Foxes Report on Hen House
That BBC Report which was released yesterday has some interesting comments to make about the BBC coverage of the EU, some of them are listed here, other Bloggers also have their own ideas on the report, some of whom have been complaining for a long time about the BBC Bias, may take some comfort from the fact that although the report did not find intentional bias it did highlight a series of problems that the BBC needs to address with regard to its coverage of the EU. In fact one of the arguments oddly made by both Eusceptics and the EU Commision is that the BBC understates the importance and relevance of the EU in the political and daily life of the UK. This of course plays into the hands of those who do not wish the British people to fully understand what is going on.
“All external witnesses pointed out that the BBC News agenda understates the importance and relevance of the EU in the political and daily life of the UKâ€.
“There is a disparity of quality and quantity of EU coverage between the World Service and domestic programmesâ€
“We were struck by the number of witnesses who complained that they had been rung up by inadequately briefed junior BBC researchers with ill-judged preconceptions which gave an impression of biasâ€.
“We note that across the spectrum of opinion there is widespread criticism of the narrow nature of the coverage and the lack of reporting of issues which have a considerable domestic impact, for example the Working Time or Chemicals Directivesâ€
“A large part of the Westminster agenda already flows from UK membership of the European Union. This trend will be accentuated under the constitution. If BBC coverage fails to reflect this phenomenon, it will only serve to reinforce a general British ignorance about the importance of the European dimension to national life.†Similarly the Conservatives urge the BBC to “focus on the issues rather than the process.â€
“By allowing the debate about the Constitution and the Euro to be viewed as an extension of domestic party politics it understates the cross-party and non-party divide on these issues.â€
“It has failed to reflect a significant minority opinion that the UK should withdraw from the EU because this does not figure in the policies of the Westminster parties. UKIP in their written evidence say that the main news programmes are dominated by Westminster based correspondents who rarely meet withdrawalist politicians.â€
“Too often EU events are reported through the prism of party politics. This can lead to the real story being neglected. For example, the Rome IGC in 2003 was reported largely in terms of the British “red lines†rather than the far more important Spanish/Polish revolt on voting numbers in the Council. This made the breakdown of the IGC seem to come out of the blue. Similarly the consequences of EU directives are sometimes wrongly attributed to domestic policies and vice versa thereby misleading the public about where responsibility liesâ€.
“Giving the audience the information it needs to make up its own mind is a proper and important role for the BBC and one which it must carry out. We feel that impartiality requires even-handed treatment of the broad spectrum of views held by the British electorate. The BBC should be “the voices†not “the voice†of Britain.â€
New Frontiers
The report for the BBC Governors into BBC coverage of the EU has been published. It is good news for those who oppose in part or in full the process of EU integration. While it unsurprisingly finds that there is no conspiracy to distort the debate, it accepts that there is “cultural bias†– exactly what those who have scrutinised the BBC have long complained of for years. It also correctly notes that many BBC journalists are too ignorant about the EU to report on it properly and says that the real role of the EU in British life has been greatly under-reported by the BBC
Europhobia
The report into the BBC’s so-called bias will no doubt be much appreciated in some quarters, but all it’s actually saying is that some people perceive the corporation to be biased in favour of the EU.
EU Referendum
Having expressed considerable reservations about the make-up of this Panel, we cannot express any great surprise at this finding. All we can say of it is that the Panel cannot have looked very far, or very thoroughly. Even on this Blog – which is not dedicated systematically to monitoring the BBC – we have been able to come up with some very clear instances.
London Evening Standard
The BBC is accused by two independent reports of failing the public in its coverage of the European Union.
A review commissioned by the board of governors said there was a “cultural and unintentional bias” in BBC news and a lack of understanding of the issues among many journalists.
A second set of research by pollsters MORI found that BBC’s audiences believe it is “not succeeding in providing basic accessible information” on Europe.
Express India
London, January 28: The BBC, Britain’s internationally renowned television and radio broadcaster, has failed in its mission of impartiality and is guilty of a pro-European bias, according to an independent report it commissioned.
The report, commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corporation’s board of governors, said there wasâ€serious problem” with the BBC’s coverage of European issues because of its failure to be impartial.
“While we have found no evidence of deliberate bias in BBC coverage of EU matters, we have found that there is a widespread perception that it suffers from certain forms of cultural and unintentional bias,” it said.
Martin Stabe
The independent panel commissioned by BBC board of governors has issued its report; it found no bias, but found the quality BBC’s coverage of the EU wanting:
As I have only found a couple of pro EU sites which have have mentioned the report, here is a post about the BBC to attempt some balance.
Strait Banana
The best balance however perhaps comes from the make up of the inquiry team, independent of the BBC they may be, but independent of the EU they most certainly are not.
Nice round-up - ta!
But what do you mean about the make up of the inquiry team? There have been suggestions and hints from other anti-EU quarters that it had a pro-EU bias from the start.
But it included both Rodney Leach, chairman of Business for Sterling, and Nigel Smith from the No-euro campaign - it’s not as if eurosceptic voices weren’t included. I don’t get the complaint… Or perhaps I ought to ask dear Dr North?
As you know there are a range of Eusceptic views, the team did not include any from the withdrawal side, all those on the team were for staying in the EU which is one of the complaints Eusceptics make of the BBC, no coverage of the withdrawal side of the argument.
Seriously? Now I can’t give you any specifics here, but I’ve got the impression that most times the BBC holds any kind of EU based debate they generally call in people from the two furthest extremes. Most of the pro-EU lot they get in do no service to that side of the debate, usually painting eurosceptics with the broadest of “little Englander” and “xenophobe” brushes, sounding utterly patronising and making us all look like self-righteous arseholes, and the anti-EU vox pops often seem to be chosen for being hardcore pro-withdrawal voices.
The impression I’ve got of the majority of eurosceptics is that they largely object to further integration, and think that in certain areas we’ve already gone too far - not that the basic idea of a European trading and co-operation union is a bad thing. Plus I can - to an extent - see their point.
The withdrawl arguments seem utterly insane to me - other eurosceptic stances hold a lot more water and could, if the withdrawal question could be sidestepped, actually be an area where the pro and anti camps could find common ground.
As I’ve said many, many times, the majority of pro-EU folk know full well that there are major flaws with the current system (Common Agricultural Policy, Common Fisheries Policy, lack of democratic accountability etc.), and want sweeping reforms of (almost) the entire thing. There are also plenty of pro-EU people (myself included) who aren’t convinced that the UK should join the single currency for the forseeable future.
But whenever any EU-based arguments are raised (in the UK at least), they always seem to end up boiled down to the most extreme viewpoints: pro-EU = federalist, anti-EU = withdrawalist etc. It’s just not that simple, and is preventing us from having a real and constructive debate. Any government attempts to claim that a “No” vote in the constitutional referendum is a vote to withdraw will simply give fuel to the more extreme eurosceptics, and distort the debate further.
It’s not helpful for either side for the debate to be so polarised - after all, even pro-EU people (again, myself included) are fully aware that the proposed constitution is flawed. It’s just we also don’t buy the claims that it is a final settlement, so reckon that - if everyone who wants reform can finally start acting together - we can make the best of its good points and get rid of the bad. (And yes, I know that we’ve been trying to do that when it comes to the EU for 30 years, but I reckon we’ve failed because we haven’t presented a coherent and united reformist front - we’re too busy bickering among ourselves to tackle the problems head on.)
In short, the argument between the UK pro and anti camps shouldn’t be boiled down to the utterly simplistic “withdraw or become a federal superstate” dichotomy, as it has often been. It should be over the extent to which reforms of the UK’s existing relationship with the EU are necessary - both camps agree that they are, just not how much. Only a minority on either side would argue for the most extreme options available.