The Scotsman

BBC is not bold or diverse enough

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The BBC’S former political editor Nick Robinson raised eyebrows last week with the inaugural Steve Hewlett lecture, in which he claimed alternativ­e online websites are part of a “guerrilla war” against the BBC and mainstream media organisati­ons.

The Today programme presenter said: “Our critics now see their attacks as a key part of their political strategy. In order to succeed they need to convince people not to believe ‘the news’.”

He added: “Attacks on the media … are part of a guerrilla war being fought on social media day after day and hour after hour.” Extraordin­ary. As yesterday (Sunday) began, Catalans were occupying polling stations to stop them being closed down by Spanish Government troops. But BBC network news was showing anti independen­ce demonstrat­ions attended by “a good few hundred people,” without mentioning that pro independen­ce rallies have topped the million mark.

Meanwhile, the online world was watching short videos of an old woman being slung across a wet plaza like a sack of tatties by armed Spanish police, an elderly couple – the man bowed with age and using a stick to walk – being applauded by the crowd at another polling station as they moved forward to vote, and another video posted by the far from revolution­ary Daily Telegraph showing elderly demonstrat­ors being pulled by their cardigans from polling stations doorways, then shoved into the street.

While BBC News headlines were reporting that the Madrid government had urged Catalans to end their “farcical” referendum, the online world could see Scottish cross-party consensus developing as Nicola Sturgeon and Kezia Dugdale tweeted their condemnati­on of state-backed violence. Even Ruth Davidson was “urging the authoritie­s to exercise restraint.”

By lunchtime, BBC News 24 had caught up a bit, though its main headline was still a study in reality-denying neutrality: “Spanish police have broken into polling stations and removed ballot boxes” because, “the Spanish Government is unhappy with the Catalan Government holding an illegal referendum.”

The presenter’s first question to the BBC’S reporter on the scene was astonishin­gly partisan: “Was it inevitable Spanish police would use rubber bullets?”

Now of course, a sizeable number of Catalans do oppose independen­ce. But if accuracy matters, it’s hard to see how demonstrat­ions featuring hundreds of people can carry the same televisual clout as events featuring millions, unless absent supporters of the status quo must somehow be mentally added to every small promadrid gathering.

So which version of reality was “the news” for you yesterday – the BBC or your own mix of news feeds online?

School pupils across Scotland are taught how to spot bias and sensible adults understand there is no single monolithic version of reality. But BBC diehards refute that. Their refusal to accept there are judgment calls deciding on the story covered, the interviewe­e selected, and the angle pursued is the biggest part of the BBC’S problem. No-one has complete objectivit­y – and while the BBC is falling over itself to be “neutral”, its reporters regularly fail to ask the tough questions viewers expect.

Take the coverage of Hurricane Irma as it rampaged across the Caribbean. Channel Four’s Alex Thomson was on the hurricane-flattened island of British Anguilla, before Boris Johnson arrived. While BBC reporters simply described the carnage and reported some local discontent, Thomson visited the neighbouri­ng French territory of St Martin while President Macron was visiting and pointed out that French islanders enjoy the same rights, access to public services and per capita expenditur­e as mainland citizens of France. By contrast, inhabitant­s of British Anguilla perceive themselves to be living in an underfunde­d shanty democracy. There was hardly a sniff of this highly relevant comparison on BBC news reports.

In the same programme, reporter Paraic O’brien chased internatio­nal trade secretary Liam Fox around a trade exhibition of British-made weapons repeatedly asking why Britain sells arms to Saudi Arabia in the full knowledge they are being used to kill people in the Yemen. It was bold, gripping, reportage – but was it unbalanced?

Why isn’t the BBC challengin­g government might in its main evening news?

The answer is that it can’t. The Beeb’s inability to produce bold, confident and controvers­ial news stems from 2004 when its controvers­ial and feisty director general Greg Dyke walked the plank over BBC coverage of the Iraq War.

After the bureaucrat­ic regime of John Birt, Dyke’s ebullient leadership style involving “cut the crap” and “let’s make it happen” initiative­s had been overwhelmi­ngly popular with staff and his departure knocked the stuffing out of them. News in particular never recovered its confidence, looking over its collective shoulder constantly lest it once again over-step the mark.

The resulting self-conscious and self-absorbed BBC is hilariousl­y portrayed in W1A, which, of course, is a BBC sitcom. This ability to poke fun at itself is always cited in defence of the BBC. But it doesn’t make up for lacklustre news and current affairs coverage.

For many Scottish viewers of course, skewed coverage of the independen­ce referendum still rankles. Last week’s Question Time managed to discuss Theresa May’s tuition fees u-turn without mentioning once that Scotland has no tuition fees at all. But that’s hardly surprising. The most important political environmen­t for Nick Robinson and network broadcaste­rs is Westminste­r – so their work has become the ceaseless fluffing up of tired old policies and fairly ordinary people to create “news” and “personalit­ies.”

Thus Ruth Davidson gets attention for pointing out that Britain is more Londoncent­ric than the USA or Germany – is it really? This startlingl­y passé observatio­n commands attention only because Ms Davidson is second in the polls to replace Theresa May as party leader thus perfectly combining old news with a face that’s recognisab­le to Surrey-man.

Once upon a time BBC network news was the sum of its parts. Nationwide did feature the odd skateboard­ing duck, but this hour-long prime-time slot made the world beyond London a normal and regular component of news.

What citizens of this rudderless and unequal country desperatel­y need from our public broadcaste­r is more genuine diversity in BBC network news and current affairs. We need reporters who regard politics as something that happens beyond Westminste­r, rigorous and robust factchecki­ng and comparison of British norms with wider European and world practice.

If that’s a bit beyond Brexit-conscious Aunty, I trust its presenters will excuse us for seeking enlightenm­ent elsewhere.

As Beeb falls over itself to

be ‘neutral’, its reporters are failing to ask the tough questions viewers expect,

writes Lesley Riddoch

 ??  ?? 0 The self-conscious and self-absorbed BBC is hilariousl­y portrayed in W1A, which, of course, is a BBC sitcom
0 The self-conscious and self-absorbed BBC is hilariousl­y portrayed in W1A, which, of course, is a BBC sitcom
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