Spin

A couple of mornings ago Today sent a reporter to a fruit farm in Godalming and brought back a large punnet of Brexit-related gloom. (The edition in question isn't available on the iPlayer for some reason). Nick Robinson introduced the report with these words:

There's a warning today from Britain's berry growers that Brexit could crush the industry.

Zoe Conway's report included various hard-working, efficient migrant workers (as she portrayed them) worried about their future, plus farm managers fearing the collapse of their business. One farm owner was asked if he regretted his Leave vote, especially if it leads to what Zoe called a "hard Brexit". No contrasting views featured in Zoe's report.

That's par for the course, of course. But tied in with that piece was the reporting that very same morning of the results of a survey among soft berry producers - a survey the BBC itself had commissioned (for reasons known only to itself but guessable by others). 

The main BBC News website report on the survey (by Emma Simpson) is striking for the way it tries to spin its own findings. The BBC's spin is deeply negative about Brexit and conducive to advancing arguments in favour of retaining free-movement:

UK summer fruit and salad growers are having difficulty recruiting pickers, with more than half saying they don't know if they will have enough migrant workers to harvest their crops. 

Many growers blame the weak pound which has reduced their workers' earning power, as well as uncertainty over Brexit, according to a BBC survey.

The results themselves, cited later in the article, are strikingly at odds with the mood music of the report as a whole:

These results say to me that only 3% of the surveyed farmers are seriously alarmed about "migrant labour shortages'. Another 18% are a bit worried. And what the other 79% (though the figures don't actually add up to 100%)? Well, they either say they have have enough seasonal workers or aren't sure if they've got enough. In other words, that 79% don't sound alarmed about the situation, despite the BBC's alarmist headline.  

I think this is a clear case of BBC bias (conscious or unconscious).

And it's far from being the first time that the BBC has spun its own surveys in a favoured direction.

Who can forget the particularly blatant way the BBC spun its own survey on the attitudes of British Muslims back in 2015? While many other media outlets led with the astonishing finding that 27% of British Muslims expressed  some sympathy with those who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre the BBC heavily pushed the "Most British Muslims 'oppose Muhammad cartoons reprisals'" angle. 

Plus there was some very dodgy reporting by the BBC's News at Six and the BBC website into young people's concerns, also in 2015, where both the TV bulletin and the website article omitted all mention of the third biggest concern of the polled young people - immigration. And it was another BBC poll to boot.

And there was Newsnight and the BBC website's blatant attempts to rig the debate before freedom of movement was granted to Romanians and Bulgarians back in 2013, where the BBC twisted its own survey by pushing the 'Few planning to migrate to UK' angle. Others quickly pointed out that the BBC's own figures actually suggested a massive influx of Romanians and Bulgarians was coming. 

As you'll note, all of the above have immigration as a running theme, whether directly or indirectly. And all of them were spun by the BBC in the same way - the pro-immigration way. 

The BBC is not to be trusted with reporting its own poll findings.

Fashionable opinions

The BBC One News at One bulletin today featured another negative report about Brexit. 

The item was introduced as follows:

The fashion industry is big business for the UK, bringing in around £28 billion into the economy. But as London Fashion Week prepares to welcome visitors from 58 countries some industry experts have expressed concern about the impact Brexit could have on the industry's global status. Well, Emma Simpson has been in Soho to see Fashion Week get underway....

According to Emma Simpson, "the real talking point here is what will Brexit mean for British fashion". [Really, Emma?]

After one pro-Remain designer, Anya Hindmarch, admitted that the cheap pound, post-referendum, has boosted trade at the moment, it was then straight onto the negatives (when the vast bulk of Emma Simpson's report lay) - "But this industry is worried about the potential downsides" - and then specifically onto the main concern: the possible stopping of free movement. 

Caroline Rush of the British Fashion Council argued that it's vital that talent from abroad can continue to come here, and then Emma introduced us to Roksanda, a very successful designer and led her along a particular path: 

Emma: She's Serbian but her fast-growing business is British. She came here to study and never looked back, now dressing some of the world's most famous women.
Roksanda: I came to London from Serbia because I was so inspired with all the incredible imagination that is coming from London. And I think that London is still a little melting pot of ideas. Huge innovations, pushing the boundaries are what fashion needs.
Emma: Would you be where you are today if you hadn't been able to come to London?
Roksanda: Definitely not. And this is a very straightforward answer.

Emma Simpson end her report by saying that the fashion is is "determi best of Brexit" before adding, in a more downbeat tone of voice,  "whatever that may bring". 

Woe, woe and thrice woe!

Incidentally, as  others have spotted, Serbia isn't a member of the EU. Roksanda didn't come here, settle down and build her successful business in this country because of the UK's membership of the EU and EU free movement rules, despite what Emma's viewers doubtless took her to be suggesting here.

In fact, it looks here as if the BBC's Emma Simpson herself simply assumed that Serbia is in the EU and that Roksanda must have come to the UK because of the UK and Serbia's 'joint membership of the EU' - which would be a pretty basic error on a BBC reporter's part.