Let’s be honest, the BBC failed Scotland when it came to indyref impartiality

INEVER wanted to be a journalist. When I was 17, people told me I should be, but I was horrified at the thought of being involved in an industry with a reputation for its cutthroat competitiveness. I resisted it for years, not because I hated the media, but because I didn’t trust it. I felt it would be too much of a compromise on my principles to get involved, so I put thoughts of it aside.

When I did finally fall into the industry, it was by accident. I’d chapped the door of a local radio station and volunteered my services – I had visions of answering phones and making tea – and soon found myself hosting a local politics show. I fell madly in love with the trade and the rest, as they say, is history.

But I consider myself a modern breed of journalist who falls somewhere between old and new media. I’m the editor of a new media outlet, but I write a column for a traditional newspaper and, now and again, do commentary stints on BBC Scotland and STV. I’ve finally found my perfect compromise: I contribute to an old media I was once so unsure of, but I’m part of a new media that can hold the old to account.

But we’re still in a transitioning environment, one where there are two sides and a lot of hostility. It often feels as though you must either entirely distrust the media, or unquestionably defend it under the banner of free speech. This was demonstrated by an opinion piece published on STV’s digital politics platform last week by Andrew Collier, a journalist and former communications strategist for the SNP, who argued that social media “cybernat” hostility towards the media was damaging for the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon herself, he argued, should haul the whole independence movement into line and tell everyone to be nicer.

But amid these claims about delusional cybernats, Collier himself accepted that media coverage of Scottish politics wasn’t “flawless”, that “infuriating” mistakes were sometimes made and “balance wasn’t always fair” during the indyref. So what exactly is the problem here? Is it the evil cybernats convinced of BBC bias? Or is it a media that didn’t do its job properly? As much as the extreme cybernat culture infuriates me, I have some sympathy with how they’ve reached their conclusions. Some of them really do believe that there is an active conspiracy within the BBC to beat the independence movement down. They see agendas everywhere.

Having been on various sides of this – a non-journalist to journalist, and flitting between old and new media – I’m certain that the lack of communication between editorial rooms and readers/viewers leads to an inevitable jump to ill-informed conclusions.

When criticism of the media is met with either silence or disdain from newsrooms, the gulf between them and their audiences grows ever wider. When audiences scream “bias” and journalists sneer back at them, it only fuels the mindset.

HOWEVER, the wide range of existing opinion about the failures of media to do an adequate job during the indyref is stark. From big-hitters like Channel 4’s Stuart Cosgrove and journalist Paul Mason questioning the BBC’s handling of events, to the broadcaster’s own reporters like James Cook admitting on a podcast – from Apolitical, one of the new media outlets to spring up in Scotland – that the BBC could have done more to scrutinise the status quo, it’s clear there’s a case to answer.

In the book Demanding Democracy: The Case For A Scottish Media, author Christopher Silver lays out a compelling case explaining how a number of factors within the BBC’s London-centric, regionally starved structure led to an inevitable imbalance in reporting.

There is agreement among a broad range of voices that Scotland was under-served by the media coverage in the period leading up to one of the biggest decisions voters in Scotland would make in their lifetimes. Where it all becomes a bit messy is when we get to the question of why.

It’s unfair to accept that the media failed to do a decent job on the indyref, but go on to call on Nicola Sturgeon to get the troops in order, like voters are members of a brainless cult, instead of confronting the problem head on. Worse still, reducing legitimate concerns about the media that spread across much of the country to a cybernat craze is disingenuous.

The answer to the media problem in Scotland is not to plead with Sturgeon to control the masses. The only way out of this mess requires journalists and audiences to communicate, to become more transparent and, for once, to listen to each other.