BBC Bias Digest

01:58 am
08 September 2024

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BBC BIAS DIGEST 28 AUGUST 2020

BBC Digest | | by David Keighley

HALL FLOATS ‘HOUSEHOLD TAX’ TO FUND BBC:   Paul Withers (Express 28/8) said that director general Tony Hall had said on the Radio 4 Media Show that progressive alternatives to the licence fee were interesting and should be examined, including a compulsory ‘household tax’ which would require richer families to pay more. Mr Withers reported that he had explained that the tax – similar to how public service broadcasters were funded in Germany – would be collected as an additional charge on current household bills such as the council tax and broadband. He had added that an advantage would that the BBC would save a substantial amount of time, money and effort in tracking down those refusing to pay the licence fee, and it would also facilitate a sliding scale of payments for the rich and the poor.

BBC ‘IN THRALL OF WOKE MINORITY’: Former BBC newsreader Jan Leeming (Daily Mail 28/8), discussing the BBC’s decision not to feature sung versions of Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory in the last night of the proms, asked why the corporation was ‘so much in the thrall to the woke majority while ignoring the wishes of its loyal regulars like me?’. Ms Leeming also said she now got her news from Classic FM, and asserted:

‘On radio, at least you get the bald facts without endless opinions from specialists. Do these experts who so confidently predict future events all really have a crystal ball?’

The Mail (28/8) also reported that a You Gov poll of 1,646 adults had found that 55 per cent of people opposed the decision to cut the lyrics from Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory, compared to 16 per cent who backed the decision, with 5 per cent saying that the songs should not be performed at all.   James Robinson also reported that 48 per cent of those surveyed viewed the BBC favourably, while 44 per cent did not. He said that  only a quarter of respondents wanted the BBC to stay in its current form and a third said it should be funded by advertising. Guido (28/8) also noted the You Gov poll and said it showed the tide had comprehensively turned against the BBC as it was currently structured, with only 20 per cent saying the licence fee should stay in its current form and 57 per cent saying it was not value for money and only 35 per cent saying it was.

The same article also said that Dalia Stasevska, the Finnish musician who would conduct the last night of the proms on September 12, had released a statement that she was not responsible for axing Rule, Britannia and recognised it was ‘an important part of the event’.  James Robinson said that BBC sources had earlier claimed that Ms Stasevska had been one of those keen to ‘modernise’ the event and reduce the patriotic elements involved.

Henry Martin (Daily Mail online 27/8) said that BBC director general Tony Hall had again defended – in an interview on Radio 4’s The Media Show –  the decision by BBC music executives to drop the sung versions of Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory from the last night of the proms, stating that it was a miracle that the event was being staged at all. He had asserted that they had come to the right ‘artistic and creative’ conclusion to include the songs ‘instrumentally’ and added that he ‘suspected’ the two songs would be back next year. Mr Martin also reported that Lord Hall, when asked whether the BBC was being too influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement, had responded that diversity mattered  and that employing people of black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds was ‘fantastically important’, along with having a target of 20 per cent of such groups ‘behind the camera and behind microphones’

 

 

BBC BIAS DIGEST 10 AUGUST 2020

BBC Digest | | by David Keighley

BBC IS ‘PROMOTING DIVISIONS OVER RACE’:  Calvin Robinson (Spiked! 10/8) observed that, despite clear evidence which showed that white ‘working-class boys’ were the most consistently disadvantaged social group in the UK, the ‘identity-obsessed left’ (including the BBC) was peddling ‘white-privilege theories’. He asserted:

‘For the BBC to be further perpetuating the critical race theory myth of ‘white privilege’ adds insult to injury. To suggest ‘privilege’ is primarily based on skin colour is overly simplistic and, frankly, somewhat racist. That’s precisely what the BBC commissioned John Amaechi to say on its educational outlet, BBC Bitesize, last week. Worse, when called out by Andrew Neil on Twitter, John Amaechi acted as if his words were not his opinions after all, but indisputable facts.’

He added:

‘The BBC is obliged by its charter to ‘bring people together… and help contribute to the social cohesion and wellbeing of the UK’. Instead, it is producing divisive material and fanning the flames of racial unrest, all while wanting a ‘greater role in children’s education’. It’s a scary prospect, and we cannot let it happen. It’s time to defund the BBC.’

LORD HALL ‘APOLOGISES FOR USE OF N-WORD’: Jemma Carr (Mail 9/8) said that, after a meeting with senior colleagues, Lord Hall, the BBC director general, had told staff via email that  the use of the ‘n-word’ in a report about a suspected racist attack on a black NHS worker had – though well-intentioned in journalistic terms  – been a mistake. Ms Carr, who reported that more than 18,600 complaints had been received, said the word had been used by BBC reporter Fiona Lamdin in an item about the hit-and-run attack on the BBC News Channel on July 29.  She said Lord Hall had said:

‘We are proud of the BBC’s values of inclusion and respect, and have reflected long and hard on what people have had to say about the use of the n-word and all racist language both inside and outside the organisation. It should be clear that the BBC’s intention was to highlight an alleged racist attack. This is important journalism which the BBC should be reporting on and we will continue to do so. Yet despite these good intentions, I recognise that we have ended up creating distress amongst many people.

‘The BBC now accepts that we should have taken a different approach at the time of broadcast and we are very sorry for that. We will now be strengthening our guidance on offensive language across our output.  Every organisation should be able to acknowledge when it has made a mistake. We made one here. It is important for us to listen – and also to learn. And that is what we will continue to do.’

Miss Carr also reported that June Sarpong, the BBC’s director of creative diversity, had welcomed the decision, saying she was ‘glad’ that Lord Hall has ‘personally intervened to unequivocally apologise’. She added that Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy praised Lord Hall for the move, adding: ‘But once again it has taken a direct intervention by the DG to overturn a mistake on race previously defended by the BBC’s editorial policy managers.’

Miss Carr said that BBC Senior Digital Reporter Ashley John-Baptiste had posted on social media:

‘Every black member of BBC staff I’ve spoken to is tired. Plain and simple. From new recruits to the seniors – we just cannot fathom how it’s editorially justifiable for a white person to say the N word – period.  We get into this work to represent our communities and tell their stories. In instances like the one we’re witnessing, it’s hard to feel like we have any agency to bring about positive change.’

BBC ‘SIDES YET AGAIN WITH WOKE MOB’: Craig Byers (Is the BBC Biased? 10/8), suggested that Lord Hall‘s intervention in the ‘n-word’ row meant that yet again, he had sided with the ‘woke’ mob on Twitter to overrule the older, traditional BBC hands trying to uphold the Charter requirement for impartiality.  Mr Byers said:

‘After previously vetoing their ruling against Naga Munchetty for going against BBC norms and openly venting her personal distaste for Donald Trump’s ‘racism’ on BBC Breakfast, Lord Hall has now overruled his editorial colleagues again.  They had originally defended a white, female BBC News Channel/Points West reporter for using the n-word in connection to a vicious racist attack on a black man on the grounds that the (black) victim’s family wanted the word used in the report to highlight the racism behind the attack. They’d also noted that the report had flagged up the use of offensive language.

‘Regardless of that, over 18,000 people complained – after an online campaign encouraged them to – and Lord Hall evidently decided to play to the ‘Twitter mob’ gallery by apologising and saying they were right that the taboo word should never have been used because of the “distress” it causes – regardless, it seems, of any context.  With Lord Hall going, what’s next? Will his ‘woke’, Blairite protégé James Purnell keep on pushing in the same ‘woke’ direction, or will Tim Davie step in and restore sense?’

BBC Bias Digest 7 August 2020

BBC Digest | | by David Keighley

BBC ‘RECEIVES 18,000 COMPLAINTS OVER N-WORD’: Darren Boyle (Daily Mail 8/7) noted that the BBC had received 18,000 complaints over a report about a hit and run accident on July 29 in which presenter Fiona Lamdin had used the n-word in a quote attributed to the perpetrators of the accident, who were believed to have been racially-motivated. Mr Boyle said the report had run on local south-west  services and the national BBC News Channel, though it had since been removed. He added that by comparison, a report by Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis in which she had attacked Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings had received 23,674 complaints.  Mr Boyle said that Ofcom guidance on the use of the word was that it was ‘highly unacceptable’ at all times, but could be used when ‘strong contextualisation is required’.

 

BBC ‘PUSHES WHITE PRIVILEGE’ IN EDUCATION VIDEO: Jack Montgomery (Breitbart London 5/8) reported  that a video advocating that ‘white privilege’ meant that ‘your skin colour had not been the cause of your hardship or suffering’ was being pushed by BBC Bitesize, which provides lessons for British schools. He said the film had been made by former basketball player John Amaechi.

Craig Byers (Is the BBC Biased? 6/8) observed that the item was receiving considerable criticism and posted a selection of tweets:

 

Patrick O’Flynn: BBC indoctrinating school kids with guilt complexes and cultural Marxist BS is one thing that really pushes my buttons. Simply unacceptable from an organisation that levies a compulsory subscription fee. On reflection, the most insidious aspect of this (which I tweeted an initial reaction to last night) is the BBC’s use of the term “explain” to describe an eminently contestable analysis. That kids are led to believe these are established truths and cannot be contested is awful.

Dr Chris Newton: Radical left wing propaganda for kids funded by the BBC license fee payer. And the Tories, with an 80-seat majority, just stand by and let this one-sided indoctrination happen. Unacceptable. Unforgivable.

Calvin Robinson: The BBC is obliged by its charter to “bring people together… and help contribute to the social cohesion and wellbeing of the UK”. Instead, they are producing divisive material and fanning the flames of racial unrest. All while wanting a “greater role in children’s education”.

Ian Leslie: OK, but isn’t the more important question whether the BBC should be treating a tenuous and contested concept as if it’s neutral scientific knowledge? There are people who aren’t well versed in social theory? Shocking. But surely whether it’s a good explanation or not, it’s a political term adopted by a particular cohort & the BBC should contextualise it as such.

Frances Smith: Total nonsense. People are all born with an array of advantages and disadvantages, what this does is elevate skin colour above all others, and talk as if it were all that mattered. No wonder it annoys so many people. BBC shouldn’t mainstream such easily contested theories.

Karen Harradine: The poverty stricken, mainly white communities of the Rhondda Valleys don’t epitomise ‘white privilege’, a nasty concept riddled with conceptual holes. Why is the BBC race baiting again? And why are we forced to pay for it?

Madeline Grant: I’m old enough to remember when BBC bitesize was good for French vocab tests and GCSE history flash cards.

Darren Grimes: My two brothers, younger than I am are the grandsons of a miner, both without their father, both unemployed after attending rubbish state comprehensives and I’m supposed to believe they’re somehow privileged? The fact this is pushed by the BBC’s revision resources is dangerous. With BBC videos for children on white privilege, podcasts on ‘Karens’ and now the hounding of pensioners as the one group that they know are more likely to rely on their television set to combat loneliness, the BBC seems to be begging the government to act.

Jane Kelly: Why is the BBC asking this fatuous, racist question?

Tim Montgomerie: There are few bigger drivers of social justice than a stable family; especially built around marriage. Where’s the BBC video promoting that or the politicians arguing that? Belief in family isn’t fashionable but kids with two loving, committed parents have won life’s lottery.

Dr Rakib Ehsan: “Your skin colour has not been the cause of your hardship and suffering”. Try explaining this to underaged white girls who fell victim to cases of large-scale child sexual abuse. Cases fundamentally mismanaged by public authorities which were looking to “protect” race relations.

Laurence Fox: Anyone who choses colour of skin over content of character as a way of defining people, is a racist and racism should be stood up to wherever it rears its ugly head, however pretty a bow it’s wrapped up in.

Martin Daubney: That’s why the BBC has no place in education. Their “white privilege” propaganda actively suppresses those who are in the most need of help. It chokes policy & strangles hope. It actively divides our country. Rant over.

ZUBY: If BBC Bitesize have the cojones, I’d love to make a counter video for them explaining why ‘white privilege’ is a divisive, myopic, offensive and potentially dangerous idea that we shouldn’t be perpetuating. Let’s get both sides.

 

‘BASIC SCIENCE BEYOND BBC’: Jeff O’Leary (The Conservative Woman 7/8), argued  that it was difficult to see how the BBC could get its reports of the Beirut explosion disaster so wrong. First noting that reports had said the amount of explosive varied between 2,500 and 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, eventually settling on 2,700 tons,  Mr O’Leary suggested that this smacked of ‘take a middle figure as a safe bet’ approach. He then said that science correspondent David Shukman – who he noted did not have a science degree – had claimed the orange colour of the explosion was due to the ammonium nitrate itself, when it had in fact been caused by nitrogen dioxide, a by-product of the explosive reaction.

 

BBC MURDOCH PROGRAMMES ‘DOMINATED BY BILE’:  Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie (£ Spectator 7/8) argued that The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, the BBC’s three-part series about Rupert Murdoch transmitted in July, was dominated by ‘bile’ and contributions by three  of the ‘usual suspects’ – Tom Watson, Hugh Grant and Max Moseley – who each dispensed it. He added that, by contrast,  a long contribution from Trevor Kavanagh, the former political editor of the Sun, had ended up on the cutting room floor, presumably because he had been ‘warm and supportive’ (of Murdoch).  Mr MacKenzie said:

‘But to paint Rupert as a Logan Roy is ridiculous. Anybody who has worked closely with him will tell you his enthusiasms, his warmth and his never-ending drive make him fun to be around and exhausting. If you are a shareholder, you want a Rupert Murdoch to run your business. Always on. Always thinking. Always plotting. Literally 18 hours a day, seven days a week. And as a 12 per cent shareholder but with a voting right of three times that, always aligned to making you and him wealthier.’

BBC Bias Digest 6 August 2020

BBC Digest | | by David Keighley

BBC ‘THREATENS PENSIONERS WITH BAILIFFS’: Continuing coverage of the BBC’s decision to charge 4.5 million over-75s for their licence fees from August 1, William Cole (Daily Mail 6/8) said the corporation was spending an estimated £38m this year on extra measures to make sure that they paid. He added that if ministers decided to make non-payment a civil rather a criminal offence – as was being considered – bailiffs could be sent into the homes of the over-75s to seize and sell their possessions.

Paul Baldwin, in a comment article for the Express (5/8), argued that in forcing pensioners to pay for their television licences, the corporation was currently pursuing them ‘like a grubby loan shark’. He also attacked the BBC’s ‘lefty politics’ as ‘sneaky and insidious’, and noted that John Humphrys, after his retirement as a presenter of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, likened them to ‘out of touch Kremlin commissars’.

 

BBC MIDDLE-EAST REPORTING ‘DISTORTS HISTORY’: Hadar Sela (Camera UK 4/8) in an analysis of how the BBC had been presenting the framework of Israel-Palestine peace talks since the Oslo accords in the 1990s – when the potential terms were first set down by the US administration – said that the BBC continued to repeat wrongly that the accords had stipulated a ‘two-state solution’ involving reversion to territorial lines shown on the map before the 1967 Middle East war. Ms Sela said that BBC correspondent Paul Reynolds had first suggested , in 2007, that the Oslo accords had ‘implied’ a Palestine state.  She said the reality was that the first time it became an aspiration in the framework of formal negotiations expressed by Palestinian and Israeli representatives had been in  the Annapolis joint statement of 2007.  Despite this, Nick Robinson had said in July on Radio 4 that the two-state solution had been talked about ‘for decades’.

When will Team Boris wake up to BBC bias?

When will Team Boris wake up to BBC bias?

2019 European Election, BBC Bias, Today Programme | | by David Keighley

ACCORDING to weekend press reports, Boris Johnson’s director of communications Lee Cain has had a lightbulb moment. He has told Downing Street staff that appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme is a ‘waste of time’.

Well, golly gosh. An old saying about a pikestaff rushes to mind.

In reality, it is hard to believe that the Johnson administration wants to do anything serious to tackle the BBC because the new Culture Secretary is Nicky Morgan. Her reaction when 70 MPs wrote to BBC director-general Tony Hall complaining about BBC Brexit coverage? 

She tweeted:

Theresa May, of course, was not concerned about BBC bias at all. That’s because she and her communications chief Robbie Gibb – a former BBC news executive – knew that the Corporation would assist in every way possible to undermine a clean break departure from the EU. It is reasonable to infer that they were probably not disappointed in the support they received.

News-watch research, contained in six separate surveys, has shown consistently that since the EU referendum in 2016 the Today programme has massively under-reported and misrepresented the withdrawal perspective, and in parallel characterised ‘no deal’ and those who support it as extremists or ‘hardline’.

Perhaps the most egregious example was that in the six months after the vote, the programme’s business news section carried only ten interviews with supporters of Brexit out of a total of 192. The introduction to the survey stated: ‘Between them, the negative guests painted a relentlessly pessimistic picture of gloom, doom and uncertainty, of plunging economic prospects, of a collapse of consumer confidence, rising inflation, a drying up of investment, job freezes, of a drain of jobs from London to mainland Europe, skills shortages because of the ending of free movement, the introduction of tariffs, and endless, complex renegotiation.’

For three years, this has been the hallmark of the BBC’s mindset. Preliminary findings from the latest News-watch survey, covering Today’s coverage of the European elections in April and May, show that as the May administration collapsed there was a doubling down on the BBC’s projection of concentrated Brexit gloom.

There were 487 EU-related speakers, of whom only 76 (15.6 per cent) were from withdrawalists (drawn from the ERG, the Brexit Party, UKIP, or those who had voted Leave in 2016 and were opposed to Theresa May’s ‘deal’). Between them, they spoke 14,000 words, which is only 10.5 per cent of the total of 133,500 spoken by all the EU-related contributors.

Figures, of course, are only part of the story. Perhaps the most striking exchange, illustrating the overall editorial approach, in the survey period was an interview by Nick Robinson with Sir William Cash on April 23. The background was that Nicky Morgan had complained the day before on the programme that she had received death threats because people such as Sir William had written an unhelpful letter to the press about her stance containing words such as ‘capitulation’ and ‘betrayal’.

The transcript of the interview with Sir William has to be seen to be believed. (It follows below.) Nick Robinson adopted a tone reserved by BBC presenters for those whom it regards as especially unsavoury, such as former BNP leader Nick Griffin. In an aggressive barrage of questions, Robinson asserted:

‘. . . what’s at issue here is the language you used, Sir Bill. No, the issue here is the language you use and I want you to address the language you’ve used rather than the argument.’

And inquired:

‘Do you think we’re still at war with Germany, Sir Bill? You refer to “appeasement”, “collaboration”, “surrendering”, “being on our hands and knees to Germany”. Do you think the war is continuing? . . . Why do you use the language of wartime, “appeasement”, “collaboration”, “surrender”, Sir Bill?’

Sir William patiently and politely explained that he had chosen the words because they were appropriate in the context that the EU were being very intransigent and ‘doing everything possible to make it difficult to leave’ on reasonable terms. Robinson was having none of it. Nicky Morgan had been offended and penance was required.

In sharp contrast, the programme’s general approach to the numerous Remain guests who suggested that leaving the EU with ‘no deal’ would be damaging or ‘catastrophic’ was benign acceptance.

Finally, a comparison with BBC’s 2014 European election coverage yields a startling statistic. The percentage of Brexit supporters who appeared in the survey period before the EU referendum was more than in the 2019 equivalent!

In this context, it would be an exciting development if the Johnson government did decide to do something concrete about such overwhelming BBC bias. Can Lee Cain succeed where others have so clearly failed?

Footnote: The News-watch legal application for a judicial review of the BBC’s approach to impartiality has been formally lodged with the BBC and the legal team is awaiting their formal reaction.

Transcript of interview with Sir William Cash, Today programme, April 23, 2019

Nick Robinson: ‘A forced and humiliating surrender. Appeasement on bended knee, the Prime Minister is making us crawl on our hands and knees to Germany and France.’ Not my words, the words used by the veteran anti-EU campaigner, Sir Bill Cash, who was condemned on this programme yesterday by fellow Conservative MP Nicky Morgan who, like many MPs who back Remain, has received a series of death threats and blames, in part, the language used in this debate. Sir Bill Cash joins us on the line now, good morning to you.

Sir William Cash: Good morning.

NR: Will Nicky Morgan’s words make you reconsider the words you use?

WC: No, for a very simple reason that considering the anger in the grass roots against what’s been going on and the broken promises that have been made and the fact that I don’t think she’d read my article, in fact I’m pretty certain, because she referred to the article in the Daily Telegraph today, when it was the Sunday Telegraph and didn’t give me the impression that she’d actually read it. But there we are.

NR: (speaking over) But she’s not the only person who’s condemned it. A fellow Conservative MP Alistair Burt said, ‘Does it ever cross your mind what you’re contributing to?’ So does it?

WC: Well, no. And the answer to that is this: that this is actually about the question of our leaving the European Union. We are standing up and I’m certainly standing up and have been consistently for the vote that was cast in the election, in the, in the referendum vote and also democracy itself and the manner in which . . . and this is what my article is actually about, which is about the legality of the extension of time and the broken promises that were associated with that by the Prime Minister and in the . . . in the House of Commons. (words unclear due to speaking over)

NR: (speaking over) Indeed, but what’s at issue here is the language you used, Sir Bill. No, the issue here is the language you use and I want you to address the language you’ve used rather than the argument.

WC: (speaking under) Yeah, okay.

NR: Do you think we’re still at war with Germany, Sir Bill? You refer to ‘appeasement’, ‘collaboration’, ‘surrendering’, ‘being on our hands and knees to Germany.’ Do you think the war is continuing?

WC: No I don’t, I think . . .

NR: (speaking over) So why do you use that language?

WC: As . . . well as, as quite clearly you can gather from looking at the situation as I’ve described it, I’m talking about what is going on now. This is the problem. (fragment of word, or word unclear due to speaking over)

NR: (speaking over) Why do you use the language of wartime, ‘appeasement’, ‘collaboration’, ‘surrender’, Sir Bill?

WC: Words mean what you choose them to mean, Nick, and the reality is that . . .

NR: (interrupting) They’re your words and you chose them, and I’m asking you why you use the language of war to describe a political disagreement.

WC: Well it is actually about a (fragment of word, or word unclear) as the European Scrutiny Committee made clear last year, we are, have been, consistently in these negotiations supplicating the European Union and thereby France and Germany. That is the position as it is now. We made a report, we made it clear, (words unclear due to speaking over)

NR: (speaking over) Are they the enemy, Sir Bill?

WC: What?

NR: Are our nearest neighbours in Europe the enemy, in your view?

WC: They’re not the enemy, but what they are, are people who are being very intransigent and are doing everything possible to make it as difficult as possible for us to leave the European Union on the terms on which we have a right to leave. (words unclear due to speaking over)

NR: (speaking over) But what I notice, that you use very different language now you’re on the radio to the language that you write . . .

WC: (speaking over) No, I . . .

NR: . . . in the article. You used the words, I put it to you again . . .

WC: (speaking over) That’s your interpretation . . .

NR: . . . of war.

WC: . . . of it, Nick. (words unclear due to speaking over)

NR: (speaking over) It’s not my interpretation, it’s a fact. You use the language of war, ‘surrender’, ‘hands and knees’, ‘collaboration’, ‘appeasement’ – why do you use that language?

WC: I’m using the language because it is an accurate description of what is actually being done over the last two, two years in negotiations.

NR: So Theresa May is a traitor to her country, is she?

WC: No, I’ve never said that. What I’m saying is it’s a complete misjudgement. It’s the manner in which the negotiations have been conducted. It’s the manner in which the extension of time has been made. And when I said, in the House of Commons, it was an abject surrender, I meant what I said, because that’s what it was.

NR: So, brief last question if I may, if someone issues a death threat and echoes the language you use, is your view, ‘so be it’?

WC: They certainly, they certainly wouldn’t be justified in doing so. I’m absolutely and totally against all those sort of death threats and anything of the kind. What I do say is that actually we have to express our language in a manner which reflects what’s been going on, and that’s what I did.

A figleaf swept away in the torrent of anti-Brexit bias

A figleaf swept away in the torrent of anti-Brexit bias

BBC Bias, Brexit | | by David Keighley

In BBC Radio 4’s Feedback on Friday, host Roger Bolton introduced a classic edition of Corporation Complaints Stonewalling.

The subject? Primarily coverage of Brexit. The message? As always, the BBC is getting it right.

The full transcript is below.

Element one, carefully orchestrated by Bolton, was to convey that the BBC was receiving complaints that its Brexit coverage was biased from both ‘sides’, those who supported Brexit and those who opposed it. Because of this, it was risibly suggested, complaints of editorial imbalance must be unfounded.

Element two was that two BBC bigwigs – Gavin Allen, controller of daily news programmes, and Ric Bailey, chief political adviser – confirmed why, in their view, the BBC’s coverage was completely impartial and met Charter requirements.

Element three was that Today presenter Nick Robinson – now seemingly firmly ensconced as the Corporation’s defender-in-chief – was wheeled out to defend the relentless tide of anti-Brexit negativity.

None of the three men produced a shred of credible, verifiable evidence to support their claims. Their approach boiled down to that they know what they are doing; anyone who disagrees is simply deluded.

In other words, with more than 20 tedious minutes devoted to Brexit, Feedback was yet another edition of the favourite BBC refrain in response to the tens of thousands of complaints it receives: ‘Move along there, nothing to see!’

Reading the programme transcript confirms that these BBC luminaries truly believe this, and have constructed elaborate, self-justifying arguments to support their stance. Allen, for example, argued that the BBC’s only fault in this domain is actually that it doesn’t explain enough its internal processes. If listeners and viewers only knew how hard he and Corporation editors think about bias, they wouldn’t complain.

Poppycock! What actually seems to be the case is rather that Bolton, Allen, Bailey and Robinson – and seemingly all of the BBC’s battalions of journalists – are locked in a bubble of their own making and can’t see the acres of bias they churn out each week. This is confirmation bias.

Exhibit A, based on the BBC output being broadcast as the four men were congratulating themselves on their journalistic brilliance and rectitude, is an analysis conducted last week by Craig Byers of the website Is the BBC Biased? Using a monitoring service called TV Eyes, Craig painstakingly tracked every mention on BBC programmes of the word ‘Brexit’ between Monday and Friday last week (April 16-20).

What he found was a deluge of Brexit negativity. Craig’s blog needs to be read in full to appreciate the sheer scale. It permeated every element of its news output and even percolated down to BBC1’s The One Show and EastEnders, which had a pointed reference to these ‘tough Brexit times’. In the BBC’s world, Brexit was a threat to EU immigrants (in the context of the Windrush developments), to farmers, to interest rates, to airlines, to personal privacy (via Cambridge Analytica), to house prices, to security in Northern Ireland, and more.

Among all these sustained mentions of the problems, the positive words about Brexit could be counted virtually on the fingers of one hand.

Exhibit B was mentioned by Ric Bailey on Feedback in an attempt to show that Brexit coverage was balanced. It did no such thing. He instanced that during a special day about Brexit on Radio 4 on March 29, the corporation had broadcast a half-hour programme called The Brexit Lab about the opportunities of Brexit. It suggested, for example, that environmental controls could be tougher and that British Rail could be re-nationalised once the UK was freed from the EU’s regulatory shackles.

What Bailey did not say, however, was that the remainder of this special programming – including an edition of Today, sequences on The World at One and The World Tonight, plus two much longer programmes, one about the historical relationship between Britain and ‘Europe’ (45 minutes), the other about reaction in EU countries to Brexit and their views about the future of the EU (60 minutes) – was heavily dominated by Remain themes and Remain speakers.

The suspicion must be that The Brexit Lab had been devised and broadcast as a figleaf. Within days, it was being used by one of the corporation’s most senior editorial figures as ‘proof’ that its Brexit output is balanced. The reality is vastly different. Craig’s analysis above, plus News-watch reports that can be seen here, provide voluminous evidence that since the EU Referendum, the BBC has been engaged in an all-out war to undermine Brexit.

And even concerning March 29, which the BBC trumpeted as evidence of its ‘balance’, senior executives seem totally and even comically unaware that the reverse is true. The Brexit Lab was totally swamped by other negative programming. Whatever the reason, the pro-EU, anti-Brexit propaganda spews forth regardless.

 

Transcript of BBC Radio 4, Feedback, 20 April 2018, 4.30pm

ROGER BOLTON:  Hello is the BBC the (montage of voices) Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, Brexit (montage ends)  Broadcasting Corporation? We’re devoting most of this last programme of the present run to your criticisms of the BBC’s Brexit coverage. And respond to them we have a veritable galaxy of the Corporation’s frontline journalists and executives.

NICK ROBINSON:  I’m Nick Robinson presenter of the Today programme and formerly political editor of the BBC.

GAVIN ALLEN:      I’m Gavin Allen, controller of daily news programmes.

RIC BAILEY:          I’m Ric Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser.

RB:         And arguably the most talked about BBC Radio programme of the year.

ACTOR PLAYING ENOCH POWELL?:  It’s like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.

UNNAMED SPEAKER:         When I read that actually they were going to play the whole speech, I was flabbergasted.

ROGER BOLTON:                Rivers of Blood. We hear from the man who commissioned that controversial documentary about Enoch Powell’s infamous speech. But we begin with Brexit. Almost two years ago, just under 52% of those who voted in the referendum said they wanted to leave the European Union. 48.1% voted to remain. The Kingdom is still bitterly divided. Time was when the vast majority of complaints to Feedback of Corporation bias came from the Leave side; in recent months though, in part due to a concerted online campaign, we have been receiving many more from Remainers who routinely refer to the BBC as the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation, accusing it of tamely towing the government line. Here’s a sample of some of those comments from both sides of the Brexit divide.

SUE KING:            I’m Sue King, and I’m from Herefordshire. I’m dissatisfied with and disillusioned by the BBC’s coverage of Brexit. In news and current affairs programmes I’m frequently aware of a pro-Brexit bias in subtle ways, particularly in the Today programme. Interviewers let misleading statements by Brexiteers  go unchallenged.

ANDY FRANKLIN: My name is Andy Franklin and I live in Suffolk. The problem as I see it now is that the BBC can deny biased against Brexit until it’s blue in the face, but just about everyone I’ve ever met who voted Leave has come to that conclusion in droves.  Even on the morning after the vote, the very first interview broadcast was some University Professor declaring that all the intelligentsia had voted Remain and all the thickos had voted Leave, a bias the BBC has been peddling ever since.

JONATHAN MILES:             I’m Jonathan Miles, and I’m from Woking.  Given just how important this issue, the BBC really has done little to educate the public on important aspects of how the EU works and hence what are the likely or possible consequences of leaving.

MARGARET O’CONNELL:    Margaret O’Connell.  In a democracy you accept the result and move on, it is over.

JULIAN GREEN:    Julian Green: ‘Why does the BBC always refer to ‘when’ the UK leaves the EU, when properly, it should be ‘if’ – the BBC are promoting a falsehood.

ROGER BOLTON:  Listening to those critical comments are Ric Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser, Gavin Allen, controller of BBC daily news programmes, and the Corporation’s former political editor, now Today presenter, Nick Robinson.  Could I start with you, Ric Bailey, and that point Margaret O’Connell makes, she says ‘It’s over, move on,’ and yet you also heard Julian Green say, ‘You’re talking about when we leave, it should be ‘if’.’ Should it be ‘if’?

RIC BAILEY:          I think you’ve got to look at the context of what you’re talking about.  There’s been a referendum, one side has one, both major parties have gone into a general election saying that they will put that referendum result into effect.  And, of course, it’s possible that all that may be reversed and the political reality may change, and so both ‘if’ and ‘when’, in different contexts might be entirely appropriate. It’s not for me to send out pieces of advice to individual journalists like Nick, telling them individual words they should and shouldn’t use.

ROGER BOLTON:  Alright Nick, would you use ‘when’ or ‘if’.

NR:         I’d use both. And I would use both.  The truth is, a decision was taken in the referendum.  The government is committed to the decision, the Labour Party is committed to that decision, there’s an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons who say that they voted for it, they voted for Article 50. But it is occasionally worth reminding people this could be overturned, if the public changes their mind, if there was a different vote in Parliament, but let’s not treat it as if . . . no one thinks that we’re going to leave in March 2019, that’s the overwhelming likelihood, but people who want something else to happen want is to try and say that.

ROGER BOLTON:  And Gavin Allen, when people use the expression, ‘The country has decided’, don’t you feel like saying, ‘Well has it?’ I mean, Scotland has decided they’d like to remain, Northern Ireland say it would like remain, Wales, yes, and England decided that they would like to leave, but to what extent can you say ‘the country has decided’?

GA:        I think you have to, you know, it was a UK-wide referendum, and it was 52-48 and we have to reflect that.  So, I think that . . . that’s not to say that we won’t hear views in Scotland, he views in Northern Ireland, across the English regions and Wales that are very different to the outcome of that referendum, but it’s no good pretending that, well, hold on, Peterborough voted this way, so you should reflect that in . . . so it wasn’t the country after all.

ROGER BOLTON:  Could I ask you Nick, do you think that there is a campaign against the BBC at the moment? Now, we’ve heard Lord Adonis talk about the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation, a number of people have used that phrase, we do seem to be receiving quite a number of emails that appear to be written for people, shall I put it in that way, is there a real active campaign going on to stop Britain getting out?

NR:         I don’t think there’s a campaign, there is a campaign, it’s clear there is. The very use of the hashtag #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation on social media is evidence of a campaign.  Now, people are entitled to campaign, we get campaigns all the time, only the . . . about a year ago, there was a campaign by Leavers to say that the BBC was biased, there was a complaint about my questioning. We get campaigns all the time, but let’s not be in any doubt that when people start using the same words and the same critique, they’re trying to put pressure on us. Now, it doesn’t mean that the things we heard in your introduction from listeners aren’t genuine, a lot of people feel really, really angry about this, they hope that the country will change its mind, and they’re entitled to do that, but we’re also entitled to . . . to say, as I have in number of recent articles, we know what’s going on here, there’s an attempt to try to shift us.

GA:        But it’s important as well, it doesn’t mean that we dismiss – and I know Nick’s not saying this either – we don’t dismiss the campaign, so the fact that it is a campaign, the fact that we can recognise it as such, doesn’t mean there won’t be sometimes perfectly legitimate points they raise that make us stop and think, well, actually . . . we do need to tweak our coverage on that element, or do need to give a bit more to this, that we’ve underplayed.

ROGER BOLTON:  Can I just finish this section, Nick, by asking you, if you’re optimistic, you see the opportunities that the Brexit gives us, if you’re pessimistic, you see all the problems that exist in trying to change our arrangements.  Of course, it’s easier for journalists to look at the pessimistic side. When you’re trying to deal with the opportunities, that’s more difficult to construct a discussion about, do you think that’s a problem that you have?

NR:         Well, it’s undoubtedly a challenge, I think that’s absolutely right, and the key therefore is to hear from people who can, as it were, see it optimistically.  That’s why you will occasionally get a Dyson on, for example, James Dyson who’s in favour of leave, or the boss of Wetherspoon’s, we will have him on because he is able to say, ‘This is how I see it’, now the difficulty for listeners who are Remainers then they go, ‘Well why is he saying that, why isn’t he challenged?’ Well, we have them on in order precisely to say that there is another way of looking at this to the way that you do . . .

RIC BAILEY:          But there was an entire programme . . .

NR:         The problem with predictions, Roger, there is in truth, you can’t prove a fact . . .

ROGER BOLTON:  It’s not factual, it’s not factual.

NR:         . . . about someone’s vision of the future. You can’t do it.  It’s not that the BBC isn’t robust enough to do it, you can’t.

ROGER BOLTON:  Ric?

RIC BAILEY:          And incidentally, there was an entire half-hour programme which Iain Martin did on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago, precisely on that point about the opportunities Brexit, so they are there, and we are, you know, it’s an active part of our journalism.

ROGER BOLTON:  Ric Bailey, Nick Robinson and Gavin Allen, thanks for the moment. A little later will be digging deep into the whole issue of balance and due impartiality.

Moves on to discuss Enoch Powell programme.

ROGER BOLTON:  And now back to . . .

MONTAGE OF VOICES:       Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, Brexit.

ROGER BOLTON:  Still with me in the studio is Ric Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser, Gavin Allen, controller of BBC daily news programs, and the Corporation’s former political editor, now Today presenter, Nick Robinson.  Now, we’ve already touched on issues of impartiality with respect to the BBC’s coverage of Brexit.  Although it might sound like a contradiction in terms, if Feedback listeners are anything to go by, balance and impartiality are in the eye of the beholder.

JOHN NEWSON:   John Newson.  I do hear BBC Radio 4 broadcasting as the voice of Remain, giving others a daily diet of scary stories about how Brexit will harm Britain.  This doesn’t seem very factually based, because Brexit has not happened yet.

FERN HANSON:    This is Fern Hanson from Woking. The audience would be much better informed of the facts around Brexit if the BBC moved away from a political balance towards facts balance. In pursuit of a fact balance it should be noted that there is a huge consensus amongst professional economists regarding the negative economic effect of Brexit.  I have never witnessed the BBC demonstrate this disparity in analysis.  Each side get equal prominence and time programmes.

ROGER BOLTON:  Well, let me take up Fern Hanson’s point, with Ric Bailey. Should you move towards a facts balance, rather than a political balance?  Is that possible?

RIC BAILEY:          Well, facts are just there to be reported, you don’t balance facts, you have fax and you say what they are.  One of the issues with Brexit is that a lot of this is looking forward, it’s about trying to work out what is going to happen, which, by definition is often speculative or it’s something where different people have different views, they are in the end judgements. So you’re not balancing facts as such.  Balance is something which, during the referendum there was a binary choice, between Remain and Leave, and we were very careful to make sure that we heard from both sides, not necessarily equally, but we did represent facts in the sense of saying, ‘Look, the balance of opinion amongst big business is this – but there are other voices’, since then, that binary choice has gone away, because we now have impartiality in the sense of trying to make sure that all those different perspectives . . . is Theresa May now a Remainer or is a Leaver, of course, she is the person who is actually putting into effect that choice. So that idea that there is now a simple choice between Remain and Leave is no longer there.

ROGER BOLTON:  But haven’t you put it too simply yourself, because the people voted to Leave, they didn’t vote on the destination, and there is an argument, which one keeps hearing, ‘Why wasn’t the BBC exploring the destinations,’ because people voted, if you like, to jump, but not know what we were going to jump to?

RIC BAILEY:          I think it would be hard to say that we haven’t been doing that.  We’ve been giving a huge amount of coverage to Brexit and to the negotiations and to all the different possibilities.  I think we are doing that, Roger, actually.

GA:        We’ve also talked, we’ve also talked about Canada+++ as an option, or Norway the model, or the Swiss model, I think we are looking at lots of different ranges of outcomes for this.  And also just . . . I think one of the dangers as well, of balance of facts, as if, if only everyone had the core facts they would make the ‘correct’, in inverted commas, decision and we would all agree on it, it does ignore the fact that in the referendum, in any election, there is visceral emotion as well, there are things that are not to do with facts, or that you don’t even hear the facts that you disagree with, it’s a blend of these things.

ROGER BOLTON:  Nick, can I bring up an article you wrote for the New Statesman recently, stressing the importance of impartiality, in part in response to an earlier article by the LBC and, at one time, occasional Newsnight presenter, James O’Brien, where he was arguing that media impartiality is a problem, when ignorance is given the same weight as expertise.

NR:         The assertion made by your listener is that if only people knew the facts, we’d know, the assertion made by James O’Brien is that, you know, look, don’t put on someone who is ignorant.  Who decides this?  Who is this person who drops down from the skies and says, ‘This is true, and this is not’ . . .

ROGER BOLTON:  Well . . .

NR:         Now, in certain cases it can be, Roger . . .

ROGER BOLTON:  Well it can be known about climate change . . .

NR:         No.

RB:         . . . and for example we see a case reported last week, where Ofcom said that one of your fellow presenters didn’t actually do what he should have done which is to say Nigel Lawson was factually wrong about something he claims.  So, people also want to know are you prepared to do that and,  actually, are you prepared to do that about Brexit?

NR:         (speaking over) Goodness, yes. And, and . . . yeah.

RB:         (speaking over) And are you sufficiently well informed, do you think?

NR:         Not only, not only do we want to do that, but the BBC apologised for not doing that in that particular case. Here’s the point though, it won’t often apply to things that passionate Remainers and passionate Leavers see in their own minds as a fact, but in fact are a judgement or a prediction, or an instinct or an emotion.  The BBC’s job is to hear from people who have unfashionable views, and where possible we should always challenge them and if we don’t get it right, and of course we won’t always get it right, you know, I’m here, I got up at 3:30 in the morning, I’ve done about 10 subjects already, occasionally you will make mistakes, then we explain why we didn’t get it right.  But it’s not a conspiracy.

ROGER BOLTON:  Well, I’ll just, if I may, wrap up this discussion by asking you to stand back a little bit and just reflect on what you’ve learned over the past 2 to 3 years.  And one of the things that’s struck me very much is the amount of anger out there, and people irritated, fearing that you, all of us around this table are out of touch and have ignored them.  Nick Robinson, does any of that, across to you?

NR:         Oh yeah, you can’t help but listen to the views that we’ve heard on this programme and think, there are people deeply, deeply frustrated and anger . . . angry about it. And I . . . what I take away from this, why I wanted to appear, I could keep my head down and just do my normal interviews is, we think about this, we agonise about it, we debate much more than people often think, and why do I know this is true? Not because I’m virtuous about it, anybody who comes to the BBC from papers, anybody who comes from commercial telly, where I’ve worked, goes, ‘Boy, you spend a lot of time worrying about this’.  I would urge listeners one thing though: we do it with the best of intentions.  Not that we get it right, we don’t always get it right, we sometimes get it wrong but if you complain with some sense that there is a conspiracy, people will tend to put their fingers in their ears, and go, ‘You know what, we know there isn’t.’ If you say, ‘We just don’t think you’re getting this quite right, you’re not reflecting us’, you will be listened to.

ROGER BOLTON:  Gavin Allen, have you changed anything as a result of the last 2 or 3 years, in the way you approach the programs and what you’ve told your producers and your reporters?

GA:        Well actually, funnily enough, one thing, sort of picks up on what Nick’s just said, which is behind-the-scenes, we have all these discussions, endless debates, and one of the things I do think the BBC is probably quite bad at showing our workings.  I think we can’t plead that we are really battling this every day, we’re having long debates, editorial policy discussions, really self-analysing everything we do, and then not come onto a program like this.  I think there’s also, the other thing I’ve learnt I guess, it’s not that we don’t do this, there is a bit of a default in journalism, not just the BBC, in journalism of ‘where’s it gone wrong, who can we get?’ rather than actually people are desperate for an explanation of just what is happening, just explain it to us.  And I do think that we could do more on that as well, as well as the politics of what’s going wrong, on both sides.

ROGER BOLTON:  And Ric Bailey, final word from you? A BBC boss in the past once said, ‘When the country is divided, the BBC is on the rack’, are you actually enjoying being on the rack?

GA:        (laughs) We’re enjoying Rick being on the rack.

RIC BAILEY:          ‘Enjoy’ is probably not the word I’d pick out. Erm, but I think it’s true that when you have something as polarised as a referendum, that it does divide opinion in a way which is different from other sorts of elections, I think people understand what impartiality means when they’re talking about normal politics, and the Conservatives and Labour and government and opposition.  I think what happens in a referendum when you are literally given the choice between X and Y, is that people find it really difficult not just to understand that other people have a different view, but they are entitled to put it, the BBC should be there to do it, and the BBC should scrutinise that very clearly.  And I suppose the last point about that is, accepting completely what Gavin says about we should concede when we get it wrong, and Nick has said that as well, and we should be analysing this and making sure we’re getting it right. We also sometimes need to be really robust against that sort of political pressure, and by that I don’t just mean the parties or the government, but I mean campaigns who are trying to influence us because they know that on the whole, people trust BBC, that’s why they want us to change what we’re saying.

ROGER BOLTON:  Well, I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got time for, my thanks to Rick Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser, Nick Robinson from the today programme who’s been up since 3.30, and Gavin Allen, controller of BBC daily news programmes.

BBC put Rees-Mogg under fire

BBC put Rees-Mogg under fire

BBC Bias, Today Programme | | by Kathy Gyngell

The morning after being ‘caught up in a scuffle’ at the University of the West of England (a scene that BBC Somerset’s James Craig described as ‘very aggressive and unexpected’), found Jacob Rees-Mogg being interviewed on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme.

The purpose of the interview was not, though, the previous night’s headline-making attack on him, which was sufficiently intimidating to draw condemnation from both Labour’s Shadow Education spokesman Angela Rayner and the Lib Dems’ Jo Swinson.

It was not this at the front of presenter Nick Robinson’s mind. He neither bothered to inquire what had happened (which would have given him an account from the horse’s mouth), nor asked after his interviewee’s wellbeing, or even what Mr Rees-Mogg made of this assault on free speech.

His intent was quite otherwise.

It was to force an apology from Mr Rees-Mogg – the politician who undoubtedly is the biggest threat to the BBC’s pro-EU ‘remainer’ stance.

Jacob Rees-Mogg had, Mr Robinson said in his introduction, ‘claimed in the House of Commons . . . that Treasury officials had fixed their economic forecasts in order to show that all options other than staying in the EU customs union were bad’.

What a terrible slander on the oh-so-neutral Treasury. It had to be rectified, to be sure. Enlisted in this project was the Head of the Centre for European Reform, Charles Grant, ‘the man who he claimed had said all this’.

The interview that followed was a BBC classic of its kind – based on a false premise, staggeringly imbalanced questioning and finally laying a flaky claim to the moral high ground.

The full transcript can be found here.

Suffice it to say the item was not premised on the possibility that Treasury officials were again flouting the nation’s will (true to their ‘Project Fear’ form) by fiddling the figures, this time to keep us in the customs union, aka the EU. No, it rested on the false premise that leaving the customs union, though implicit in the Referendum vote to leave and underlined by Mrs May’s decision to create a department to negotiate independent trade deals under Liam Fox, was newly up for discussion and the latest reason for reviewing the ‘leave’ decision.

As for the way the interview was conducted, it was what we have come to expect – interruptions and harassment of the few pro-Brexit interviewees that the BBC deigns to invite to undergo a predictable drubbing.

Indeed, it was a masterclass. Nick Robinson’s non-stop interrupting and talking over Jacob Rees-Mogg was possibly a record – by my count 18 times to just once for his other interviewee, Mr Grant.

Robinson not only gave JRM the much tougher time but allowed Charles Grant to get away with outrageous claims about the impact of a changed tariff regime.

On one level, you could say, it was par for the course, just more evidence that Brexit is challenged massively on the BBC; that no stone is to be left unturned when it comes to demolishing the case for Brexit, whereas Remain perspectives will always be projected as much more attractive and credible.

So it is absolutely to Mr Rees-Mogg’s credit that he gave an admirably clear account of his own position and stood his ground even in face of Robinson’s final (in full stern-headmaster moral-high-ground mode) questioning of his character:

‘A last word to you, Jacob Rees-Mogg, let me ask you this if I may, because this is why, in a sense, this row matters. There are some people who’ve presented you in the past as a sort of amusing backbench eccentric. You’re now, you’re a leading figure in terms of backbench Brexiteers, and many ministers say you are a likely candidate to be our next Prime Minister. Do you not accept that to accuse civil servants of rigging official forecasts is not the behaviour of a man who wishes to lead this country?’

Despite the insulting nature of the question, reprobate Rees-Mogg floored him with his reply. Following the Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro school of thought, he walked towards the fire and repeated, yes sir, the Treasury had fiddled the figures. He refused to be bullied.

Which is why this interview will not be the end of it. Jacob Rees-Mogg must know he can expect little sympathy from the BBC on any count – whether he be beaten up or prevented from speaking – and that they will trash his character if they can. It will be personal now.

For it is deep in the BBC’s DNA to ridicule or smear any advocate of conservatism or politician really prepared to challenge the Left, which is what JRM does. It has proved an effective way of demoralising the Tory Right. If the BBC’s previous form is anything to go by they will be out for his blood.

And the BBC has the resources. Look at what they were able to throw at the Cliff Richard story, discarding any decent journalistic principle in the process.

Clever, clear-thinking and calm, the hated by the Left Jacob Rees-Mogg poses the most significant political challenge  to the BBC’s Leftist pro-EU orthodoxies in years. So will he be the subject of BBC special investigations? Will BBC favourite Anna Soubry, featured again this morning trashing the Brexiteers, be enlisted to help? Will we see his country house from BBC helicopters circling above, or BBC journalists set to the task (metaphorically speaking) of investigating his dustbins? It is not beyond the realms of imagination.

 

Photo by James Cridland

BBC Chiefs defend anti-Brexit ‘balance’

BBC Chiefs defend anti-Brexit ‘balance’

BBC Bias, EU Referendum | | by Craig Byers
Two very senior voices from within the BBC bubble – David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards, and Ric Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser – have penned a rare and important joint piece for a somewhat out-of-the-way pro-public-broadcasting media site called journalism.co.uk headlined Impartiality and the BBC – ‘broad balance’ in a two-horse race. It concerns the BBC’s coverage of the EU referendum.
It’s a thoughtful piece, well worth reading. And it’s refreshing to read:

We are never keen on the argument that being attacked by both sides shows you must be getting it right. It’s quite possible to be wrong in two different ways, so we always take such criticisms seriously. In any case, few issues only have two sides, so teetering in the middle of the proverbial see-saw is seldom the right place.

That said, after reading the piece through, what will you find to be its main message?
(Shall I save you the trouble?)
Well, get the smelling salts ready folks. Its message can be summed up like this: We think we got it about right.
(OK, you can put the smelling salts away now. False alarm!).
Yes, alas, despite all its welcome hand-wringing, it ends up being wholly and depressingly complacent, always giving the BBC the benefit of the doubt and painting the corporation in the most favourable colours.
Typically, David and Ric dismiss ‘stopwatch’ monitoring of BBC coverage and place their trust in the BBC’s good judgement.
For them it’s all down to the judgements of individual BBC editors to measure the ‘balance equations’ within their particular programmes.
That, of course, doesn’t answer the question of how those individual editors are to police their own editorial decisions.
Nor does it answer the question of how the BBC’s coverage overall can be judged.
To be blunt, I trust stopwatches more than I trust BBC editors. I don’t see why we should take on trust the BBC’s claims that their editors – people like Ian Katz – are unbiased. I used my stopwatches on Newsnight during the referendum and found it was far from even-handed.

It’s also characteristic of such pieces that our two brave BBC bigwigs give examples of what went right (eg. an interview with Douglas Carswell) but don’t give examples of what went wrong.

Plus they place complete trust in their own reality-checking process – something that continues to ring alarm bells with me. The BBC sitting in statistical judgement on hot topics of political controversy, and doing so under the banner of impartiality, is a much more questionable proposition than our two BBC high-ups seem to realise.

So, nice try guys but it really isn’t washing.
Guest post from Craig Byers of  Original post received the following comment from David Preiser:
26 July 2017 at 23:02

What a fascinating exercise in throwing everything at a subject, including the kitchen sink. Much of it is rehashing the usual defense talking points, but the Complaints From Both Sides thing was especially galling.

At first, I was prepared to be refreshed that they dared suggest that just because they get Complaints From Both Sides it doesn’t automatically mean they’re getting it right. Of course then they went on at great lenght to explain how they did.

Nor did the BBC shirk its responsibility to analyse the competing claims of both sides. Extensive use was made of Reality Check, the BBC’s fact-checking brand, in TV news bulletins, as well as online.

No, sorry, this is utter BS. Complaints about accuracy and detail are not the only kind they get, and it’s dishonest for them to pretend it’s the case. As for Fact Check, well, we know how that turned out. Bias by omission, bias by perspective, bias by contextualizing. Dateline London panels aren’t addressed here, nor is the ‘Brexageddon’ programming with no pro-Brexit equivalent, nor is the referendum vote night coverage.

Sometimes the stopwatch isn’t the best judge, but sometimes it is.

This reads like they had a whole list of ‘the usual moans’, with a ready list of defensive talking points. you can tell they sat down and went through some sort of checklist.

They make an interesting point about a referendum being a different animal to cover than other elections, as it’s a single issue. Brexit isn’t a single issue so much as it is a collection of specific issues, but fair enough.

But none of what they said addressed the issue of Laura K. with quivering lip and near to tears, Dimbleby croaking as he told us that sterling had crashed, the obvious anger and disappointment from so many Beeboids out in the field, Nick Robinson basically insulting 17 million people, with every single other reporter repeating his script, sometimes almost verbatim.

Nothing in the article addresses complaints about anything except ‘fact checking’ and time allotments, really.

Fail. I wonder if there’s some way to email a rebuttal to the journalism.co.uk editors.

Photo by Andrew Gustar

BBC SPINS FRUIT FARMS MIGRANT LABOUR ’SHORTAGE’

BBC SPINS FRUIT FARMS MIGRANT LABOUR ’SHORTAGE’

BBC Bias, Today Programme | | by Craig Byers

This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased?

 

A couple of mornings ago Today sent a reporter to a fruit farm in Godalming and brought back a large punnet of Brexit-related gloom. Nick Robinson introduced the report with these words:
There’s a warning today from Britain’s berry growers that Brexit could crush the industry.
Zoe Conway’s report included various hard-working, efficient migrant workers (as she portrayed them) worried about their future, plus farm managers fearing the collapse of their business. One farm owner was asked if he regretted his Leave vote, especially if it leads to what Zoe called a “hard Brexit”. No contrasting views featured in Zoe’s report.
That’s par for the course, of course. But tied in with that piece was the reporting that very same morning of the results of a survey among soft berry producers – a survey the BBC itself had commissioned (for reasons known only to itself but guessable by others).
The main BBC News website report on the survey (by Emma Simpson) is striking for the way it tries to spin its own findings. The BBC’s spin is deeply negative about Brexit and conducive to advancing arguments in favour of retaining free-movement:

UK summer fruit and salad growers are having difficulty recruiting pickers, with more than half saying they don’t know if they will have enough migrant workers to harvest their crops.

Many growers blame the weak pound which has reduced their workers’ earning power, as well as uncertainty over Brexit, according to a BBC survey.

The results themselves, cited later in the article, are strikingly at odds with the mood music of the report as a whole:
These results say to me that only 3% of the surveyed farmers are seriously alarmed about “migrant labour shortages’. Another 18% are a bit worried. And what the other 79% (though the figures don’t actually add up to 100%)? Well, they either say they have have enough seasonal workers or aren’t sure if they’ve got enough. In other words, that 79% don’t sound alarmed about the situation, despite the BBC’s alarmist headline.

I think this is a clear case of BBC bias (conscious or unconscious).

And it’s far from being the first time that the BBC has spun its own surveys in a favoured direction.

Who can forget the particularly blatant way the BBC spun its own survey on the attitudes of British Muslims back in 2015? While many other media outlets led with the astonishing finding that 27% of British Muslims expressed  some sympathy with those who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre the BBC heavily pushed the “Most British Muslims ‘oppose Muhammad cartoons reprisals'” angle.
Plus there was some very dodgy reporting by the BBC’s News at Six and the BBC website into young people’s concerns, also in 2015, where both the TV bulletin and the website article omitted all mention of the third biggest concern of the polled young people – immigration. And it was another BBC poll to boot.
And there was Newsnight and the BBC website’s blatant attempts to rig the debate before freedom of movement was granted to Romanians and Bulgarians back in 2013, where the BBC twisted its own survey by pushing the ‘Few planning to migrate to UK’ angle. Others quickly pointed out that the BBC’s own figures actually suggested a massive influx of Romanians and Bulgarians was coming.
As you’ll note, all of the above have immigration as a running theme, whether directly or indirectly. And all of them were spun by the BBC in the same way – the pro-immigration way.

Photo by Ahmad.Helal

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