BBC Complaints & the cookie cutter

In response to my complaint...

Please could explain why a BBC World Service journalist Irena Taranyuk made a negative comment about Nigel Farage on today's Dateline London? 

She described UKIP's success in the European elections as "a worrying sign because of what Nigel Farage said about Putin, about immigrants, about Romanians rather unguardedly."

She also talked about "the mainstream European parties" losing ground and said, "But let's hope that the European voice will be strong in Ukraine and in Russia because, even though they will lose ground, they'll still be pretty strong as a force to stop Russia from further expansionism."

Why is a BBC journalist telling us that Nigel Farage's success is "worrying", and saying "Let's hope" with regards to the parliamentary strength of mainstream pro-European parties in the EU? 

Is she freelance? Is she allowed to be biased?

I don't pay my license fee to pay the wages of biased BBC journalists. 

...came this cooker-cutter reply from the BBC: 

Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding BBC News' coverage of the recent European Parliament and local elections.

We have received a wide range of feedback about our coverage of these elections. Bearing in mind the pressure on licence fee resources, the following response strives to address the majority of concerns raised but we apologise in advance if not all of the specific points you have mentioned have been answered in the manner you prefer.

The BBC has very clear guidelines to ensure that political parties receive a fair and appropriate level of coverage during an election campaign and our editors are required to follow them carefully. On that basis, and in line with other major broadcasters, the BBC gave UKIP a similar level of coverage to the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Conservatives in the European elections. With that coverage however came a high degree of scrutiny. The views and policies of UKIP and its members were examined and challenged in depth by several senior BBC interviewers including John Humphrys on 'Today', Jeremy Paxman on 'Newsnight' and Andrew Neil on the 'Sunday Politics.' On each occasion, we believe the interviews were conducted fairly and impartially.

Some viewers have expressed a concern that they did not see any UKIP representatives in the studio during our results specials. We did invite UKIP representatives to take part in the studio and down the line at various points in the programme. UKIP were unable to send a representative to the studio overnight on Thursday 22nd, but we did speak to many party representatives from our outside broadcasts. On Friday 23rd, UKIP sent a representative to the studio and they were included on our panel for much of the afternoon, including during the announcement of the projected national share.

We take our obligation to provide fair and impartial coverage very seriously and we are confident that our reporting of the local and European elections was balanced, proportionate and in line with our editorial guidelines. 

Kind Regards

BBC Complaints

I suspected some of who will get something similar if you complained about UKIP-related matters during the recent elections.

"A worrying sign"

If you want to hear the BBC projecting bien pensant thought at its clearest, then Gavin Esler's Dateline London remains one of the best places to go.

Thus it was that the first issue up for discussion - UKIP's electoral successes and, more widely, the European elections - began with the Economist's Edward Lucas (a self-declared "a pro-European") downplaying UKIP's success, describing their tactics as "deplorable", regretting "this mood of national introspection and resentfulness", and advancing several pro-EU points for good measure. 

Then came BBC World Service journalist Irena Taranyuk who was just as downbeat about UKIP:

As far as the European elections are concerned we can safely claim that UKIP will do probably better according to all forecasts.

It is a worrying sign because of what Nigel Farage said about Putin, about immigrants, about Romanians rather unguardedly.

She was was as opinionated about her hopes and fears about the result of the EU elections as a whole, noting that the European parliament is likely to be "more to the right" after Thursday/Sunday's vote and that "mainstream European parties will lose ground." 

But let's hope that the European voice will be strong in Ukraine and in Russia because, even though they will lose ground, they'll still be pretty strong as a force to stop Russia from further expansionism.

Don't you just love it when BBC journalists express their "hope" that mainstream, pro-European parties will still be strong after these elections? It's BBC impartiality at it's best /sarc. 

Thomas Kielinger of Die Welt talked of "the far-right fringes", though whether he was including UKIP in that epithet is open to question. 

Stephanie Baker of Bloomberg stressed the importance of the European parliament and complained that "no one really drove home the point with Farage during this election campaign that UKIP has the worst voter participation rate of any European party at the European parliament with more than 3 seats. Farage has, like, the 10th worst attendance record". 

Edward Lucas conceded that Nigel Farage is filling a need resulting from the disconnect between voters and the established parties but that it doesn't have the answers, "Indeed, his answers are horrible." 

At least Gavin Esler tried to put a few counter points. I'll give him that.

Then it was onto Ukraine, Putin and Prince Charles, and Irena Taranyuk sounded off about "thugs" and terrorists" - yes, the t-word from a BBC World Service journalist! - in Eastern Ukraine, and described Vladimir Putin as having "a very dangerous world vision".

At least the debate got livelier at this point and broke free from the programme's tendency towards consensus with Edward Lucas and Thomas Kielinger getting into a passionate (and interesting) argument on the subject. 

I am intrigued though about the opinionated nature of some of Irena Taranyuk's contributions here. 

Everywhere she's described as being a BBC journalist, not a freelance journalist. She even describes herself on Twitter as being a "BBC WS journalist".  

So why is she telling us that Nigel Farage's success is "worrying", or saying "Let's hope" with regards to the parliamentary strength of mainstream pro-European parties in the EU, or describing Putin's outlook as "very dangerous"? Is she allowed to be biased?