Dark Deeds at the Beeb

It’s not often that a mere Progressive blogger finds himself having a central role in a BBC drama which exposes flaws in how this august institution works.

It all began about a year ago when I was watching Newsnight, as political nerds like us tend to do. The story, not uncommon at that time (or any time, come to that), was about the Blair-Brown rift over when the Prime Minister should go and how the government was falling apart as a consequence.

The item started with the usual sneering introduction by Jeremy Paxman, this time referring to government policy announcements (three weeks before the local elections) as if they were intended to be a distraction from the main media issue of when Blair should step down. A jocular film report followed in which a somewhat strained link was made between the “regeneration” process by which the actors playing Dr Who were changed and the change in the Labour leadership “something many in the Labour Party would dearly like to see right now”. It continued with a 10 second slot in which Tony Blair referred to the alleged divisions as “soap opera” that had been played up by the media. Then came interviews with two anti-Blair Labour Party members and a Daily Mail journalist who all demolished the position Blair had taken up. Finally there was a studio discussion with Andrew Rawnsley of the Observer and Peter Oborne of the Spectator who both agreed that the profound leadership split was real and that the government was more or less in meltdown.

All par for the course, you might say. Yet throughout the item there was no one at all putting the other side of the argument, not even in the winding - up discussion where “the other side” usually gets a hearing even if they are advocating that pigs can defy the law of gravity. Nor were there any of those challenging questions and grimaces that Mr Paxman seems to reserve for government ministers.

Knowing from previous communications with the BBC that such a blatantly one-sided presentation had to be in conflict with the BBC guidelines requiring them ”to avoid bias or an imbalance of views on controversial subjects” particularly in a period leading up to an election, I duly sent in a complaint on this basis. Nearly a year later, after the complaint had been dismissed at the BBC editorial level it was considered on appeal by the last meeting of the Governors’ Programme Complaints Committee (now the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee).

Their finding, which can be clicked on here (page 11 of the December ’06 report), was that the appeal was “not upheld”. More importantly the Committee’s explanation of their decision excluded any reference to the actual basis of my appeal i.e. that there had been an imbalance in the views presented. The technique (which those who have made complaints will be familiar with) was to spread the focus of my complaint to other largely irrelevant matters: then to tick off these more easily defended points and hope that no one will notice that the core of the complaint had not been addressed.

The only justification that came anywhere near to the actual terms of my complaint was their claim that they had been impartial because “a range of opinions had been sought”, notwithstanding that the only dissenting opinion they could come up with in the ten minutes that the piece ran was that of the Prime Minister himself in the 10 second slot that had been allotted to him . The fact that they say they also tried to get a Minister or MP to appear in the programme is no defence since the omission could have been made good in other ways. As regards the discussion, they “were satisfied with the choice of guests since they represented publications from different sides of political opinion and had written extensively on the working relationship between Blair and Brown”, again notwithstanding that both were renowned for writing up the relationship in terms of a deep and poisonous division.

When I challenged the Chair of the Editorial Standards Committee, Richard Tait, about how the decision had been justified the reply was that the decision did not need to be reopened because he was confident that “the Committee did absorb and consider all the material it received”. He also refused to change the website presentation of the case to reflect my objections to the rationale of the decision, as had been done on a previous occasion.

Now we all have our opinions on the importance of the differences at the top of this Labour government and Newsnight were perfectly entitled to run an item about them, even if the by-line was, in Paxman’s characteristic words, “how much longer can Tony Blair keep the day job without telling us when he’s going to give it all up?” What they are not entitled to do, under their own guidelines, is to present an almost completely unchallenged line of argument that the government of the day is in disarray, three weeks before local elections. Nor was the BBC Trust entitled to seemingly ignore the main thrust of the complaint in coming to their decision.

There is also a wider consideration here which is relevant to this kind of website since this story goes to the heart of how some parts of the BBC are interpreting the impartiality rule. It seems to me that huge efforts are made to provide a balancing view (however unrepresentative) to the “official line” (e.g. on climate change) but that this is not always the case where the balancing view needs to come from the government side. It’s almost as if some programme-makers regard certain “official lines” as so obviously wrong according to their conventional wisdom that they do not see the need for them to be properly represented in their programmes. Such arrogance is bad for the Beeb and even worse for our democracy. They should not be allowed to get away with it.

PS. The BBC Trust were given the opportunity to comment on the factual content of this post but declined to do so.

Comments

[Dr George M.P. Bailey]

Stan I am not surprised that the BBC has operated in this way.

It has always been, and always will be, a law unto itself as long as the public purse foots all its extravagance.

I can remember in days gone by, when political programming on the BBC was second to none; because as you rightly point out, all those who had an argument were given the opportunity in any given broadcast, to articulate it!

On the basis of what you write one may draw the conclusion that the BBC's facade and myth of 'the unbiased broadcaster' has been shattered at last. After all, it has always been seen as a mouthpiece of the state.

One must wonder why it suddenly changed its tune. Which undemocratic group or individual is unduly influencing programme editors etc?

I would not hold your breath for the BBC to be sorted out though after all is it not the case that whoever controls the BBC controls the propaganda message, and in turn controls the people's views etc?

Global warning; if you do not change the BBC for the good of all and not just the few now; we will risk wasting many more millions and cause a catastrophic rise in hot air, and yet more no substance programmes!

In anticipation.

GB

[Richard Carey]

Aw! Has the BBC departed from the script? Don't worry, 99% of their output supports leftwing ideology in general. Now, if you can just ensure Peter Hitchens doesn't get invited on "Question Time" once every six months, your task will be complete.