Something to look out for...
According to The Times' media editor Alex Spence, a BBC Trust report from former civil servant/BBC insider Heather Hancock is to be published this week which will say that "the BBC’s coverage of rural England is distorted by a metropolitan bias" and that "the public broadcaster’s news and current affairs programmes too often fail to reflect the wide range of interests outside of England’s main urban centres."
The BBC Trust commissioned it, Alex Spence says, in an attempt "to examine whether the BBC’s reporting on rural matters, such as badger culls and the building of wind farms in the countryside, is objective".
Among [Heather Hancock's] findings are that the BBC’s reporting on the countryside is disproportionately focused on environmental matters, with not enough coverage of how economic and social issues affect ordinary people outside cities.
The Countryside Alliance isn't exactly taken aback by any of this. Its head, Barney White-Spunner, is quoted as saying:
The Countryside Alliance has long been vocal in our concerns. That is not to say that programmes like Countryfile are not valid and interesting, but they are not a true reflection of the realities of rural life and livelihoods.
