A journalistic lesson from the price of oil
Robert Peston used his Cudlipp Lecture to highlight a crucial journalistic distinction between “balance and impartiality”.
It is a point largely surrendered by broadcasters who fear “political backlash” without the false equilibrium created by two talking heads saying black and white.
Peston quoted the example of his BBC report on the economics of Scottish independence, in the referendum run-up, being pulled minutes before airing because executives feared “the ire of Alex Salmond”.
All this reminded me of an outrageous example of “balance” as a substitute for journalism, involving the notorious 2013 White Paper’s claim that the “average” oil price post-independence was “likely” to be $110 a barrel.
No credible analyst or academic would lend a name to this nonsense. So the Nationalists directed broadcasters to some guy who ran an employment agency in Aberdeen and whose “expertise” remains unknown, before or since. The price of
oil, as I write, is $35 a barrel. There has not been a single day since 2014 when it got anywhere near the mooted “average”. The Nationalists knew the implications of the lie. In a leaked memo from John Swinney, they were told a lower oil price would put benefits and pensions at risk.
We now know that Scotland would by this year be £40 billion – repeat billion – worse off than predicated on the White Paper “average” oil price.
That’s a story the Scottish public should continue to be told based on diligent journalistic analysis.
Good journalism is about seeking out truth and having the courage (and consent) to report it.
Giving equal weight to truth and fiction, claim and denial, may satisfy some criteria but they are not those of journalism. It is a case study worth remembering.