Not quite in the Premier League

Toby Castle (Admission: Adults £8.00, Child & Students £6.50, Family £20.00)

The main theme on this week's Newswatch though was the BBC's royal coverage (in the week of Princess Eugenie's wedding, Harry and Meghan's baby news and Pippa Middleton giving birth).

There have been complaints from both sides  - complaints that the BBC has been too sycophantic and complaints the the BBC was too rude about the Royals - thus allowing Samira to say: 

Clearly, this is one of those topics where it is impossible for the BBC to please all of the people all of the time. 

She then talked to the Deputy News Editor of BBC News, Toby Castle, and I had to smile at Toby's reply to her first question. 

Samira Ahmed: Let's start with the last issue. It's a charge often laid against the BBC that when it comes to the Royal Family you seem to throw editorial values out of the window and proportion.
Toby Castle: I would reject that. But I expect that you would expect me to say that. 

Well, you're not wrong there, Toby!

Monkey Brains on the Open Thread compared Jonny Dymond's commenting on the Royal Wedding to the annoying experience of "hearing a bored woman on the BBC pretending to be interested in sport because that's what pays the bills". Jonny's official title (BBC Royal Correspondent) comes despite "this guy clearly having no interest in the idea of monarchy, in the royal family or in the clothes they wear for special occasions. That's not my interpretation - he made it abundantly clear himself with various sarky comments."

Well, Newswatch featured a clip of Prince Charles's least favourite BBC royal reporter Nicholas Witchell commenting on Princess Eugenie's wedding. And there were sarky comments galore from him too:

Hold onto your hats, it's another royal wedding. Though this one, not quite in the Premier League, despite the sharp ambitions of the bride's father and mother. The Duchess of Cornwall evidently had a pressing engagement and couldn't make it. And then stand by for the arrival of the mother of the bride, Sarah Ferguson, also known as the Duchess of York. She's not been an entirely welcome figure within royal circles for a good many years. She's had an unfortunate habit of embarrassing them. And then as man and wife together, a carriage ride, it's been seen as an attempt to emulate the ride is taken by Harry and Meghan after their wedding and concerns have been expressed about the cost of providing security. 

I don't think that could be called 'sycophantic', do you?

Nicholas Witchell on the Queen's corgis

Spider letters, ITV and the BBC

My goodness, there was one heck of a difference between the ways BBC One's News at Six and ITV's News at 6.30 reported Prince Charles's 'spider letters'! 

The angle on ITV's main evening news bulletin was that the Prince had warned Tony Blair's government about shortages in equipment for British troops in Iraq. ITN's Tim Ewart's report gave us a glimpse of one of Charles's letters to Tony Blair and then two extracts from Tony Blair's long and clearly carefully considered response, showing how seriously the Prince's intervention. This was followed by the welcoming of Prince Charles's views from Roger Bacon, father of Mjr Matthew Bacon, a British officer killed in Iraq. Tim Ewart's report then ended with former ministerial advisor Paul Richards, saying that the Prince's letter had an impact and were taken seriously. Only in a brief follow-up discussion with the ITV newsreader did Tim Ewart say the Prince Charles's critics accuse him of meddling and overstepping the bounds.

BBC One's coverage was almost the mirror image of ITV's. The opening headlines included anti-royalist Labour MP describing some of Charles's interventions as "eccentric" and "barmy" and Nicholas Witchell's report gave us the forced publication angle, raising the question of "meddling" early one. His take on the Prince's Iraq intervention showed Charles's letter but not Tony Blair's reply. Other letters to Mr Blair and Labour ministers were shown, against with no responses? Nicholas asked, "Is that appropriate language to use to a minister?" That anti-royalist Labour MP, Paul Flynn was then heard at greater length criticising the Prince and then, 'for balance', former Labour minister Denis MacShane (yes, that Denis MacShane!), talking about "Charlie" and saying that the Prince's concerns arise from reading the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, and that it doesn't matter very much because the Prince's letters didn't "have much impact". Only in the studio discussion afterwards, did Nicholas Witchell put a more positive case for Prince Charles, saying that it shows that he cares, that he can't just walk by a problem and that he's met many people over the years - more than most politicians, but he ended by repeating that most politicians say they don't necessarily "take any notice of them."

The two reports could not have been more different.  ITV's report featured a strongly supportive 'talking head' while the BBC's featured (and led with) a strong critic and someone who damned the Prince with very faint praise (both figures from the Labour Party, present and past). Plus, ITV's report made the case that Prince Charles's interventions were taken seriously and responded to at length. The BBC made the case that his interventions, while constitutionally dubious, weren't taken seriously at all.

To say that ITV has a pro-monarchist bias and the BBC an anti-monarchist bias on the strength of just these two contrasting reports would, of course, be to jump the gun and land in a minefield.

Still, these two reports were what they were and they appeared on the channels they appeared on.