BBC snow chaos coverage - A failure of commuication?

My column today in The Scotsman examines the BBC's coverage of last week's snow chaos story. In my view the service our national broadcaster provided to the public was about as useful as a jack-knifed lorry. The corporation saw itself as part of the story and pursued one particular angle above all others - political culpability - abandoning its "mission to explain" and failing to provide fair, impartial coverage. I was fortunate to find online the document outlining the BBC's Editorial Values, which it must maintain under the terms of its Royal Charter. Have a read and see if you think the Scottish arm lived up to them last week.

I am always willing to praise when the Beeb does something well. But last week's coverage crossed a line. It is inconceivable that the BBC in England would have conducted a concerted campaign across its supposedly quality news outlets had a similar story happened there - as it did when the M25 clogged up. No way would we have seen the kind of editorialising on the Today programme as we did on Good Morning Scotland. And no way would we see former members and activists of one particular party occupy so many posts in news and current affairs London, as they do in Scotland, without concerns being raised publicly. 

It's not in the article, but readers will be interested to know that Tom Connor, who currently runs the sports show, is to take up a position in charge of online news for BBC Scotland. BBC online news is a crucially important source of information. A number of years ago Connor, along with John Boothman who runs political coverage, was censured for offering media training to Labour candidates. I do not know either man, though I respect Boothman's partner, the former Labour minister Susan Deacon.  But how much public confidence can we really have in the BBC when so many of its senior decision makers come from this background?   If there were an equivalent number of former SNP members in its ranks then fair enough, but that is simply not the case.  Catrina Renton, a former Labour councillor, presents politics shows, and Tavish Scott's wife played a big part in last week's snow story. Yet when Elizabeth Quigley married the SNP's John Swinney she announced that she would no longer be involved in political stories and stuck to softer features instead. 

The BBC has got it wrong too many times. We still have not heard a proper explanation of why the deputy first minister was banned from discussing SNP policy on BBC Question time. Now if ever an apology were due, it is to Sturgeon. Internal BBC people admit this in private, but in public take an arrogant defensive stance. Our major early evening news programme, Reporting Scotland, is tabloid telly which does democracy a disservice. How does BBC Scotland propose to give us intelligent and balanced coverage of the forthcoming Scottish election? The corporation still has not come to terms with devolution by providing the kind of extensive and varied current affairs coverage that is taken for granted across the UK.

The difficulties of balance go deeper than merely party political. The big divide in Scottish politics just now is between the SNP and the three unionist parties who together support a flawed Scotland Bill, misleading sold to the people as a significant transfer of power. The majority of Scots want their parliament to have real economic power far beyond that offered in the bill -  a truly impartial public service broadcaster would reflect that in its coverage and questioning. It would act on behalf of the people, scrutinising the legislation properly and asking the hard questions...

For more on BBC Scotland go to Kenneth Roy for a forensic analysis of its snow chaos coverage go here to Newsnet Scotland

ADD

If you read the column online (£30 a year for premium content, a bargain) you will see the usual array of comments from nasty cyber-unionists. They seem to think it is inappropriate for me to comment because I too have a political affiliation  But the difference with the BBC is obvious. My political affiliation is stated at the end of the column where is says I am an SNP candidate. I am clearly writing opinion, not news. I am also writing for a commercial newspaper that does not operate under the same editorial guidelines as the publicly funded BBC. There is something wrong when our main source of supposedly impartial broadcast news is viewed as hostile and slanted by a significant proportion of the Scottish population. 

Comments

[Debbie Debdeb]

I am glad i am not alone in knowing how strange and freakish BBC Scotland has become over the last 10 years. BBC Scotland's output is so out of kilter with the man on the street that its like something out of a horror movie. Its like the pod people from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers have taken over BBc Scotland. I have never seen such a strange bunch of people inhabit one organisation. Even something has simplistic has the weather forecast is done in such a bizarre fashion. From the non existent coverage of the Edinburgh Festival through to pushing a rubbish soap opera (River City) that no wants or likes in Scotland, BBC Scotland has failed to reflect or repesent real scottish issues and has pushed quasi masonic nonsense on to its ever hateful viewers.

I believe this is in no small part the fault of BBc Scotlands head of Programming Atholl Duncan. Duncan is a strange chap who happens to be a board member of the brainwashing cult "Common Purpose". Its because of this association that BBC Scotland's output is strange and freakish.

what does it say about BBc Scotland that the weather girls were so frightened to escape the palce that they all decided on a pregnancy pact to get away from the place!!

Investigate the disturbing links between BBC Scotland and the brainwashing cult "Common Purpose" And you will have found half your answers...

www.cpexposed.com

[A Griffiths]

Totally agree. I'm not Scottish but watching BBC news coverage of the students fees in Scotland was so anti-Scottish. The BBC interviwer was trying to prompt the English student who hhappens to be studying in Scotland to say on air that to charge English students was 'discriminating against the English.' It was woeful and lazy journalism. The student to be fair said he didn't agree with being charged more but at least the SNP government was looking after Scottish students, pity the Lib-Con government in London would do the same.

[Chic McGregor]

A general 'anti-Scottishness' seems to already be, or is rapidly becoming, institutionalised behaviour for the BBC. Here are just two recent examples of gratuitously anti-Scottish comment. Under the guise of 'comedy' the defence can and no doubt would be made that we should simply have more of a sense of humour. However, the test of validity for that accusation is as always, to re-examine the examples in reverse, i.e. if they were made of the English by Scottish folk would they remain repercussion free? or would there be accusations of racism etc.? You judge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFQqkDXVPbQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yxCI7hmI4s

[Holyrood Horrors]

twitter/CBeebiesPacificQuayTransportSecretaryForecasts

CBeebies Pacific Quay News denies releasing poor quality Labour transport secretary forecasts

about 18 hours ago via web

http://holyroodhorrors.blogspot.com/2010/12/pacific-tweets.html

[Andrew simpson]

good article! more and more people I speak to are starting to see the BBC propaganda machine for what it really is, they seem to be openly campaigning against the SNP! They just twist a story to suite their own agenda, look at the recent wikileaks cables that proved the SNP were honest and up front with people over the release of Al Megrahi, the unionist party's were foaming at the mouth and quite happy to put the boot into Scotland and its legal system on the international stage just to damage the SNP, but! in private they wanted him released, business deals depended on it! how did the BBC in scotland report it? they cherry picked part of the wikileaks cable where jack straw was telling the americans "salmond would make the decision over his release" utter tripe! well it was jack straw, what do you expect! the BBC's tabloid headline that night for the hard of thinking "wikileaks cables suggest salmond lied over who would make the final decision on the release of the lockerbie bomber". The BBC in scotlands take on the wikileaks cables only lasted one or two minutes then they never mentioned it again! neither have any of the unionist partys in scotland, I wonder why? now we know why they'd rather talk about the weather!

[Jacobite]

Rolf

There is no way in hell I will ever pay a BBC license fee again.

I've stopped paying it a long time ago and their is absolutely nothing the Beeb can do despite their scary threats.
I took legal advice on this and was told that it is the Beeb that is breaking the law by demanding payment for a service that is blatantly breaking the terms of their charter and in fact you can demand back payment for previous years of extortion.
I am not saying that everyone should take a stance of non payment but I would urge people to let the Beeb know that if they don't deliver non biased content then the option will be considered.

[Dougthedug]

" The corporation still has not come to terms with devolution..."

Joan,
The corporation came to terms with devolution a long time ago. Devolution is regional government and the BBC treats it as regional government.

What has to be remembered is that Scotland was effectively under one-party Labour rule for nearly half a century before the SNP took power in Holyrood.

What happened is that the boundaries between the Labour party, the office holders in local government, the media, the BBC, the quangos, the public services, the public bodies and the establishment simply disappeared in Scotland.

That's why Labour took it so hard when the SNP won in 2007. It wasn't that they felt that the SNP had overturned the natural order and usurped the natural party of government it was that in a one party state the SNP had actually done that.

It's also why BBC Scotland and its employees dislike the SNP so much. The SNP are simply wrong for an organisation which had adapted to and been assimilated into the previous one party labour state. What the BBC want are their labour pals back in government so they can return to an easy, lazy, mindless world where Labour are good, the Tories are bad, and the SNP are a sideshow for comic relief.

[Ewan Munro]

Another fine article Joan, thank you. I've just had a quick scan through the BBC's Editorial Guidelines and... oh me oh my.. has anyone in BBC Scotland paid heed to them? Last week's shenanigans was the worst we've seen from them in a wee while, but I'd be willing to make bets that we'll see worse (in terms of the strict word of the guidelines) before election time.

[N Conway]

WE can see and hear this biased reporting daily but what can we do about it ? apart from having a mass not pay the TV license revolt however that in itself is a legal minefield for those of us who can be struck of our governing bodies register (and cant work) for certain court charges.

[ianbeag]

Congratulations on delving into this thorny subject and thank you for your revelations about the political affiliations of BBC Scotland news staff members, Connor, Boothman and Renton. Many of us are aware of the Labour bias that percolates all the way up through the organisation - remember Jack McConnell and Kirsty Wark holidaying together and sharing a house when he was First Minister and her blatant political attack against Alex Salmond in a Newsnight interview or the case of Grey Dyke as controller while still a self confessed Labour party supporter and activist. I hope you will find the time to delve further and examine further the obligations contained in the BBC's 'Editorial Values' documents.

[Spoonsy]

Odd I know, but there's something about this article which reminds me of the recent Celtic/Referee affair.

There's the big, impartial organisations, the accusations of bias, the singling out of some participants whose leanings are known - or appear to be known - the list of greviances, it's all a conspiracy etc, etc .....

And yet, like Celtic, the SNP appear to be in pretty good shape, heading - if you listen to them - the most successful and popular Scottish government ever. How do they do it, when so much is against them?

[Hamish Scott]

Joan - What do you expect? The BBC is the state media of a state we're trying to break up. It is the mouthpiece of the British ruling establishment not just in regard to Scotland but in general. Complaining to them is pointless. Complaining about them might at least help in countering the propaganda they promote of how 'fair' and 'impartial' they are. Scotland will NEVER get a proper and decent broadcasting service from the BBC, for such a service is counter to the BBC's role.

[CWH]

An excellent article.

Over the last few weeks Reporting Scotland has led their main evening news bulletin with a report of the Tommy Sheridan case to the exclusion of far more weightier and important stories - until it snowed! It is lazy journalism because they do not have to apply any great intellect to report that story.

What will be interesting though is how much, if any, coverage they will give to the trial of Jim Devine, the former Labour MP.

[Rolf]

There is no way in hell I will ever pay a BBC license fee again. Last week's coverage of the weather was blatantly party political. The BBC weren't reporting on the political narrative - they wrote and then acted it out to suit their editors' ends. How can the BBC get away with it? It beggars belief that we are supposed to be in a democracy. I would love to know what SNP chiefs are saying about it behind the scenes. I posted an anti-BBC pro-Stevenson comment on a BBC Scotland online article and got an email from their moderators saying it broke house rules. I then posted a comment on the main London BBC site and got a call from Radio 5 Live asking if I'd speak on air! BBC Scotland is a de facto branch of Labour Scotland.

[GrassyKnollington]

Well said Joan. In my opinion you afford unionists in the media far more respect than they would ever give to you.

As for the cyber unionists thank goodness you located them. I thought Shereen's "silent majority" had gone to ground.