Friday, April 05, 2019
The BBC are failing us all on political balance
Like many people, I read the latest missive from the BBC to their employees with incredulity. As the Independent reports the head of news in the British Brexit Corporation has told his staff that they will face “appropriate” disciplinary action if they share personal views on politics – or other controversial subjects – on social media.
This threat is believed to follow the outcry over a decision by Question Time to debate whether it was “morally right” for five-year-old children to learn about LGBT+ issues in school – sparking an angry reaction from several senior BBC employees on Twitter:
BBC Breakfast presenter Ben Thompson tweeted: “LGBT “issues”? Like what? That we exist? One of them, RIGHT HERE, is on your TV every morning … Would you ask if it’s “morally right” to learn about gender/race/religion/disability “issues”?"
Sue Perkins, who continues to front BBC television and radio programmes, also tweeted about the issue.
She wrote: “The framing of this question is deeply worrying. Are we really here again, nearly two decades after Section 28 was repealed...?”
The paper says that Fran Unsworth, director of news, has since emailed employees to tell them: “We all have our personal views, but it is part of our role with the BBC to keep those views private. Our Editorial Guidelines say BBC staff must not “advocate any particular position on a matter of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or any other ‘controversial subject’”.
If this is the case how does she explain the many news and current affair programmes in which broadcasters demonstrate a clear and obvious bias over Brexit, fail to challenge interviewees properly and don't seem to understand that the role of BBC journalism is to challenge and inform, not allow lies and misinformation to be broadcast without appropriate scrutiny.
I have no problem with the likes of Rees Mogg coming on the airwaves to put across his point of view, no matter how much I might disagree with it, but I do expect the producers, journalists and researchers to ensure that there is a balancing viewpoint, that clear inaccuracies are exposed for what they are, and the simplistic view of balance, that as long as there are two opposing arguments then everything is okay, should be abandoned if it means giving somebody an airing who has nothing to contribute to the debate.
I have two recent examples of obviously inaccurate assertions being allowed to go unchallenged. They are both from Radio Wales, though I suspect that Radio Four's morning news show is a far more frequent offender.
On April 1st, David TCC Davies, the MP for Monmouth came onto Good Morning Wales and made the ludicrous claim that Treasury figures show we will be richer under a no deal Brexit. In fact the Treasury say we will take an £80bn hit. This statement was not challenged, nor was my text pointing out that the claim was bogus, read out on air.
And then yesterday, the Conservative MP for Ribble Valley, Nigel Evans, who claimed (unchallenged) that we voted to leave the EU without a deal in June 2016. Putting aside the many reassurances given by the Leave campaign that we would remain in the single market, that a deal with the EU would be a piece of cake and that money from unknown sources would flood into the NHS, this is blatantly untrue. The words 'no deal' did not appear on the ballot paper.
More to the point, as this tweeter makes clear, the Referendum Act 2015 was passed so we could decide whether or not the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union. It was only possible to vote to remain a member, or to stop being a member. The Act included a duty to publish information about membership. Section 7(1)(b) required the government to provide examples of countries that were not members.
The report “Alternatives to membership: possible models for the United Kingdom outside the European Union” made it clear the government would review the different models and seek an agreement to achieve the best possible advantage for the country.
The treasury documents highlighting the short term and long term impact of a vote to leave referred to the ‘Alternatives to membership’ highlighting the multiple different relationships the government may pursue in the event of a vote to leave. Then, in a leaflet sent to every house in the country, the government stated that if there was a vote to leave they would need renegotiate new arrangements with the EU.
All of this is clear. Even without this source material a broadcaster and journalist could surely recall what we were actually promised by the Leave campaign and challenge the incorrect assertion. That did not happen.
Management cannot apply different standards to their staff than they apply to the programmes they oversee.
This threat is believed to follow the outcry over a decision by Question Time to debate whether it was “morally right” for five-year-old children to learn about LGBT+ issues in school – sparking an angry reaction from several senior BBC employees on Twitter:
BBC Breakfast presenter Ben Thompson tweeted: “LGBT “issues”? Like what? That we exist? One of them, RIGHT HERE, is on your TV every morning … Would you ask if it’s “morally right” to learn about gender/race/religion/disability “issues”?"
Sue Perkins, who continues to front BBC television and radio programmes, also tweeted about the issue.
She wrote: “The framing of this question is deeply worrying. Are we really here again, nearly two decades after Section 28 was repealed...?”
The paper says that Fran Unsworth, director of news, has since emailed employees to tell them: “We all have our personal views, but it is part of our role with the BBC to keep those views private. Our Editorial Guidelines say BBC staff must not “advocate any particular position on a matter of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or any other ‘controversial subject’”.
If this is the case how does she explain the many news and current affair programmes in which broadcasters demonstrate a clear and obvious bias over Brexit, fail to challenge interviewees properly and don't seem to understand that the role of BBC journalism is to challenge and inform, not allow lies and misinformation to be broadcast without appropriate scrutiny.
I have no problem with the likes of Rees Mogg coming on the airwaves to put across his point of view, no matter how much I might disagree with it, but I do expect the producers, journalists and researchers to ensure that there is a balancing viewpoint, that clear inaccuracies are exposed for what they are, and the simplistic view of balance, that as long as there are two opposing arguments then everything is okay, should be abandoned if it means giving somebody an airing who has nothing to contribute to the debate.
I have two recent examples of obviously inaccurate assertions being allowed to go unchallenged. They are both from Radio Wales, though I suspect that Radio Four's morning news show is a far more frequent offender.
On April 1st, David TCC Davies, the MP for Monmouth came onto Good Morning Wales and made the ludicrous claim that Treasury figures show we will be richer under a no deal Brexit. In fact the Treasury say we will take an £80bn hit. This statement was not challenged, nor was my text pointing out that the claim was bogus, read out on air.
And then yesterday, the Conservative MP for Ribble Valley, Nigel Evans, who claimed (unchallenged) that we voted to leave the EU without a deal in June 2016. Putting aside the many reassurances given by the Leave campaign that we would remain in the single market, that a deal with the EU would be a piece of cake and that money from unknown sources would flood into the NHS, this is blatantly untrue. The words 'no deal' did not appear on the ballot paper.
More to the point, as this tweeter makes clear, the Referendum Act 2015 was passed so we could decide whether or not the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union. It was only possible to vote to remain a member, or to stop being a member. The Act included a duty to publish information about membership. Section 7(1)(b) required the government to provide examples of countries that were not members.
The report “Alternatives to membership: possible models for the United Kingdom outside the European Union” made it clear the government would review the different models and seek an agreement to achieve the best possible advantage for the country.
The treasury documents highlighting the short term and long term impact of a vote to leave referred to the ‘Alternatives to membership’ highlighting the multiple different relationships the government may pursue in the event of a vote to leave. Then, in a leaflet sent to every house in the country, the government stated that if there was a vote to leave they would need renegotiate new arrangements with the EU.
All of this is clear. Even without this source material a broadcaster and journalist could surely recall what we were actually promised by the Leave campaign and challenge the incorrect assertion. That did not happen.
Management cannot apply different standards to their staff than they apply to the programmes they oversee.
