Some Sunday morning reading

I

According to The Mail on Sunday, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries will use her conference speech to 'throw down the gauntlet to the BBC'. A source has told them:

The plan is to put the BBC on notice that its days as the voice of the Islington Left are numbered. 

Nadine appreciates that it has a global reputation for the quality of many of its programmes, but the woke-infested news output needs addressing.

We'll see. Anyhow, there's a good quote from Nadine in The Sun: 

I could almost hear the almond latte cups hitting the floor at the BBC when I got this job. 

II 

Former BBC controller of daily news programmes Gavin Allen, ousted from the BBC board in February this year, has moved on. He's now working as 'executive editor in chief' for the highly controversial Chinese tech giant Huawei. From seeing him on Newswatch many times, always sticking up for the BBC, I suspect it won't be long before he's saying that Huawei is getting everything about right. The top comment at The Mail on Sunday reads, 'No honour, no integrity. These are the sort of people that run the BBC.' 

III

I suspect many will agree with The Times's Richard Morrison about the BBC's 'sordid' Jimmy Savile drama, starring Steve Coogan:

It was the BBC that fuelled his career and gave him a nationwide, peak-time platform. And despite all the allegations, it was still protecting and projecting his “saintly eccentric” image when he died, less than ten years ago. For such a tainted organisation to be thinking about using the name of Savile once again — after all that has been revealed — to boost its ratings and generate publicity for its TV drama output beggars belief. 

I’m surprised that Coogan, a thoughtful man, has accepted this role. I’m astounded that Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-general, has approved the project, especially with all the other battles he needs to fight to safeguard the BBC’s future. He should think again.

IV

This week answered the question on everyone's lips: Whatever happened to the 'face of the BBC' in the US, Katty Kay? Well, she left the BBC to work for Ozy - a left-wing digital media outfit that sees itself as "a catalyst for change and inspiration" and which launched the #ResetAmerica campaign to amplify racial and social injustice issues and "forge a path forward". After its chief operating officer was accused of pretending to be a YouTube executive on a conference call during talks about a £30m investment from Goldman Sachs, Katty Kay quit. So the question on everyone's lips is now: Whatever will happen to the 'face of the BBC' in the US, Katty Kay, now that she's left Ozy?

More feedback

Meanwhile...

Before going out wining and dining tonight, I transcribed the following. It's from today's Feedback and saw Roger Bolton putting various points from clearly ardent Remain-supporting Radio 4 listeners to Gavin Allen, the BBC's Head of News Output. (Very Radio 4). 

Roger Bolton: One of the key executives who has to solve this conundrum is the BBC's Head of News Output Gavin Allen, who joined me earlier to answer your questions. I began, however.with the general election coverage. Will it be different this time?
Gavin Allen: I think there are certain elements that inevitably will underpin what we do. So to be trusted, to be accurate, obviously to be duly impartial, etc, to explore policies I do think we are constantly looking at the audiences and trying to work out what is it that audiences need from us, what essentially is useful about our coverage. So I do think there will be an even more relentless focus on, when we are doing something, when we are asking a question in an interview, when we're pulling together a piece, what is of use about this to our audience and if we're doing it again that sort of Inside the Beltway way - to win an argument, to score a point - I do think that's the point we have to row back and think 'Hold on a sec. What are we doing that question for?'.

Listener 1: My name is Alan Walker. I am deeply concerned about the misleading use of vox pops in virtually all news bulletins. These vox pops are routinely presented as representative opinions but in statistical terms they represent nothing.

Roger Bolton: So do you accept Alan Walker's point that vox pops are in statistical terms...they represent nothing?

Gavin Allen: Yes, in a word, of course...

Roger Bolton: (laughing) But why do them? Why do them?
Gavin Allen: But of course they're not statistically representative, but there are indicative. And, look, I'm not going to sit here and defend every vox pop that the media does. I think almost the caricature of a vox pop of 'I'm for a general election, I'm against general election, I'm not sure what I think about the general election' is sort of useless. I totally accept that. But, equally, we don't mislead the public. I think a lot of people do get their views from hearing opinions from other people, not just from politicians or from people in authority. 

Listener 2: Lucy Deech. I feel very strongly that the BBC is perpetuating the myth of People versus Parliament and that you, the BBC, need to take responsibility for the way you are choosing to report the current national crisis. By always interviewing members of the public who voted Leave and who hold extreme views and use extreme language it is giving the impression that these people represent 'the public'.

Roger Bolton: What's your response to Lucy Deech?
Gavin Allen: We do have to take responsibility for what we do, of course, but I think we should be careful about using words like 'extreme'. Is it 'extreme' to be pro No deal? Is it extreme to want a second referendum or to just simply remain?

Roger Bolton: (interrupting) It might be extreme to express those views in terms like 'surrender', 'betrayal' and these sort of terms, which worry a wider audience. I mean, Lucy has a particular point but, more widely, there is a worry about this sort of language. Can you do anything about it?
Gavin Allen: Well, if it's being spoken by the Prime Minister, barring the idea of we just veto what he's saying it and somehow censor it, you have to put it into context. Everything is about explanation in context. And, so, even the framing of People versus Parliament, it's not the BBC that is framing it in that way. We are trying to convey that in the case of the Government they are clearly or were clearly trying to portray it as a People versus this dead Parliament in their views. So it's important that we're explaining that to the public. But there's a difference between explaining something - conveying it and giving it context and, indeed, giving it the sort of rebuttal side to that - and the BBC itself espousing that view. 

Roger Bolton: Some of our listeners are bothered that you're giving too much emphasis to the more extreme points. Often the middle is squeezed. Do you think there's a danger that has happened and continues to happen?

Gavin Allen: I think, more widely than that, I think there is a danger that the media generally does love issues that it can portray as black or white when, truth be told, almost all issues are pretty grey and there are nuances to everything. So whilst I think it is true that we can oversimplify, I don't think with the case of Brexit that hearing from people at, I think, the sort of polarities of the argument...I don't think think it's extreme again....but I don't think we've hollowed-out the middle. What's interesting is that if you talk to psephologists they will say that, actually, a lot of opinion is congregating at one end or the other. But that doesn't mean that we ignore though who aren't at those ends. You have to hear the full breadth of views.

Listener 3: My name is Peter Ward and I'm calling from West Wales. We often hear on BBC News reports of 'sources' or 'comments made off the record'. I am really impressed by your correspondents' inside knowledge, but the constant drip, drip of unattributed briefings, primarily from within the Government, which they report, is distorting the boundaries between news, speculation and carefully targeted misinformation. My question is: Will the BBC consider a policy of refusing to report unattributed gossip, speculation and manipulation?

Roger Bolton: So, Gavin Allen, will you?

Gavin Allen: Well, obviously, we're not going to report gossip, in that way, in those bold terms, but the sort of short answer, again, is probably 'No' to that commitment. I think sources, unattributed sources or anonymous sources, it is a really difficult area for journalism - much more wide than the BBC - and it is important we are as clear as we possibly can be with audiences of who is saying this - Is this a junior minister. Is this someone close to Boris Johnson? - which is terribly vague, and often means Boris Johnson himself or his senior advisor. Even terms like 'special advisor to' is probably alien to most people. But, equally, you also have to accept that people like Laura Kuenssberg are expert at what they do as the Political Editor of the BBC. She makes a judgement. She doesn't just get a comment from Person A and just parrot it blindly. She's bouncing that off against whatever other information that she's getting, where does that sit within the sort of political viewpoints that she's hearing, and makes a judgement as to how to convey that to the audience. But she's not just saying it's a fact. She is saying that Number 10 is briefing that dot, dot, dot. 

Roger Bolton: Do you believe that we should, the BBC in particular, should pay less attention to off the record briefings? Or, in a more radical sense, say "unless I can report who said this I'm not going to say it"?

Gavin Allen: I think the latter is....Look, in an ideal world, yes, of course, everyone would be on the record, everyone would give their name and we would simply report what they said or they'd say in their own words. The truth is you won't get briefings on that basis, and there are a lot of briefings that are incredibly useful for the audience to know. But the key is we are not blind to the fact that, yes, of course, people are trying to play us, people are trying to frame the debate in exactly the way they want it framed. But that is about the expertise of our journalists to see through that, to make that judgement.

Listener 4: James Fairnam. At this year's Edinburgh Festival Dorothy Byrne, head of Channel 4 News, said news organisation should "call out liars". In this general election, will the BBC stand up for the truth and "call out liars"?

Gavin Allen:  Going back to the Dorothy point, it was a brilliant speech, it was a funny speech, it made a lot of very important points but, no, I don't think it helps in... in fact, I really, firmly, don't think it helps...for the BBC to wade in to what is already a pretty toxic, at times, political discourse and public discourse and be calling people out as "liars" and imputing motives behind them. Absolutely, via Reality Check, we'll say really clearly when something is inaccurate, untrue, misleading, etc. but "liar" is such a weighted word. And it's not timidity. I just think you undermine your own impartiality, undermine actually what is useful political discourse - to hear other people's viewpoints without calling someone "a fascist" or "a liar". I so see how that serves the public or the public debate.

Roger Bolton: My thanks to Gavin Allen, Head of BBC News Output, who came in on his birthday to do that interview. Must have made his day!

BBC Editor Gets It About Right on 'Newswatch'

I've watched many an edition of Samira Ahmed's Newswatch over the years but I've never seen one before quite like this week's edition.

Famously, BBC editors brought in for questioning on Newswatch almost invariably stick to the standard line that the BBC has 'got it about right', whatever the topic at hand. But at least they usually go through the motions of appearing to take viewers' complaints seriously.

Not this week though. 

Gavin Allen, the BBC's Controller of Daily News Programmes, made no pretence at all about taking viewers' complaints seriously. 

There was Samira, taking it all very seriously indeed, and there was Gavin failing to contain his bemused frustration at what he obviously felt was totally confected outrage. 

So what was it all about, I hear you ask? 

Well, some people took exception to various BBC reporters and presenters making cameo appearances in The Bodyguard - the BBC's big drama of the moment. 

Andrew Marr, Sophie Raworth, Simon McCoy and around a dozen more of them have played themselves in the drama, doing 'BBC' things like interviewing and reporting. 

For the critics on Newswatch this was blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, tarnishing the BBC brand, and not helpful in this 'age of fake news'.

Gavin Allen just didn't believe anyone was really angry about this or that there was even a single person out there who actually believed what they were seeing on The Bodyguard was real - i.e. who couldn't tell that The Bodyguard was a fictional drama, and that the BBC journalists appearing in it weren't actually reporting the day's news or interviewing the actual home secretary, Keeley Hawes MP. He evidently felt it was silly, bogus outrage. 

And I have to say that I think he was right.

Fancy wasting an edition of Newswatch and an interview with the BBC's Controller of Daily News Programmes on that!


Update: Well, the Telegraph evidently has a different view to me on this:

"Distressed viewers"? Good grief!!

Transcript of BBC Radio 4, Feedback, 20 April 2018

Gavin Allen (not Max Headroom)

(Transcript....with many, many thanks to Andrew. I do like it when other people do transcriptions!)

ROGER BOLTON: Hello is the BBC the (montage of voices) Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, Brexit Broadcasting Corporation? We’re devoting most of this last programme of the present run to your criticisms of the BBC's Brexit coverage. And respond to them we have a veritable galaxy of the Corporation's frontline journalists and executives.

NICK ROBINSON: I'm Nick Robinson presenter of the Today programme and formerly political editor of the BBC.

GAVIN ALLEN: I’m Gavin Allen, controller of daily news programmes.

RIC BAILEY: I’m Ric Bailey, the BBC's chief political adviser.

ROGER BOLTON: But we begin with Brexit. Almost two years ago, just under 52% of those who voted in the referendum said they wanted to leave the European Union. 48.1% voted to remain. The Kingdom is still bitterly divided. Time was when the vast majority of complaints to Feedback of Corporation bias came from the Leave side; in recent months though, in part due to a concerted online campaign, we have been receiving many more from Remainers who routinely refer to the BBC as the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation, accusing it of tamely towing the government line. Here's a sample of some of those comments from both sides of the Brexit divide.

SUE KING: I’m Sue King, and I’m from Herefordshire. I'm dissatisfied with and disillusioned by the BBC's coverage of Brexit. In news and current affairs programmes I’m frequently aware of a pro-Brexit bias in subtle ways, particularly in the Today programme. Interviewers let misleading statements by Brexiteers  go unchallenged.

ANDY FRANKLIN: My name is Andy Franklin and I live in Suffolk. The problem as I see it now is that the BBC can deny biased against Brexit until it’s blue in the face, but just about everyone I’ve ever met who voted Leave has come to that conclusion in droves.  Even on the morning after the vote, the very first interview broadcast was some University Professor declaring that all the intelligentsia had voted Remain and all the thickos had voted Leave, a bias the BBC has been peddling ever since.

JONATHAN MILES:  I’m Jonathan Miles, and I’m from Woking.  Given just how important this issue, the BBC really has done little to educate the public on important aspects of how the EU works and hence what are the likely or possible consequences of leaving.

MARGARET O’CONNELL: Margaret O’Connell.  In a democracy you accept the result and move on, it is over.

JULIAN GREEN: Julian Green: ‘Why does the BBC always refer to ‘when’ the UK leaves the EU, when properly, it should be ‘if’ – the BBC are promoting a falsehood.

ROGER BOLTON: Listening to those critical comments are Ric Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser, Gavin Allen, controller of BBC daily news programmes, and the Corporation’s former political editor, now Today presenter, Nick Robinson.  Could I start with you, Ric Bailey, and that point Margaret O’Connell makes, she says ‘It’s over, move on,’ and yet you also heard Julian Green say, ‘You’re talking about when we leave, it should be ‘if’.’ Should it be ‘if’?

RIC BAILEY: I think you’ve got to look at the context of what you’re talking about.  There’s been a referendum, one side has won, both major parties have gone into a general election saying that they will put that referendum result into effect.  And, of course, it’s possible that all that may be reversed and the political reality may change, and so both ‘if’ and ‘when’, in different contexts might be entirely appropriate. It’s not for me to send out pieces of advice to individual journalists like Nick, telling them individual words they should and shouldn’t use.

ROGER BOLTON: Alright Nick, would you use ‘when’ or ‘if’.

NICK ROBINSON: I’d use both. And I would use both.  The truth is, a decision was taken in the referendum.  The government is committed to the decision, the Labour Party is committed to that decision, there’s an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons who say that they voted for it, they voted for Article 50. But it is occasionally worth reminding people this could be overturned, if the public changes their mind, if there was a different vote in Parliament, but let’s not treat it as if . . . no one thinks that we’re going to leave in March 2019, that’s the overwhelming likelihood, but people who want something else to happen want is to try and say that.

ROGER BOLTON: And Gavin Allen, when people use the expression, ‘The country has decided’, don’t you feel like saying, ‘Well has it?’ I mean, Scotland has decided they’d like to remain, Northern Ireland say it would like remain, Wales, yes, and England decided that they would like to leave, but to what extent can you say ‘the country has decided’?

GAVIN ALLEN: I think you have to, you know, it was a UK-wide referendum, and it was 52-48 and we have to reflect that.  So, I think that . . . that’s not to say that we won’t hear views in Scotland, he views in Northern Ireland, across the English regions and Wales that are very different to the outcome of that referendum, but it’s no good pretending that, well, hold on, Peterborough voted this way, so you should reflect that in . . . so it wasn’t the country after all.

ROGER BOLTON: Could I ask you Nick, do you think that there is a campaign against the BBC at the moment? Now, we’ve heard Lord Adonis talk about the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation, a number of people have used that phrase, we do seem to be receiving quite a number of emails that appear to be written for people, shall I put it in that way, is there a real active campaign going on to stop Britain getting out?

NICK ROBINSON: I don’t think there’s a campaign, there is a campaign, it’s clear there is. The very use of the hashtag #BrexitBroadcastingCorporation on social media is evidence of a campaign.  Now, people are entitled to campaign, we get campaigns all the time, only the . . . about a year ago, there was a campaign by Leavers to say that the BBC was biased, there was a complaint about my questioning. We get campaigns all the time, but let’s not be in any doubt that when people start using the same words and the same critique, they’re trying to put pressure on us. Now, it doesn’t mean that the things we heard in your introduction from listeners aren’t genuine, a lot of people feel really, really angry about this, they hope that the country will change its mind, and they’re entitled to do that, but we’re also entitled to . . . to say, as I have in number of recent articles, we know what’s going on here, there’s an attempt to try to shift us.

GAVIN ALLEN: But it’s important as well, it doesn’t mean that we dismiss – and I know Nick’s not saying this either – we don’t dismiss the campaign, so the fact that it is a campaign, the fact that we can recognise it as such, doesn’t mean there won’t be sometimes perfectly legitimate points they raise that make us stop and think, well, actually . . . we do need to tweak our coverage on that element, or do need to give a bit more to this, that we’ve underplayed.

ROGER BOLTON: Can I just finish this section, Nick, by asking you, if you’re optimistic, you see the opportunities that the Brexit gives us, if you’re pessimistic, you see all the problems that exist in trying to change our arrangements.  Of course, it’s easier for journalists to look at the pessimistic side. When you’re trying to deal with the opportunities, that’s more difficult to construct a discussion about, do you think that’s a problem that you have?

Nick Robinson (obviously)

NICK ROBINSON: Well, it’s undoubtedly a challenge, I think that’s absolutely right, and the key therefore is to hear from people who can, as it were, see it optimistically.  That’s why you will occasionally get a Dyson on, for example, James Dyson who’s in favour of leave, or the boss of Wetherspoon’s, we will have him on because he is able to say, ‘This is how I see it’, now the difficulty for listeners who are Remainers then they go, ‘Well why is he saying that, why isn’t he challenged?’ Well, we have them on in order precisely to say that there is another way of looking at this to the way that you do . . .

RIC BAILEY: But there was an entire programme . . .

NICK ROBINSON: The problem with predictions, Roger, there is in truth, you can’t prove a fact . . .

ROGER BOLTON: It’s not factual, it’s not factual.

NICK ROBINSON: . . . about someone’s vision of the future. You can’t do it.  It’s not that the BBC isn’t robust enough to do it, you can’t.

ROGER BOLTON: Ric?

RIC BAILEY: And incidentally, there was an entire half-hour programme which Iain Martin did on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago, precisely on that point about the opportunities Brexit, so they are there, and we are, you know, it’s an active part of our journalism.

ROGER BOLTON: Ric Bailey, Nick Robinson and Gavin Allen, thanks for the moment. A little later will be digging deep into the whole issue of balance and due impartiality.

(Moves on to discuss Enoch Powell programme).

ROGER BOLTON: And now back to . . .

MONTAGE OF VOICES: Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, Brexit.

ROGER BOLTON: Still with me in the studio is Ric Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser, Gavin Allen, controller of BBC daily news programs, and the Corporation’s former political editor, now Today presenter, Nick Robinson.  Now, we’ve already touched on issues of impartiality with respect to the BBC’s coverage of Brexit.  Although it might sound like a contradiction in terms, if Feedback listeners are anything to go by, balance and impartiality are in the eye of the beholder.

JOHN NEWSON: John Newson.  I do hear BBC Radio 4 broadcasting as the voice of Remain, giving others a daily diet of scary stories about how Brexit will harm Britain.  This doesn’t seem very factually based, because Brexit has not happened yet.

FERN HANSON: This is Fern Hanson from Woking. The audience would be much better informed of the facts around Brexit if the BBC moved away from a political balance towards facts balance. In pursuit of a fact balance it should be noted that there is a huge consensus amongst professional economists regarding the negative economic effect of Brexit.  I have never witnessed the BBC demonstrate this disparity in analysis.  Each side get equal prominence and time programmes.

ROGER BOLTON: Well, let me take up Fern Hanson’s point, with Ric Bailey. Should you move towards a facts balance, rather than a political balance?  Is that possible?

RIC BAILEY: Well, facts are just there to be reported, you don’t balance facts, you have facts and you say what they are.  One of the issues with Brexit is that a lot of this is looking forward, it’s about trying to work out what is going to happen, which, by definition is often speculative or it’s something where different people have different views, they are in the end judgements. So you’re not balancing facts as such.  Balance is something which, during the referendum there was a binary choice, between Remain and Leave, and we were very careful to make sure that we heard from both sides, not necessarily equally, but we did represent facts in the sense of saying, ‘Look, the balance of opinion amongst big business is this – but there are other voices’, since then, that binary choice has gone away, because we now have impartiality in the sense of trying to make sure that all those different perspectives . . . is Theresa May now a Remainer or is a Leaver, of course, she is the person who is actually putting into effect that choice. So that idea that there is now a simple choice between Remain and Leave is no longer there.

ROGER BOLTON: But haven’t you put it too simply yourself, because the people voted to Leave, they didn’t vote on the destination, and there is an argument, which one keeps hearing, ‘Why wasn’t the BBC exploring the destinations,’ because people voted, if you like, to jump, but not know what we were going to jump to?

RIC BAILEY: I think it would be hard to say that we haven’t been doing that.  We’ve been giving a huge amount of coverage to Brexit and to the negotiations and to all the different possibilities.  I think we are doing that, Roger, actually.

As it says on the tin...

GAVIN ALLEN: We’ve also talked, we’ve also talked about Canada+++ as an option, or Norway the model, or the Swiss model, I think we are looking at lots of different ranges of outcomes for this.  And also just . . . I think one of the dangers as well, of balance of facts, as if, if only everyone had the core facts they would make the ‘correct’, in inverted commas, decision and we would all agree on it, it does ignore the fact that in the referendum, in any election, there is visceral emotion as well, there are things that are not to do with facts, or that you don’t even hear the facts that you disagree with, it’s a blend of these things.

ROGER BOLTON: Nick, can I bring up an article you wrote for the New Statesman recently, stressing the importance of impartiality, in part in response to an earlier article by the LBC and, at one time, occasional Newsnight presenter, James O’Brien, where he was arguing that media impartiality is a problem, when ignorance is given the same weight as expertise.

NICK ROBINSON: The assertion made by your listener is that if only people knew the facts, we’d know, the assertion made by James O’Brien is that, you know, look, don’t put on someone who is ignorant.  Who decides this?  Who is this person who drops down from the skies and says, ‘This is true, and this is not’ . . .

ROGER BOLTON: Well . . .

NICK ROBINSON: Now, in certain cases it can be, Roger . . .

ROGER BOLTON: Well it can be known about climate change . . .

NICK ROBINSON: No.

ROGER BOLTON: . . . and for example we see a case reported last week, where Ofcom said that one of your fellow presenters didn’t actually do what he should have done which is to say Nigel Lawson was factually wrong about something he claims.  So, people also want to know are you prepared to do that and,  actually, are you prepared to do that about Brexit?

NICK ROBINSON: (speaking over) Goodness, yes. And, and . . . yeah.

ROGER BOLTON: (speaking over) And are you sufficiently well informed, do you think?

NICK ROBINSON: Not only, not only do we want to do that, but the BBC apologised for not doing that in that particular case. Here’s the point though, it won’t often apply to things that passionate Remainers and passionate Leavers see in their own minds as a fact, but in fact are a judgement or a prediction, or an instinct or an emotion.  The BBC’s job is to hear from people who have unfashionable views, and where possible we should always challenge them and if we don’t get it right, and of course we won’t always get it right, you know, I’m here, I got up at 3:30 in the morning, I’ve done about 10 subjects already, occasionally you will make mistakes, then we explain why we didn’t get it right.  But it’s not a conspiracy.

ROGER BOLTON: Well, I’ll just, if I may, wrap up this discussion by asking you to stand back a little bit and just reflect on what you’ve learned over the past 2 to 3 years.  And one of the things that’s struck me very much is the amount of anger out there, and people irritated, fearing that you, all of us around this table are out of touch and have ignored them.  Nick Robinson, does any of that, across to you?

NICK ROBINSON: Oh yeah, you can’t help but listen to the views that we’ve heard on this programme and think, there are people deeply, deeply frustrated and anger . . . angry about it. And I . . . what I take away from this, why I wanted to appear, I could keep my head down and just do my normal interviews is, we think about this, we agonise about it, we debate much more than people often think, and why do I know this is true? Not because I’m virtuous about it, anybody who comes to the BBC from papers, anybody who comes from commercial telly, where I’ve worked, goes, ‘Boy, you spend a lot of time worrying about this’.  I would urge listeners one thing though: we do it with the best of intentions.  Not that we get it right, we don’t always get it right, we sometimes get it wrong but if you complain with some sense that there is a conspiracy, people will tend to put their fingers in their ears, and go, ‘You know what, we know there isn’t.’ If you say, ‘We just don’t think you’re getting this quite right, you’re not reflecting us’, you will be listened to.

ROGER BOLTON: Gavin Allen, have you changed anything as a result of the last 2 or 3 years, in the way you approach the programs and what you’ve told your producers and your reporters?

GAVIN ALLEN: Well actually, funnily enough, one thing, sort of picks up on what Nick’s just said, which is behind-the-scenes, we have all these discussions, endless debates, and one of the things I do think the BBC is probably quite bad at showing our workings.  I think we can’t plead that we are really battling this every day, we’re having long debates, editorial policy discussions, really self-analysing everything we do, and then not come onto a program like this.  I think there’s also, the other thing I’ve learnt I guess, it’s not that we don’t do this, there is a bit of a default in journalism, not just the BBC, in journalism of ‘where’s it gone wrong, who can we get?’ rather than actually people are desperate for an explanation of just what is happening, just explain it to us.  And I do think that we could do more on that as well, as well as the politics of what’s going wrong, on both sides.

ROGER BOLTON: And Ric Bailey, final word from you? A BBC boss in the past once said, ‘When the country is divided, the BBC is on the rack’, are you actually enjoying being on the rack?

GAVIN ALLEN: (laughs) We’re enjoying Ric being on the rack.

RIC BAILEY: ‘Enjoy’ is probably not the word I’d pick out. Erm, but I think it’s true that when you have something as polarised as a referendum, that it does divide opinion in a way which is different from other sorts of elections, I think people understand what impartiality means when they’re talking about normal politics, and the Conservatives and Labour and government and opposition.  I think what happens in a referendum when you are literally given the choice between X and Y, is that people find it really difficult not just to understand that other people have a different view, but they are entitled to put it, the BBC should be there to do it, and the BBC should scrutinise that very clearly.  And I suppose the last point about that is, accepting completely what Gavin says about we should concede when we get it wrong, and Nick has said that as well, and we should be analysing this and making sure we’re getting it right. We also sometimes need to be really robust against that sort of political pressure, and by that I don’t just mean the parties or the government, but I mean campaigns who are trying to influence us because they know that on the whole, people trust BBC, that’s why they want us to change what we’re saying.

ROGER BOLTON: Well, I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got time for, my thanks to Rick Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser, Nick Robinson from the Today programme who’s been up since 3.30, and Gavin Allen, controller of BBC daily news programmes.

Oscars! Oscars! Oscars!

This week's Newswatch discussed viewer complaints that the BBC's news programmes had far spent too much time on the fiasco at The Oscars, even devoting the first seven minutes of both the lunchtime and evening news programmes on BBC One to what they considered a relatively trivial story, while pushing more important news like the opening day of the official inquiry into sexual abuse down the news agenda. 

This post, however, will just record for posterity the delightful rant of viewer Mary - a rant so brilliantly delivered that it even made BBC controller of daily news programmes Gavin Allen grin:

I felt exactly the same as those two viewers that have just given their views. There was so much time spent on this one silly item, and I think my views were...from the Breakfast programme, where Dan Walker and Louise were trying desperately to keep the momentum going, and they were so excited, "Oh, we're going to the red carpet!", and we went to the red carpet and there was this poor man standing in a kilt, desperately trying to speak to somebody, and he couldn't get anybody to speak to him. And I think he'd have grabbed a cleaner if he could. And it was just silly. 

Gavin Allen, naturally, thought the BBC had got it "perfectly right". 

Smugness in a suit (and colourful tie)

Gavin Allen, looking (and being) smug

Gavin Allen, BBC Controller of Daily News Programmes, was on this week's Newswatch defending the BBC for viewer's charges that it was massively biased against Trump in its US election coverage. 

Did Gavin admit any failings in the BBC's coverage? Not a bit of it. He dismissed all criticism out of hand and insisted that the BBC had got everything right.   

Here's a tweet from DB which sums it all up in less than 140 characters:

Getting it about right (again)

Finally in this series of post of this week's Newswatch, here are the answers given by the BBC's controller of daily news programmes, Gavin Allen. They are preceded by my summaries (in the form of questions) of what they were meant to be answers to. I'll let you be the judge of them:

What priorities did the BBC have in the immediate aftermath of the attacks?

It was interesting. It was such a remarkably confused picture initially and, obviously, the key priority is to tell people what we know and to tell people what's happened, to the best of our knowledge at that stage....and, obviously, it was unfolding as each minute, each hour went on...but also what we didn't know. I think the risk is you leap to lots of conclusions, you link different attacks. And so, what we tried to piece together as we went through, the priority was getting people who were there and, obviously, getting our own people to Paris, and also making sure that anyone we did get to Paris was entirely safe, knew the risks, and we had backup, and was all carefully planned.

What about concerns about showing disturbing imagery, uploaded from mobile phones onto social media, without warning?

In a way that's not unique to Paris. As you say, it's always the case, particularly now, with footage from so many people witnessing so many events. It's about verification. And it's also, as you say, about assessing it. When are we broadcasting this piece of footage? Is it appropriate? Is it required? Does it tell a story? Does it help the audience understand what's been happening? 

Shouldn't the BBC have given as much attention to attacks outside Europe, such as in Lebanon?

I think it is a difficult balance and, obviously, you can't conduct news based on death tolls in various countries and whichever has the highest death toll goes higher up the running order. So it has to be a judgement based on what's the impact of any given incident, and also over time. I mean, the incident in Paris clearly has knock-on impacts not just on the families involved and Paris but on migration policy, on intelligence failings, and a whole host of other (sort of) areas to explore. But it doesn't mean we wouldn't explore those Africa, Asia or other huge disasters or tragedies.

Did the focus on fear increase the panic and help Islamic State?

I think at the end of this, an incident in which 129, and it may end up being more, people are killed in the middle of a capital city...it's not the coverage of that that is going to lead to fear increasing, it is the attacks themselves. And while I absolutely understand, we've got to be incredibly responsible, incredibly restrained and careful in how we tell these stories, and tell the background to what happened, the impact of what happened and hear eye-witness accounts. It's not adding fear, it's just reflecting that there is fear. 

What about the tone? Was the BBC too intrusive? Was the BBC Breakfast montage with the sad music mawkish?

It wouldn't pretend it's for everyone. Personally I found it actually...I take the points about it becomes entertaining or drama. I think it was compelling. and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing that it is compelling. It's a chance to pause, reflect on what's happened, and above all reflect on individuals. The danger with an attack or a series of attacks like these is that you talk of big numbers, you talk of geopolitics, you talk of organisations, and you do actually lose sight of the individual people who have lost their lives or been injured in it. And I think by speaking to people who were there at the scene or families of those who have died I think you do get a much greater picture of a sense of the tragedy actually because it has impacted on real individual people.  

Newswatch

While watching this week's Newswatch I was struck by how many times the phrase "the Prophet Muhammad" was used during the programme's first couple of minutes. Samira Ahmed said it twice and so, in a clip from a BBC report, did BBC reporter Hugh Schofield: 

There is, of course, the famous cartoon on the front page of the Prophet Muhammad. On the inside there are no other cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. 

Others have noted this strange and pervasive submission to Muslim sensibilities before. They've sometimes contrasted it with the fact that you never hear a BBC current affairs presenter/reporter using the term "the Lord Jesus Christ" (or even "Jesus Christ") when referring to Jesus. 

When the BBC's Controller of Daily News Programmes, Gavin Allen, appeared, however, he resolutely used the term "Muhammad" (three times). Samira Ahmed then picked up on that and did so herself. 

Hopefully, Mr Allen will make it clear to BBC reporters that once they've established that the Mohammed being referred to is the Muslim prophet Muhammad they ought to refer to Muhammad as "Muhammad", lest they be seen to be advancing a form of Islamic piety. 

*****

Of the viewer emails about showing/not showing the front cover of Charlie Hebdo, Newswatch went straight for the 'we get complaints from both sides' angle. One viewer complained that the BBC was engaged in "abject gutless capitulation to the terrorists" by not showing the image while another complained that the BBC was showing "appalling judgement, given the tensions in our multicultural society" by showing the image. 

Where the balance of those emails lay (50/50? 72/28? 98/2?), who knows? 

The other two viewer emails complained that the BBC was giving too much coverage to the Paris massacres because (1) these "plonkers" (i.e. the jihadi murderers) want publicity and this kind of extensive coverage gives them what they want and (2) because the BBC should have given equal weight to the massacre of huge numbers of people at the hands of Islamists in Nigeria. 

The latter complaint ended with the suggestion that the BBC seems to value European lives over African lives - i.e. implying racism on the BBC's part.

*****

Samira Ahmed did her usual good job, putting decent questions to Gavin Allen. He, of course, maintained that the BBC has got its coverage about right.

His reply on the Nigeria question, therefore, was to deny all charges. His point was that there's a clear difference between the "availability" of news in Paris and in Nigeria. Northern Nigeria is remote and "incredibly dangerous". 

This is a familiar point. It's why the deadliest war since the end of World War Two - the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo was staggeringly under-reported. Usually just a BBC Africa correspondent would be dealing with it. Occasionally, a bigger BBC name would arrive to do a few reports. Rarely, a BBC star reporter would turn up and make a big thing of the story for a day or two. Over 5 million dead, and yet most BBC viewers know little about it.

It's also why conflicts where the news is always "available" and journalists do feel safe - like in Israel and Gaza - get massively disproportionate coverage. This summer's conflict was surely the ultimate example of how hordes of BBC reporters, including the 'big beasts' of BBC broadcasting, rush en masse to a safe conflict. (There were, by my reckoning, getting on for two dozen BBC people shipped in for that.)

It's an imbalance the BBC clearly needs to keep working on - keep safe, but find ways to report the big stories from unsafe conflicts, and get a proper sense of proportion into their coverage of world affairs. 

*****

The programme also touched  on the Till Willcox affair. 

And 'touched on' is the right way of putting it...

It was a short clip, one viewer email criticising Tim Willcox and the BBC's standard reply saying he's apologised, he did nothing wrong and he meant no offence.

*****

Finally, and for no apparent reason other than that they found it funny - oh, yes, and that it's a dig at UKIP...mention of the controversy over the party leader election debates brought a gratuitous clip of the Pub Landlord Al Murray's party election broadcast for FUKP. The Pub Landlord is standing against Nigel Farage, of course.

Maybe a stiff email to Newswatch is in order about that.