eurealist.co.uk

A  report on the BBC’s the World Tonight attacked the Conservatives for planning to sit with Poland’s Law and Justice party in the European Parliament. The report explained: “Since David Cameron’s election as leader he’s moved fast to change the Conservative party’s image to make it more modern, more inclusive, more appealing to voters in the centre of the political spectrum. So with that in mind it seems a little odd that he’s chosen a very traditionally conservative party in Poland as a new European ally. The Law and Justice party has governed in Warsaw for the last eight months in an uneasy alliance with two other right wing parties. It was elected on a platform of family values, founded on strong catholic beliefs. Now it looks like Law and Justice is going to team up with the Conservative party here to form a new political grouping in the European Parliament. Paul Moss is in Warsaw and has been finding out more about Mr Cameron’s new friends.” The report went on to note the Polish Prime Minister’s comments that homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to “infect others with their views” and quoted various Polish people describing the party as “homophobic” and “dangerous”. Paul Moss described President Lech Kaczynski as “less Iron Lady and more Iain Duncan Smith”.

Apart from a combative interview with a Law and Justice spokesman, the only supposedly “balancing” voice in the whole report was Nicholas Richardson, identified only as “a conservative supporter” in Warsaw, who was interviewed in a noisy pub saying that he was a “fairly conservative sort of chap” and thought the Conservatives should sit with Law and Justice because they shouln’t be “so worried about being touchy-feely”. He said “Law and Justice, when it comes to sexual freedom, women’s rights and all these other sort of modern things we’re all told we have to like - I don’t think they acknowledge them at all!”

Comment: We are a year on from the BBC’s internal Wilson review - which found the BBC guilty of bias on Europe - and far too little has changed. BBC producers are still putting together packages without a single balancing view, breaching the basic principles of serious journalism. It’s good for the BBC to take a critical look at the Tories possible allies - and the Conservatives need to think carefully about who they are going to work with. But it’s ludicrous to just present a one sided assault without any context about Polish politics or society. For example, there was no mention of Law and Justice’s self-stated ambition to create a “fourth Polish republic” with a stable, western style party system, by gradually undermining the genuinely extremist “Samobroona” and “LPR” parties (which appears to be working). The Conservatives should complain about the report. But they should also see it as a warning shot: there will be a torrent of similar BBC reports if they pick the wrong allies.

One of the most serious problems is that the BBC still doesn’t seem to understand its own “soft bias” - as witnessed by the “angle of attack” phenomenon on the Today programme. Guy Verhofstadt is not asked, “how dare you ignore two overwhelming no votes?” or, “do you seriously believe that most people in Britain want an EU army?” He is instead asked: “Why haven’t people like yourself been able to persuade the sceptics about Europe that a federalist vision is the way forward?”

Can people on the Today programme not see why this isn’t neutral?

The World Tonight (36 minutes in) Today

From Open Europe

Technorati Tags: BBC, Bias, media,