Mark Easton and the English Temple of Doom

And finally in today's tl;dr review of Mark Easton's preliminary overnight 'Englishness' spectacular, it's back to that main BBC TV report of his, first broadcast on last night's BBC News at Ten. 

This was somewhat subtler (bias-wise) than his Today report. (The programme reaches a wider, less 'Radio 4 audience' after all, so he doubtless tweaked it to reflect that, and its higher profile too).

But, nonetheless, here was Mark, the BBC's home editor...

...(a) deliberately talking about "England's identities" rather than "England's identity"...

...(b) beginning at a near-pantomime event of 'English nationalism' in Nottinghamshire with three vox pops variously (i) asserting themselves not to be ashamed to be English, (ii) protesting about being called racist and (iii) being hesitant about being "a little bit" Welsh...

...(c) editorialising that "England emerges as strangely wistful now" as he cites the polling evidence that people who feel English are "nostalgic for times past"...

...(d) maintaining as a fact that "Englishness is a variable quality"...

...(e)...{and this is a big (e)...stating the stats with bags of spin [as detailed in previous posts]...

...(f) featuring three Englishness-squeamish students without questions (unlike with the St. George folk in Nottinghamshire)...

...(g) featuring two ethnic minority Londoners from what Mark called  "a truly international city where identities can be discarded, absorbed into lifestyle", neither of whom felt comfortable with thinking of themselves as English - one squirming with angst about it, the other - acting as the final vox pop in the report - affirming the wonders of diversity and multiculturalism...

...and (h), as discussed in detail earlier, Mark's final, message-clinching words about the 'divisiveness' of 'Englishness':

Being English, unlike being British, is seen as an exclusive identity, an honour bestowed only upon those eligible. That is its weakness and its strength. Mark Easton, BBC News, England.

This was an entirely typical Mark Easton report for BBC One. 

Also, by featuring voices 3-5 against 'pride in Englishness', the BBC might, if I know them well enough, attempt to claim 'balance' by saying that 'both sides' were heard from and, thus, 'broad balance' and 'due impartiality' was met, but...

(a) It was a 3-5 imbalance against 'pride in Englishness, and...

(b,c,d and e) the three 'pro-pride in Englishness' vox pops were (very obviously surely to an impartial observer?) given far shorter (do a word count and weep!), far less substantial, lower quality contributions and and far more questions from Mark Easton than the five 'non-pride-in Englishness' vox pops.  

I don't think this BBC report came within an English mile of being impartial in the (alleged) BBC fashion. It felt, as I first watched it last night, like agenda-pushing, St. George-slaying, by Mark Easton. 

This morning's Today report from Mark Easton took us further, fathoms-deep, into BBC bias, but this less blatant piece still stank of bias to me. (No offence!)

Please read the transcripts for yourselves (or, if you can, watch or read the originals) and let me know what you think (in agreement or disagreement)...unless the whole thing has completely worn you out!