibility rather than burning through her credibility.

DJ:            Yes, well yes I do, because quite frankly, at the end of the election campaign, that credibility was very low, in fact, the entire party’s credibility was very low. But nevertheless I don’t detect any appetite within the Parliamentary party to see her go.

ED:           Would you describe your old department, DExEU, the department you were dropped from, would you describe that as chaos?

DJ:            No, I wouldn’t. I would actually say that DExEU is an extremely effective department, I think that it’s got an extremely strong team of officials and I think they’re very well prepared for the negotiations.

ED:           But you were dropped and another one resigned about five days before the negotiations started, that’s madness isn’t it?

DJ:            Well, I’m not second-guessing why the Prime Minister decided to . . .

ED:           Well, why do you think she dropped you? Why did she drop you?

DJ:            I just said, I’m not second-guessing why the Prime Minister decided to dispense of my services. Any politician who takes a ministerial role knows that from the moment he is appointed he is that much closer to leaving.

ED:           Hang on, we basically five days before the negotiations started, we lost two of the people in the department who were going to be doing the negotiating. We had to bring in two new people who had five days’ notice to get ready to meet Monsieur Barnier.

DJ:            Two very competent people who I think will do an extremely good job, but most importantly backed up by an extremely strong team of officials and led by the very competent David Davis.

ED:           It’s all going so well, on your account, do you think David Davis and Philip Hammond can both stay in post for the next two years and agree something between them on . . .

DJ:            Yes, I do. And in fact, quite contrary to the reports in today’s newspapers, they actually work very closely indeed, they have regular meetings and discussions. I think that today’s reports have been overblown and I think that it’s essentially a difference of emphasis. But I think that actually they’re working extremely closely and very effectively together.

ED:           What is the difference of emphasis do you think between them?

DJ:            Well, I mean, this morning for example, there was the suggestion that Philip Hammond wanted us to remain in the customs union and David Davis saying not. But in fact . . .

ED:           (laughs) That’s not . . . that’s not an emphasis!

DJ:            Well it is, because in fact both David Davis and Philip Hammond are agreed that we will have to be out of both the customs union and the single market by the end of this Parliament, in five years’ time.

ED:           But what’s interesting is, because even though you were dropped from the government, you are behaving, if I may say, and this is not being, being rude, you’re behaving in a very loyal way, you clearly think Theresa May should stick it out for quite a while, you’re basically with the party on all of this. In a way it seems like the leadership issue has become a proxy for the Brexit issue. It’s interesting listening to Nicky Morgan thinking, well, the clock’s ticking on Theresa May and Jacob Rees-Mogg in that piece saying, no, she is the right person to steer us through. Is this the case now Brexiteers are putting their faith in Theresa May, soft Brexiteers or Remainers are saying maybe we need to get rid of her and we can get something moving on (words unclear due to speaking over)

DJ:            (speaking over) I think there is no doubt that Brexit is going to be the defining issue of this Parliament and of course, we’ve only got a very limited timetable to work through: we’ve got one year and nine months. And so really, what we can’t afford is the indulgence of talking about alternative leaders, or putting in place somebody else, for someone who actually I think will do a very good job and will lead the country through these negotiations very effectively.

ED:           Well, you’re making my point, the Brexiteers clearly have more faith in Theresa May than anyone else. But you say, you know, ‘this is no time for indulgence’ but it is surely the time for people to discuss and express their concern over the Theresa May plan for Brexit which clearly didn’t grab the population in the election.

DJ:            I don’t think it was that, I think frankly the big issues were other non-Brexit-related issues, I think most particularly the issue of social care but also one or two other issues too. But I think so far as Brexit is concerned, we are now in the position where 80% of the electorate of this country voted for parties who want to take Britain out of the EU.

ED:           Sorry, what planet are you on? Loads of swing voters who might have voted Tory voted for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party because they so detested the Theresa May version of Brexit. Metropolitan, liberal Remainers . . .

DJ:            I don’t see how you can . . .

ED:           . . . said ‘We cannot vote for Theresa May because we don’t like her Brexit . . .’

DJ:            (speaking over) I don’t see how you can possibly read that into the election result.

ED:           Well, the polls show, and I know we don’t put a huge amount of weight on polls, but the polls show more people didn’t like her version of Brexit than did like her version of Brexit. You can’t say that anybody who voted Labour was endorsing Theresa May’s Brexit, because they voted for a party . . .

DJ:            Brexit, actually, to coin a phrase, does mean Brexit. We have already set ourselves on the course for leaving the European Union.

ED:           But hang on, you were saying if somebody voted Labour they were effectively endorsing Theresa May’s Brexit and that is completely untrue isn’t it? They voted Labour as a protest against Theresa May’s Brexit.

DJ:            Well, I don’t see how you can possibly read that into it.

ED:           Because they thought they’d get a softer Brexit from Labour and potentially stay in the customs union, because they thought it was bonkers to leave it.

DJ:            I think that that is a complete misreading of the election if I may say so.

ED:           Do you accept polls that show more people believe that Theresa May’s Brexit should be amended than support it?

DJ:            Look, Theresa May’s Brexit is absolutely clear and that is to leave the European Union but to seek the best possible relationship with the European Union in terms of a free trade agreement and in terms, of course, of access to the single market.

ED:           (speaking over) Why not have a free vote on it? All those MPs have been honest about their views on the situation in the election, we’ve just had an election, they (words unclear due to speaking over) voted, post referendum . . .

DJ:            (speaking over) We’ve had the vote already.

ED:           Well, then let the MPs vote on which Brexit they want.

DJ:            Forgive me, but we’ve already agreed and decided to leave the European Union, we . . .

ED:           (interrupting) And there are multiple ways of leaving the European Union, it doesn’t have to be the way you want to do it.

DJ:            The ways of leaving the European Union are specified in Article 50, and that’s the process we are going through at the moment.

ED:           Are you saying, sorry, this is really important, are you saying there is literally only one way of leaving the European Union, there are no choices whatsoever in that at all?

DJ:            The choice has already been made, we’ve served the notice under Article 50 . . .

ED:           (speaking over) Yes . . .

DJ:            . . . and we are therefore on our way out of the European Union. What we’re now doing is attempting to seek the best possible relationship with the European Union after we have left. And I think that is something that is shared by members of parties on both sides of the House.

ED:           David Jones, thank you very much.

News-watch survey of BBC Article 50 survey shows deep anti-Brexit bias

News-watch survey of BBC Article 50 survey shows deep anti-Brexit bias

EU Referendum, News-watch, Today Programme | | by David Keighley

The latest News-watch detailed analysis of BBC output, covering the UK’s Article 50 letter and its aftermath, shows heavy bias against the case for Brexit.  The report, which included more than 73,000 words of programme transcripts, can be found in full here. Coverage of the survey’s findings is in the Daily Express here.

In the week of the filing of the UK’s Article 50 letter (March 29 – April 4, 2017), BBC Radio 4’s Today programme broadcast six editions which contained almost five hours of material about the letter and its aftermath. This was almost half of the available feature airtime.

The programme coverage was strongly biased against Brexit and made special efforts to illustrate the extent to which leaving the EU could have catastrophic consequences for the UK. There was, by contrast, only minimal effort to examine the potential benefits.

A measure of this overwhelming negativity was that only eight (6.5%) of the 124 speakers who appeared over the six editions were given the space to make substantive arguments that the future for the UK outside the EU would yield significant benefits.

The overall gloom was buttressed by the programme’s editorial approach. Presenters and correspondents, for example, pushed at every opportunity to illustrate potential (and existing) problems. At the same time, they were strongly adversarial towards Brexit supporters, but much less so to guests who advocated that the UK was, in effect, now staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

Problems that were deliberately pushed to the forefront included the wealth of City of London being under threat, the creation of a ‘legislative soup’, the EU not agreeing with the UK’s preferred path of negotiations, and the possibility the of exit talks extending up to 10 years.

BBC ‘fact-checking’, though presented as objective, was anything but. Chris Morris, the ‘fact checker’ was most focused on choosing topics that showed Brexit in a negative light, and failed at even the elementary level of pointing out that ‘EU money’ was actually provided UK taxpayers.

A series of reports from Sunderland, purportedly to explore both Leave and Remain perspectives, focused most on this negative fact checking. It also gave most prominence in its framework to the possibility of Nissan leaving the area and negative business developments since Brexit and the possibility of arts funding drying up. Local voices supporting Brexit were included, but in vox pops with only soundbite points.

Special effort was made throughout to show that the City of London was under pressure as a result of Brexit. A story that Lloyd’s of London were establishing a Brussels ‘headquarters’ was elevated to major significance in the bulletins, and across several mentions in Business News slots, even though the chief executive admitted that ‘only ‘tens’ of jobs were involved.

By contrast to this blanket negativity, a News-watch report from 2002 covering the introduction of euro notes and coins across the EU was strongly positive about the prospects for the new currency and strained editorial sinews and resources to show that its advent had been joyfully received in the relevant EU countries.

The BBC strongly defended its post-Brexit coverage during the survey period (through a high profile article in Radio Times by Today presenter Nick Robinson) as being in accord with its own rules of ‘due impartiality’. The evidence of this survey is that its assessment methods are seriously skewed against Brexit and in favour of the EU.

The full report is here:

Photo by James Cridland

BBC still resists Brexit – against the will of even Remain voters

BBC still resists Brexit – against the will of even Remain voters

2017 General Election, BBC Bias, EU Referendum | | by David Keighley

YouGov’s latest poll on attitudes towards Brexit – as the New Statesman outlines here – demonstrates that 69 per cent of the public now support leaving the EU and only 21 per cent want to ignore the result of the referendum.

Not only that, 25 per cent in the Brexit-supporting total are Remain voters who accept that the British people have voted to leave, and that the Government thus has a duty ‘to carry out their wishes and leave’.

In other words, they concur that the referendum vote is confirmation – despite the frantic protestations of Tim Farron – that Leave does indeed mean Leave. The 48 per cent support for Remain on June 23 is distant history. The majority of Remain voters have moved on.

Put another way, only around 9 million Britons out of the 43.5m who voted on June 23 are still hankering for a re-run.

Will someone please tell the BBC? New Statesman Political Editor George Eaton pulls no punches in his assessment of how devastating the figures are to the Remain case. He states:

“After voting Remain, they ceased to act as a unified political bloc. The crucial figure for understanding May’s decision to pursue Brexit is not “the 48 per cent” or “the 52 per cent” but the 69 per cent – the number who believe the Government has a duty to leave the EU (more than a third of whom voted Remain). A mere 21 per cent agree that the government should either block Brexit or seek to prevent it through a second referendum.”

Yet the BBC continues to behave as if it is their main duty to show audiences how difficult the Brexit road is going to be, and how suspect the ‘Leave ‘vote was, as is detailed by News-watch here.

BBC Media Editor Amol Rajan has now even also seriously floated on the Today programme (at 8.20am in the edition) what amounts to a conspiracy theory about the Vote Leave project. He has suggested it was backed by a shadowy ‘millionaire’ (how much dodgier in the BBC lexicon can you be?) combined with a publicity-shy software company called Cambridge Analytica, who – shock, horror – are also, in an equally shadowy way, behind Donald Trump.

All this is beginning to look like the BBC – in its dogged opposition to Brexit – is acting like a millenarian cult. A fascinating book on the psychology involved is here. The end of the world is nigh and they are jolly well going to tell us about it – despite what voters now think and very clearly want. And despite any amount of positive news to the contrary.

Photo by dullhunk

This election is a battle between the Tories and the broadcasters

This election is a battle between the Tories and the broadcasters

2017 General Election, BBC Bias, Today Programme | | by David Keighley

This is an election like no other for the BBC. They have a mission.

Two weeks ago, as is laid out here, Today presenter Nick Robinson effectively declared war on Brexit with his statement that the Corporation would henceforward work flat out to find the problems with Brexit, and not bring balanced coverage of the Leave perspective.  Of which, more later.

Since then, it has become painfully evident what he meant. The Corporation’s Article 50 coverage relentlessly highlighted the difficulties, with pride of place given to predictions by correspondents of decades-long wrangles, inflation of perceived problems over Gibraltar, the continuing need for the European Court of Justice and dire warnings that the British tourist and hospitality industry would collapse if the UK did not have continued access to EU labour.

In the same vein, after the general election was announced, Today’s business news – like a heat-seeking missile – sought out the views of the (ex BBC) DG of the CBI, Carolyn Fairbairn, on the need for continued free movement, reinforced an hour later by the ultra-Remain businessman Sir Martin Sorrell, who predicted that the real reason for the election was so that Mrs May could achieve a soft-Brexit in line with his own objectives.

To be fair, Andrew Lillico, a pro-Leave business figure also appeared, but there was no doubt which views were considered to be the most important.

So what will happen during the general election? This – despite what the Conservative Party machine might say – is effectively a second Brexit referendum, brought about because, as Theresa May has acknowledged, the Remain side are determined to thwart Brexit.

There are, of course, special rules for broadcasters during general elections. Broadly, they provide that much more attention must be paid to balance between the parties contesting the election.

But here, in this election, is an immediate problem. Those rules (as defined, for example by Ofcom in Section 6 of its programming code) are designed mainly to prevent imbalances between political parties.

That creates an immediate problem with an election so inevitably focused on a single issue: that the overwhelming majority of current MPs (most of whom will become candidates after May 3) were Remainers, and after the referendum vote want a strongly-limited and compromised form of EU exit.

Labour, for example, as exemplified by shadow chancellor John McDonnell on Today on Wednesday morning, says it now supports Brexit. But the form of Brexit it wants is continued membership of the single market, and qualified support for free movement. The Liberal Democrats and the SNP, of course, aggressively oppose Brexit – and make no bones about it.

The BBC, in this framework, has oodles of ‘wriggle-room’ to sidestep the election rules, and to continue to pursue vigorously its self-declared campaign to expose to the maximum the pitfalls of Brexit throughout the election period.

Of course, election coverage of the issues involved is also subject to the normal over-arching rules of public service impartiality. But it is precisely here that the BBC – as is clear in the Nick Robinson Radio Times piece – has interpreted the clauses relating to ‘due impartiality’ according to its own anti-Brexit ends. In the Corporation’s estimation, it is on a mission to spread ‘understanding’ about the exit process. In reality, that means something very different: the goal is to portray exit in the most negative light possible.

News-watch coverage of previous general elections has shown that, despite the supposedly strict general election impartiality rules, the BBC’s approach to EU coverage was seriously flawed. After the 2015 poll, it was noted:

…the analysis shows that the issue of possible withdrawal was not explored fairly or deeply enough…Coverage was heavily distorted, for instance by the substantial business news comment on the Today programme that withdrawal would damage British trade and jobs. The message of potential damage to the economy was supplemented by the provision of frequent platforms for Labour and Liberal Democrat figures to warn of the same dangers. The spokesmen from these parties were not properly challenged on their views.

Will this change in 2017? Fat chance. Subsequent News-watch reports have shown that this bias has continued, regardless of the June 23 vote.

The problem now is that – despite the new BBC Charter – the Corporation’s approach to impartiality in news coverage is mainly self-regulated through its own Complaints Unit. Ofcom only enters the frame if there is an appeal against the BBC’s own rulings, and that’s a procedure that takes months. News-watch’s complaint about the BBC’s fantasy race hate murder in Harlow took six months to grind through the BBC machine.

The Conservative Party under David Cameron fluffed the opportunity to achieve genuine reform of the BBC. Will that glaring failure now come back to haunt Theresa May?

Photo by secretlondon123

BBC Trust defends Corporation’s Harlow ‘race hate’ sensationalism

BBC Trust defends Corporation’s Harlow ‘race hate’ sensationalism

BBC Bias, BBC Trust, EU Referendum | | by David Keighley

The killing last August of a well-liked Polish man, ‘Arek’ Jóźwik, after a late night fracas in a pizza parlour in Harlow sent the BBC newsgathering operation into overdrive.

It was the end of the silly season and only ten weeks after the referendum.

The BBC, of course, was then, as now, hell-bent on finding and giving maximum exposure to every possible reason why the Brexit vote was a catastrophic mistake.

To the Corporation, which for years has also been on a mission to downplay the impact of immigration on the UK and to label opponents as at best xenophobic, at worst racist, this was a story that ticked every box. They dived into reporting the crime with grim, hyperbolic relish.

BBC1 man-on-the spot Daniel Sandford gave most prominence in his feature for the BBC1 bulletins on August 31 to that the alleged crime – prematurely said by him to be a ‘murder’ – was being investigated as a frenzied attack by a gang of six local youths triggered by race hate stirred up by the referendum vote.

To ram home the message about the race-hate dimension, Sandford carefully collected and edited quotes from the Polish ambassador and Robert Halfon, the local MP.

To be fair, he also mentioned that police were considering other options, such as ‘youths looking for trouble’, but there was no doubt which reason for the attack he thought was more likely.

And later that evening, on BBC2’s Newsnight, correspondent John Sweeney’s outro to his feature about the death was a quote from a friend of Mr Jóźwik, who declared that Nigel Farage had ‘blood on his hands’. The full transcripts of the Sweeney and Sandford reports are contained in the correspondence with the BBC, below.

Fast forward to the present. It has since emerged that Mr Jóźwik’s death was not murder at all.  Nor, say the police, was race-hate involved, and nor was the crime committed by a frenzied gang of youths.

Instead, a sole 15-year-old youth has been charged with manslaughter. He has indicated a plea of ‘not guilty’ at a preliminary hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court and has been released on conditional bail until his trial, which is expected to be in July.

It has also emerged since Sandford’s report in August that police are now convinced that a rise in the reporting of race hate crimes during the summer – heavily stressed by the BBC after June 23 and undoubtedly part of the reason the facts of the Harlow killing were so heavily exaggerated – was not linked at all to the referendum, but was the result of better and easier self-report procedures.

After Harlow, some journalists (unlike the BBC) decided to investigate further. They found that ‘race hate’ domain has become a major self-perpetuating and highly lucrative industry in its own right. One of the main hubs of this new world-wide enterprise is Sussex University where its principal advocate is partly lavishly funded by (you may have guessed)…the EU.

News-watch filed a formal complaint about Sandford’s report. This claimed in essence that the reporting of Harlow was deeply irresponsible journalism that deliberately sensationalised the known facts about the killing, and too readily linked it to ‘race hate.’  There was supporting evidence showing how very rare killings with a racial motive are in the UK, and warning that the available statistics were not reliable.

This was rejected by the Complaints Unit.  The verdict? Move along there, nothing to see – Sandford (whose name was misspelled by the complaints officer) was merely doing his job.

Under the Corporation’s elaborate complaints rules, News-watch in early January submitted an appeal to the BBC Trust about the ruling. Former BBC producer Fran O’Brien, who is now the Trust’s Head of Editorial Standards, has now, finally – a month later than the maximum time permitted under the BBC’s own rules – responded.

Her decision? Surprise, surprise, exactly the same as the Complaints Unit. There was, she ruled, no exaggeration, no inaccuracy, no breach of rules linked to over-emphasising ‘race-hate’. Everything was totally tickety-boo and in line with the BBC Editorial Guidelines.

And that, said O’Brien, was that. Her verdict was final: there could be no appeal. As far as the Trust is concerned, the matter is well and truly closed. The full letter from O’Brien can be read below.

In two weeks, of course, from April 2, the Trust will be no more. Under the new BBC Charter, its role in adjudicating complaint appeals is being taken over by the Content Board at Ofcom.

But this last-gasp ruling underlines yet again that BBC journalism exists in its own bubble, and the Complaints Unit does nothing to prick it; if anything the reverse.  The Corporation reports on its terms, no matter how inflammatory or at odds with the facts and common sense its output is.

The blunt truth is that the Sandford report of Mr Jóźwik’s killing grossly and irresponsibly exaggerated the race-hate dimension and must be seen in the overall context of the BBC’s determined desire to undermine the referendum result.

It’s now down to Ofcom to sort out BBC bias. Don’t hold your breath. First, the Content Board is packed with ex-BBC staff, and second, the overall Ofcom boss, Sharon White, seems more focused on the diversity agenda and getting more women on screen than clearing the Augean stables.

The reality is that until BBC bias is governed by genuinely independent scrutiny, the Corporation will remain locked in that skewed journalistic bubble – massively and crassly out of touch with the British people.

Labour’s latest flip-flop in Brexit saga

Labour’s latest flip-flop in Brexit saga

EU Referendum, Labour Party | | by Paul T Horgan

This is a guest post by Paul T Horgan of The Conservative Woman, where this article was first published.

The membership of the Labour Party is revolting.

A group styling itself as Labour Against Brexit has written an open letter to Jeremy Corbyn, urging him to whip his MPs to vote against the Government’s Article 50 Bill. This letter reportedly attracted 5,000 online signatures from Labour members within three days.

The authors make their views very clear about Labour’s historic position on the UK’s membership of the EU:

“The membership of the Labour Party is not, and has never been, pro-Brexit. The party has a long history of supporting membership of the European Union. “

This is simply not true. The authors write from a position of ignorance over their own party’s history.

The Parliamentary Labour Party has on numerous occasions voted, while in opposition, against EEC membership, most notably in a debate in October 1971 over the motion:

“That this House approves Her Majesty’s Government’s decision of principle to join the European Communities on the basis of the arrangements which have been negotiated”

This motion appears the mirror-image of the Article 50 vote.

At the time, the House divided: Ayes 356, Noes 244. Labour’s leading MPs, such as Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan, voted No. Roy Jenkins voted Aye, sowing the seeds for future party divisions.

Labour outside of Parliament was split before the 1975 referendum, with a special conference voting to leave.

In 1983, Labour’s manifesto stated they wanted to withdraw from the EEC. 

“[…]British withdrawal from the Community is the right policy for Britain – to be completed well within the lifetime of the parliament. That is our commitment. But we are also committed to bring about withdrawal in an amicable and orderly way, so that we do not prejudice employment or the prospect of increased political and economic co-operation with the whole of Europe. “

Labour has, in fact, been flip-floppy over Europe for decades right up until about 1989.

By contrast, official Conservative policy has been clear and consistent since 1961: to join what was then the EEC, and to work with our European partners in this project, occasionally seeking reform, rebates, special deals and other exclusions when policy moved out of the Conservatives’ comfort zone. This was the case even under Iain Duncan Smith. During our courting and membership of the EEC/EC/EU, no Conservative Party leader advocated or voted for Brexit. Numerous Labour leaders did. It is only as a result of the referendum that official Conservative Party policy has changed.

EEC membership was opposed by Labour on numerous occasions. Jeremy Corbyn himself was a Eurosceptic. The only benefit he could see of the EU was in employment and environmental legislation, and that’s about it. But this is hardly surprising. The basis of the EEC was that the economies of the member states were capitalist with state-owned enterprises forming an minority of aggregate commercial activity. This pro-capitalist sentiment was amplified during the Cold War, as a clear, but not necessarily widely stated, objective of the EEC was to prevent any member state from falling to socialist revolution as a consequence of economic collapse. This must have been anathema to arch anti-capitalists such as Corbyn.

Labour’s ‘long history of supporting membership’ actually stems from about 1989, when they made an interesting discovery. French socialist Jacques Delors was President of the Commission, and Labour cottoned on that if the Conservatives, who appeared at the time to be able to remain in power forever, did not pass social and employment legislation that Labour wanted, then the EEC could issue it as a binding directive, and were more than willing at the time to do so. To the Conservatives, this was socialism by the back door, to be resisted. Labour’s, or at least the sane, non-Corbynite wing’s love affair with the EEC started at roughly the same time as Margaret Thatcher’s late-1988 Bruges speech cooled the euro-ardour of some Conservatives.

Some Labour members do not want this love affair to end. Others are just looking over their shoulders at a revanchist Liberal Democrat Party that now has a new bit between its teeth. The Lib Dems gained 11 seats in 2005, or more seats than they now have in total, after their opposition to invading Iraq, and now seem poised for yet another single-issue-based comeback. That is the true reason behind Labour jitters, which includes some front bench resignations with the promise of more. Some MPs are hearing hoof beats behind them.

Labour has always found the topic of the EU an awkward one because their response can only be ideological, and EU membership is actually a technocratic issue. Labour does not do technocratic issues well. To them, policy has to be based on dogma before pragmatism. They have flip-flopped repeatedly over the last sixty years on Europe. This is just the most recent example, but is informed by a genuine fear, as the party scrabbles to find a policy that will not lost them votes to the Lib-Dems and UKIP at the same time. Labour, or a portion of them, is attempting to rewrite their history of switching horses so they can steal the Lib Dem’s tack. According to some Labour members, ‘Ignorance is Strength’.

Photo by David Holt London

CHARLES MOORE SLAMS BBC NEGATIVE ‘GROUPTHINK’ IN REPORTING OF TRUMP

CHARLES MOORE SLAMS BBC NEGATIVE ‘GROUPTHINK’ IN REPORTING OF TRUMP

BBC Bias | | by Craig Byers
This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased?
This week’s The Media Show featured a remarkable pair of interviews about BBC bias – especially regarding BBC bias against Donald Trump.

The first interview featured Charles Moore of the Spectator, laying into the BBC’s ‘groupthink’ and the corporation’s lack of even-handedness when it comes to disputing/believing ‘facts’ (i.e. questioning figures from the Trump side whilst simply taking on trust figures from the anti-Trump side), plus making the contrast between how the BBC greeted the election of Barack Obama with how it’s greeted the election of Donald Trump.

The second interview featured James Harding, Director of BBC News. It was one of those BBC interviews when the senior BBC manager essentially says little other than that ‘the BBC is getting it about right’. Even when he sounded as if he was about to concede one of Charles Moore’s points, Mr Harding spun around and refused to concede it:

JAMES HARDING  Erm, I think, let me say two things. One is: I think Charles Moore makes a really good point and made a really good point in that article which is, if you’re going to have an argument about the honesty of the President of the United States in picking a fight with the media about the size of his audience at the inauguration, then you’d better be as vigorous and as keen to monitor the numbers of people who go on marches. And I think that point is not just related to Trump, it’s related to that bigger issue about public protests and how do you make sure that you, you do that accurately?

STEVE HEWLETT:         So do you think there was an element in the BBC’s reporting . . .

JH:          (interrupting) So . . .

SH:         . . . that could fairly be described as ‘uneven’ slightly?

JH:          No, I just think, I think what that is an extremely important thing is (sic) to keep on reminding people that if you’re going to pick a fight over fake news – and there is a fight on all sides over fake news, then you keep coming back to the efforts you make to be accurate.  That’s a really important point. Plus, he quite blatantly side-stepped some of Steve Hewlett’s sharper questions (or, to put it another way, failed to answer them), eg:

SH:         I guess is . . . I mean, this is a very cheeky question . . .

JH:          Hm-hmm (laughs)

SH:         And there’s no reason why you should have a proper answer to it, in fairness . . .

JH:          Can I just say, ‘No I don’t’ (laughs)

SH:      Do you . . . well, that might be the answer. Do you know anybody on the journalistic or editorial staff at the BBC, who is pro-Trump?

JH:          (two second pause) (inhales) So . . .

SH:         As an individual I mean.

JH:        So, so really important . . . there’s a really important thing here, which is that, people inside the BBC, they are all journalists, actually, one of the great misunderstandings about journalists is that there is such a thing as groupthink. Journalists, by nature, have really contrary opinions, they have different opinions, certainly when, when there’s a group of think— er, people who go in one direction, they, by nature, want to go the other direction, you know them as well as I do. Erm, one thing that is true of the BBC is of course, you leave all your personal opinions at the door.

Yeah right!

It was a strikingly weak performance, all in all.
Full Transcript:

Transcript of BBC Radio 4, The Media Show, 25th January 2016, James Harding on claims of BBC Bias against Trump, 4.30pm

STEVE HEWLETT: Hello, he’s certainly been in the news alright.

NEWSREADER:     The White House is accused of telling falsehoods in a battle with the media about President Trump’s inauguration.

SH:         But has the BBC’s coverage of him and his administration been duly impartial?  We’ll hear from the former editor and Telegraph columnist Charles Moore and James Harding Director of BBC News. (Discusses other stories coming up in programme).  So, is the BBC Biased? It’s not exactly a new issue, but it appears to have been given a new lease of life by Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States.  Charles Moore, Conservative commentator and Telegraph columnist wrote a piece attacking what he suggested was the corporation’s one-sided coverage of Trump. Whilst Trump’s attempts to challenge the otherwise low estimates of the numbers attending his inauguration were given a fully rigorous going over, estimates for attendance at the women’s march against Trump, put by organisers into the millions worldwide, were allowed to pass without question. Moore sees this as indicative of a much deeper malaise. In a moment we’ll hear from James Harding the BBC’s Director of News, but first I asked Charles Moore to explain his problem with the BBC’s reporting of President Trump.

CHARLES MOORE:              Everything in the Trump side of things is challenged, not necessarily wrongly so, but it is challenged and everything on the anti-Trump side is not challenged. One of the reasons that Donald Trump is now President of United States is because of the massive counter-reaction in middle America against what they call the Liberal media, and in a way they are right, you know, the New York Times, ABC, CNN, etc, present particular view of the world which is extremely hostile to a certain sort of ordinary American. And the BBC, who Donald Trump describes as ‘another beauty’ is the most important exterior non-American network that also behaves like that. And so what this reporter is, about the figures is, is not actually really a sort of disinterested inquiry into the figures, it’s a battle between the Liberal media and Donald Trump.

SH:         I mean, whereas the New York Times clearly defines itself, or declares itself to be anti-Trump, called him a liar, recommended a vote for Hillary, are you saying that the BBC in some ways sees itself as fighting the, in inverted comas, ‘the good fight’ against the evil Trump?

CM:        Yes of course, it will try to, at least to some extent to present facts properly but secondly because it’s paid for by the licence fee and has a charter which says that it has to be unbiased, so it can’t actually write its own article as it were, saying, you know, ‘We hate Donald Trump’, which the New York Times can, but it does. And I think it’s so obvious it hardly needs description.

SH:         But do you think there are a group of people somewhere in the BBC, sitting around a table deciding that this is the way things . . .

CM:        (speaking over) No, no, no.

SH:         . . . should be done?

CM:        No, no, it’s like all, almost all BBC bias, it’s groupthink. It’s the same people thinking the same thing and it –  by the way doesn’t only apply to Donald Trump, it applies to the assumption made about Brexit, it applies to climate change, a whole range of issues where there is an automatic assumption about what a decent person would feel. And, I don’t regard this as a conspiracy, but I regard it as quite a serious dereliction of duty about reflecting the variety of opinion in society.

SH:         But if you have someone like President Trump, for example, issuing forth with – I think of myself as a reasonably independently minded observer of these things, things that are really demonstrably untrue, or at the very least massively exaggerated, I mean it’s just this weekend we had the inauguration figures, we had his assertion that the media had concocted his feud with the FBI and CIA, when you look back at the tweets he issued around the time, that seems to be just plain nonsense. He then had to go on illegal immigrant voters, that last claim was made without, from what I can see, a single shred of evidence, and even senior Republicans are saying to him, ‘Please stop saying this, it’s going to get us all into a lot of trouble’. When you have someone doing that, is there any other way of dealing with him?

CM:        I think the way you phrased your question shows what you think of President Trump in the first place and therefore confirms my point. By the way, I’m not defending the particular claims that President Trump makes. I personally haven’t criticised in public his tendency to exaggerate, but I think if you, if you think how you might approach other politicians with whom the BBC is less likely to disagree, they let them off, they don’t submit them to the same sort of relentless attack and investigation. He’s been treated like a witness who . . . and prosecution is . . . trying to pull him apart. If you were a challenger to the establishment from the left, the BBC would be welcoming him. So when President Obama comes in challenging a whole enormous range of American attitudes, partly because he’s the first black candidate, he gets the benefit of the doubt, 8 years ago, it’s . . . nobody’s going through all President Obama’s claims about whatever they may have been, because what you’re getting from the BBC is how wonderful it is that somebody has arisen against the white establishment. And now you have a great big white man who’s arisen against the establishment and he’s treated like a monster. This is simply because, or largely because, it reflects the BBC’s world view.

SH:         Do you think that there’s anything the BBC could do to remedy this?

CM:        First of all, I think it could knowledge it, and that would be a start to remedying it. Second, I think it should have an exterior investigation, not of . . .  bias in the sense of cheating, but about mindset, about the way almost everyone in the BBC thinks the same thing, and is therefore – and this is really my biggest objection to it all – so behind the game about what’s happening in world news. It didn’t understand that we were going to vote for Brexit, it doesn’t understand and therefore its viewers and listeners, it’s much harder for them to understand, what the revolt that has produced Trump is all about, because it’s just regarded as wicked, and that sort of bias against understanding, which is a phrase that John Birt used many years ago, is a really serious problem with the BBC which its own authorities and possibly exterior authorities should be invited to investigate.

SH:         So, James Harding, thanks very much for joining us. ‘A bias against understanding’ arising from groupthink, rather than kind of . . . any sort of clear, positive effort to mislead? Do you think there’s anything in that?

JAMES HARDING (sighs audibly) Well, firstly I should say, Steve, I think that having read you and listened to you for a fair few years now, I’m pretty sure that the way you asked the question about Donald Trump would be the way you would asked a question about a politician of any stripe. I mean, part of the job of the journalist is to lean into (fragment of word, or word unclear) people in positions of power. Erm, I think, let me say two things. One is: I think Charles Moore makes a really good point and made a really good point in that article which is, if you’re going to have an argument about the honesty of the President of the United States in picking a fight with the media about the size of his audience at the inauguration, then you’d better be as vigorous and as keen to monitor the numbers of people who go on marches. And I think that point is not just related to Trump, it’s related to that bigger issue about public protests and how do you make sure that you, you do that accurately?

SH:         So do you think there was an element in the BBC’s reporting . . .

JH:          (interrupting) So . . .

SH:         . . . that could fairly be described as ‘uneven’ slightly?

JH:          No, I just think, I think what that is an extremely important thing is (sic) to keep on reminding people that if you’re going to pick a fight over fake news – and there is a fight on all sides over fake news, then you keep coming back to the efforts you make to be accurate.  That’s a really important point.

SH:         (speaking over, fragments of words, unclear)_

JH:          But can I just make . . .

SH:         (speaking over) But when I looked at the website and so on . . .

JH:          Hmm.

SH:         I haven’t seen all the broadcast coverage, but erm, it, it was quite clear, that whereas Trump . . . Trump’s numbers were being taken to task, now, in fairness to the journalists who did that, that might well be because there was direct, concrete evidence that what he was saying simply wasn’t true, or was massively exaggerated. When it came to the ‘millions of people’ quote . . .

JH:          Hmm.

SH:         . . . around the world, I mean, that may simply not be checkable in any meaningful way, but nevertheless, you know, march organisers are renowned for inflating their numbers . . .

JH:          Yes.

SH:         . . . and there was no sign of any scepticism, being . . .

JH:          Yeah.

SH:         . . . shown. Journalistic scepticism I mean, towards that number.

JH:          (inhales) Look, there’s . . . there is a real risk here that we all lose our minds and we disappear into a debate about something that doesn’t . . . matter as deeply as the real changes that are happening in the world . . .

SH:         (words unclear, speaking under)

JH:          (speaking over) But let me just, let me just finish. There is clearly a difference between the President of the United States challenging a piece of reporting that compares the audiences in 2009 with the audiences in 2017. That is a, that is about whether or not President of the United States is using the podium in the White House to try and challenge what looks to be demonstrably true. There’s a second point which is: is the BBC when it makes estimates and any other news organisation to that matter, makes estimates of crowds, is it rigorous enough about those estimates and does it take into account inflation. I’ll just stand back to this for a minute. There is a really important risk here that the media turns into a circular firing squad and starts having such a huge discussion about itself that it misses what are the really essential changes that are happening. And just to take it back to how the BBC is thinking about this is: there are going to be, by the nature of the way in which the new President of United States operates, huge media flare-ups. He’s picked fights with certain networks, he’s had arguments about actors, about shows and these are fantastically interesting. At the same time of course there are really important changes to the way in which United States is operating in the world of trade, in the world of aid and development. One of the things we keep saying in our morning conferences, ‘Let’s keep an eye on those executive orders, make sure we’re really rigorous in understanding . . .

SH:         (speaking over) Okay, (fragment of word, unclear)

JH:          . . .  what the President is doing. And  I think that is really important this, because the media spat actually could distract us from some of the things . . .

SH:         (speaking over) Okay.

JH:          . . .  that are quite important . . .

SH:         We’ll come back to how you’re dealing with him . . .

JH:          Yeah.

SH:         . . . and the things you may have to set up to do things differently given the sort of challenges that he and his regime clearly represent. Erm, but just to go back to one more specific thing, he says in the article, we didn’t hear it in the conversation there, that he says whenever Fox News comes up in the BBC’s coverage, it’s described as pro-Trump – there’s no real argument about that, it is,  unquestionably, pro-Trump and (slight laughter in voice) I’m not even sure Fox News would deny . . . would seek to, would seek to avoid the charge.

JH:          Actually, if you look back through the course of 2015-16, Fox as a Republican-leaning network actually had a quite ambivalent relationship with Donna Trump, it’s changed, obviously . . .

SH:         (speaking over) Well, as of last weekend you were describing him, describing them as pro-Trump. However, when the New York Times or CNN or NBC or ABC turns up, all of whom are in their own ways anti-Trump, they’re never described as such.

JH:          (inhales) I, I think, look, I think . . .

SH:         (speaking over)(fragment of word, or word unclear) You’re not giving the same signal.

JH:          (fragments of words, unclear) And again, this is my point about the media turning into a circular firing squad.  Different networks there would take different views, and, you know, if you look at the way the US media works, it’s different to the way it works here in the UK.  You know, in British newspaper, newspaper editor has control of the run of the news pages, and also the opinion pages, and the leader column.  In the US it’s different.  You run the news pages and there’s a separate group that runs opinions and leaders.  So clearly, if you look at the New York Times, they’ve taken a, they took a very strong pro-Hillary, anti-Donald Trump position.  Reporters there would say, ‘our job is also, in the news pages, to try and report the stories fairly and accurately.’  So, it is a complicated picture, I go back to my point I’m afraid, Steve, which is I think there is a big media argument happening, I don’t want to distract, it to distract us from actually the really key issue . . .

SH:         (speaking over) But, but, but (fragments of words, unclear)

JH:          . . . which is the presidency of Donald Trump.

SH:         But you could resolve these, these, these . . . these are footling in a way . . .

JH:          Hm-hmm.

SH:         I take your point, it’s not . . . you know . . . their nuclear policy appears to be changing, (laughter in voice) rather more significant.  Their policy towards China might be changing, you know, these things are really significant I actually get the point. But simply being even-handed about the way you describe other news organisations, being even-handed about the way that you deal with different claims to numerical accuracy, that’s not a . . . it’s only an issue if someone doesn’t fix this.

JH:          And I guess what I’m saying is some people will make judgements about, particularly, networks, particularly on the TV networks, on the US papers, I think it’s easier to make that point, I think it’s, I think they’re clearer in their editorial position on the President.

SH:         So, do you think the BBC should start describing CNN in matters Trump as being anti-Trump?

JH:          I think (fragment of word, unclear) I think the BBC should, should focus on, on Donald Trump. I think that . . . I think that where you can see particular papers or particular news outlets taking a very clear editorial position, and it’s there in black and white or there in the soundbites, we should make that clear. Where there . . . where, where it’s more mixed, I think that the business of branding and seeking to brand every different outlet is probably a fools’ errand and actually is a distraction from the real story.

SH:         So there are times when you wouldn’t label Fox News as pro-Trump?

JH:          (two second pause) Yes. I think that’s right. And actually, if you look back at our coverage, that’s true.

SH:         Okay.  Just take his point more generally, or one of them anyway, about ‘groupthink’ – this is not the first time this has come up in the BBC, indeed, one of their own reports, run by, it was run by Stuart Prebble, ex-of ITV, and it looks at immigration and Europe . . .

JH:          Hmm.

SH:         . . . and it concluded that the BBC did suffer, in periods, through sort-of groupthink . . .

JH:          Hmm.

SH:         . . . because of the sort of people that the BBC was full of.  It didn’t suggest any active attempt at bias or whatever, but, you know, these are people who grew up in a world where being anti-immigration meant you were rather uncomfortably close to the National Front and neo-fascism. So racism and fascism became very connected with anti-immigration, and so, you know, people just didn’t go there.  So (fragment of word, or word unclear) sort of taken together, the BBC was exhibiting a sort of groupthink.  It . . . is there anything, do you think, in Charles’s argument that over Trump something similar could be happening?

JH:          I, I don’t think . . . I think if you look back at 2016, and people look back and say how do we understand the nature of Trump’s election victory over Hillary Clinton? Or the Leave victory over Remain? Actually, I think that in both of those cases, what the BBC sought to do – and we were right, to be honest with you, we were quite chastened by the experience of 2015 where, you know, as you remember, I think we discussed it, the experience of the polls, we weren’t reporting the polls, but the polls were reflecting the way in which we were conducting interviews, thinking about the likely outcome of the result. In 2016 I think we went into both . . . er . . . the June 23 referendum and the November election really clear in our mind that there was no trusting the polls, and one of two outcomes was possible in every case. And what we tried to do very differently last year was to make sure that we were not covering the, the race, we were covering the choice.  What we set out very clearly to do last year was to make sure, actually, let’s report the choice. I think that we did that, and we did it extremely carefully . . .

SH:         (speaking over) (fragments of words, or words unclear) The question, the question here . . .

JH:          I don’t think we, we, we (word or words unclear due to speaking over)

SH:         . . . I guess is . . . I mean, this is a very cheeky question . . .

JH:          Hm-hmm (laughs)

SH:         And there’s no reason why you should have a proper answer to it, in fairness . . .

JH:          Can I just say, ‘No I don’t’ (laughs)

SH:         Do you . . . well, that might be the answer. Do you know anybody on the journalistic or editorial staff at the BBC, who is pro-Trump?

JH:          (two second pause) (inhales) So . . .

SH:         As an individual I mean.

JH:          So, so really important . . . there’s a really important thing here, which is that, people inside the BBC, they are all journalists, actually, one of the great misunderstandings about journalists is that there is such a thing as groupthink.  Journalists, by nature, have really contrary opinions, they have different opinions, certainly when, when there’s a group of think— er, people who go in one direction, they, by nature, want to go the other direction, you know them as well as I do. Erm, one thing that is true of the BBC is of course, you leave all your personal opinions at the door.

SH:         So says James Harding.  And we also heard there from Charles Moore.

Photo by dgoomany