Konstantin Kisin v the BBC

Further to Sue's post above ⏫, here's Konstantin Kisin entering the lion's den - BBC Scotland's The Nine - and twice putting very BBC presenter Martin Geissler back in his box over the Jerry Sadowitz business. It's quite a skelping!

Alan Cochrane on the BBC's reporting of the SNP

The Telegraph's doughty Alan Cochrane today echoes Andrew Neil's concerns about the BBC's attitude to the SNP government at Holyrood, observing that the BBC’s main day-time news bulletins, in London and Glasgow, “contained not a word” about Sarah Smith's experiences at the hands of abusive SNP supporters or “the massive controversy her comments had engendered, certainly in Scotland.”

He says it's “highly unlikely” that here bosses didn't know what was happening to her, “but BBC executives have never been that keen on shining a spotlight on the SNP – even in defence of their own journalist.”

The station’s unofficial line has always been to tread a cautious, even timid, path in its relationship with the Nationalists. At times it’s almost as if, with most newspapers opposed to Sturgeon’s independence demands, it regards itself as the one organ which can put the record “straight” by essentially parroting the SNP line. 

Thus, critics have complained that controversial stories are invariably “neutered” thanks to the way the BBC, in both local and network reports, always seems to give too much weight to the SNP position, no matter the circumstances – a situation seldom adopted by the Corporation’s political reporters at Westminster.

He thinks that Nicola Sturgeon’s political control “verges on” being an “elective dictatorship”...“which is why it is so important that the BBC is able to report freely on events in Scotland. Its journalists should not be subjected to abuse just for doing their jobs.”

Andrew Neil on the BBC's reporting of the SNP

  

Andrew Neil has a piece in today's Daily Mail headlined The sinister abuse of BBC star Sarah Smith...and how Scots 'cybernats' have turned independence battle into a toxic cesspit. 

Sarah Smith - the BBC's former Scotland editor, now North America editor - said this week that she's been looking forward to escaping the “criticism, bile and hatred” she's suffered as BBC Scotland editor and hopes her new beat will be far less stressful.  

Andrew Neil compliments her and says she was “scrupulously fair in her reporting” of Scottish politics as BBC Scotland Editor. But, he says, BBC Scotland itself “is too cowed by Sturgeon and her henchmen” and “generally timid in its coverage of the SNP”, adding:

It is significant that Auntie has barely reported Smith's remarks — which are, by any standard, a major story. But timidity trumps truth.

Something rotten in the state of BBC Scotland

I'd seriously urge you to read two outstanding pieces before considering Andrew Neil's questions, as they provide all the necessary background and are much more about the BBC's role in the story than you might guess merely from their headlines:

Effie Deans: It's absurd to imagine there was a conspiracy

The Scotsman: Don't blame MSPs who try to get at the Sturgeon-Salmond truth - Brian Wilson

What happened this week is that BBC Scotland interviewed one of the women who accused Alex Salmond. 

This has caused some consternation, given that Mr Salmond was cleared by a jury.

And critics say that the BBC interviewer, Glenn Campbell, basically let her have a free run at Mr Salmond.

Effie Deans puts The Big Question in a nutshell: "The BBC acts as if Salmond were guilty even though he was acquitted. Why else interview someone the jury did not believe?"

She writes: 

The BBC are supposed to be impartial, but it is quite clear not merely from this interview but also because of the Kirsty Wark documentary that BBC journalists have taken sides. They think that Salmond ought to have been convicted for which reason they disbelieve the alternative explanation that there was a Scottish Government conspiracy against him. This is partly because of the liberal bias in the BBC that treats all accusations of sexual assault as true, because women don’t lie, but more importantly since 2016 the BBC has lost all objectivity about Scottish politics because Sturgeon campaigned for Remain.

But there are lots of other questions for the BBC to answer, which both Effie and Brian outline and which I think will prove a lot trickier for the BBC to answer. They are nitty-gritty questions that go to the heart of BBC Scotland's actions and motivations. 

These are the very ones Andrew Neil's encapsulates so well here:

1. With a major h/t to Brian Wilson I put the following questions to BBC Scotland News.
2. First, what was the provenance of your recent interview with one of the complainants in the Salmond affair? Did you approach the individual? Did she volunteer? Or was she offered up by the spinners surrounding the First Minister?
3. Second, is she independent of the current political ructions within the SNP? If so, fine. If not, why were viewers not told. And if that was not possible on grounds of self-identification, then why was it still OK to broadcast the interview? Some disturbing things are happening in Scotland and BBC Scotland is clearly in the thick of them. 

Various other thoughts:

I wonder if the BBC will reply to Andrew Neil? I suspect they'll have to, as he's a tenacious journalist and will follow it through.  

And these are serious questions that could genuinely damage the BBC's reputation as an independent, impartial broadcaster if the BBC fails to account for themselves. This could spiral out of control for them.

Some are calling for Tim Davie himself to look into what's going on at BBC Scotland as a matter of urgency. 

He should, of course, be doing that already. This has been brewing for a while. And if he's not doing that already then he might be in for a rude awakening shortly.

Viewers in Scotland...

 

Curiously, BBC One viewers in Scotland are still being treated to the Scottish government's daily coronavirus updates, without fail. 

Nicola Sturgeon's political opponents remain aghast at that. 

There was another one today of course, broadcast live in yet another BBC Scotland News Special. 

(They're hardly special, as they happen nearly every day, except weekends).

In contrast, today's UK government coronavirus update from Downing Street was dropped from BBC One and relegated to the BBC News Channel. 

What's the BBC's thinking here?

Wee Nippy Happy Again

 

Donalda MacKinnon

It was only a week ago that the BBC announced that Nicola Sturgeon's daily coronavirus press briefings were no longer going to be shown live every day on BBC One Scotland and BBC Scotland, only when "editorial merit" demands. 

Opposition parties in Scotland were happy; the SNP government wasn't. 

I ended my previous post on the subject by asking, "Will Tim Davie's BBC hold its nerve or U-turn under SNP pressure?" 

Well, this appears to be the answer, courtesy of a headline in The Times: 

Briefings on virus will be screened, says BBC

Yes, the BBC has performed a three-point turn and will now broadcast all of Nicola Sturgeon's daily coronavirus press briefings live, just as before, for the foreseeable future, as (they now say) "there are clearly strong editorial reasons for continuing to do so at the moment".

This is the statement from a BBC spokesman quoted in The Times a week ago...

We will continue to provide extensive coverage of the government press conferences across our news services, including live streaming online. We will of course consider showing press conferences live when any major developments or updates are anticipated.

That certainly sounded as if Ms Sturgeon's live press conferences were going to be only on an 'as and when' basis - which is just what the newspapers reported last week - but now BBC Scotland director Donalda MacKinnon is saying (in an email to BBC staff):

We did not say that we’d stop coverage of the briefings... 

We’ve said now that we’ll look at the briefings in the round — meaning we’ll broadcast them live on TV when we are in a period of the pandemic when there is significant public information being shared.

These seem to me to be weasel-words. It's true they didn't say they'd "stop" coverage of the briefings, but they did say they weren't going to broadcast all of them "live on TV" from now on. 

I think Ms MacKinnon is trying to pull the wool over people's eyes here. 

Blethering Brian moves on

 

It's been a big day today for the BBC in Scotland - and not just for the reasons mentioned in the previous post. 

The Corporation's Political Editor north of the border, Brian Taylor, is leaving his job after 29 years.

That's a long time to be in just one BBC reporting post. 

To put the length of his career in context, he began the same year that the Soviet Union collapsed; Kim Il-sung, grandfather of Kim Jong-un, still had three years to live as supreme leader of North Korea; and the UK still had six years to wait for Tony Blair to become PM and for things to (allegedly) only get better. 

Magnus Linklater in The Times describes him as "a giant of Scottish broadcasting". 

I think that's a fair comment. He always struck me as a likeable man and a decent journalist. 

Two things strike me though, especially regarding what he's now leaving behind. 

The first is that he famously had a strong aversion to Twitter, so goodness knows what he makes of the shenanigans going on in the BBC's name on Twitter these days - though I think I can guess. 

Mr Linklater also notes that "his insistence on the objectivity of his role as a BBC journalist was legendary" and that "he never criticised the politicians he was reporting on, however egregious their behaviour". Goodness knows what he makes of the shenanigans going on in the BBC's name on the likes of, say, Newsnight these days - though I think I can guess that too. 

Wonder what he's going to do next? A writing career? An academic career? A political career?

Good luck to him whatever he chooses.

Nipping Wee Nippy

 

We hear today that Nicola Sturgeon's daily coronavirus press briefings are from now not going to be shown every day on BBC One Scotland and BBC Scotland. 

From now on the BBC will only broadcast them as and when "editorial merit" demands. 

Opposition parties in Scotland regularly accuse the First Minister of using the briefings to score partisan points. They have been furiously complaining to the BBC for months, calling on the Corporation to stop giving just one politician (from the governing party in Scotland) an hour or so's free range every day.

It seems that the BBC has finally come round to their way of thinking. 

Has Tim Davie had any say in this? It is his doing?

The BBC pulls the plug on a man with a pug

Ah, who's surprised by this censorious piece of BBC caving-in?

The BBC speaks:

We have been reviewing our new late night discussion programmes The Collective during the edit process.  

As with all new formats, robust editorial processes apply.  

In this case we have concluded that it’s not appropriate to include Mark Meechan as a contributor. The two programmes in which he featured will not be broadcast as part of any series.