Of BBC bias, opinion polls and oyster catchers

The BBC very obviously feels deeply embarrassed at having fallen (eagerly) for the pre-election opinion polls, nearly all of which showed Labour and the Conservatives to be neck-and-neck for at least the past six weeks. [Only one (suppressed by either the pollster or the Daily Mirror, presumably assuming it to be a rogue poll) predicted the actual result - a Conservative majority.]

Andrew Marr sounded particularly aggrieved about the polls during BBC One's election night coverage, and returned to the theme during his paper review this morning, fervently urging his journalistic "comrades" (as he called them) to pay much less attention to the polls in 2020. (A striking televisual moment).

There's been a lot of discussion about the failure of the polls to predict the extent of the Conservatives' victory over Labour, but I think Janet Daley at the Sunday Telegraph hits the nail most squarely on the head.

She argues that ordinary voters have been "browbeaten" by the Left into being reluctant to share their real views - and being a blogger about BBC bias I'd, naturally, pin a fair amount of that brow-beating onto the BBC.

Time to confess to something I've only previously confessed to Sue (as I'm somewhat ashamed of about it myself, but as I'm among friends...): 

I've been canvassed twice in the past year - not by polling companies, but directly by the Labour Party. The Conservative-held constituency of Morecambe and Lunesdale was one of Labour's top targets in 2015, so they were really after my vote. On both occasions I said I'd be voting Labour - even though I've never had the slightest intention of voting Labour. I felt embarrassed to say otherwise. (Plus they were so nice that I didn't want to spoil their day by saying I'm a right-winger who would sooner chuck himself into a pit of pissed-off, Owen Jones-admiring cobras than vote for Ed Miliband). Only afterwards did I cheer myself up (as I hate lying, and came out in a profuse sweat whilst doing so) by dreaming that I might possibly be throwing an amusing spanner into Labour's calculations - and, thus, their chances of winning - by my absurdly, toe-curdlingly dishonest answers. 

I was a very shy Tory there, wasn't I?

Now, the Lord Ashcroft polls showed a growing lead for Labour's Amina (peace be upon her) in Morecambe throughout the election, so it wasn't just the Labour Party's polling. Her lead (peace be upon it) grew from around 4% to 6% in the final week of the campaign. (I wasn't keen on her as I'd read her Twitter feed, bashing Israel and being less than robust on free speech after 'Charlie Hebdo'). The Tory MP for Morecambe, David Morris (a hairdresser who used to play in Rick Astley's backing group), therefore, looked like permatanned toast. Morecambe's talismanic Eric Morecambe statue appeared to be about to wave goodbye to Mr Morris, singing 'Never Gonna Give You Up' ever-so-sarcastically, and instead to take up the classic Morecambe and Wise tune 'Bring me BDS against the Zionist Entity'.

And yet, come election day, David Morris triumphed in Morecambe - and did so by over 4%. He actually boosted his majority. I got my automatic rifle out, ran out into the potholed streets and cried 'Allahu Akbar', firing happily into the air (accidentally killing dozens of Morecambe Bay's beautiful oyster catchers in the process). The Eric Morecambe statue sang 'Bring Me Sunshine (and a Permatan)' to Mr Morris's delight, and I joined in, ululating loudly. 

And that makes me think that one heck of a lot of Morecambe folk (other than me) were, as Dead Ringers put it, completely lying their arses off to the pollsters.

Shy Tories...and shy Kippers...must be legion (or at least plentiful enough to flummox the pollsters and the commentariat).

BBC Question Time audiences are said, by right-wing panelists like James Delingpole, Janet Daley, Nigel Farage and Toby Young, to contain plenty of right-wingers, but we rarely seem to hear from them. Does the Left brow-beat them into silence? Probably. 

And the same phenomenon may also account, in a different context, for the total failure of the polls prior to the Scottish referendum, to get anywhere near predicting the near 11% margin of defeat for pro-independence supporters.

Some pro-union supporters obviously felt brow-beaten by their...er, how shall we put this?...er...extremely passionate pro-independence opponents into keeping their true feelings hidden too. (The fact that around 50% of Scots didn't vote for the SNP in the general election is something else that should be borne in mind here. We're probably hearing much less from them too #shyScottishunionists).

Now, where does the BBC (by a very, very long chalk, the UK's most dominant media outlet) come into all of this?

Well, if you've been reading this blog (and blogs like News-watch and Biased BBC), you'll already know the answer to that question.

No media outlet in the UK - Murdoch-owned or otherwise - comes within a country parsec of the BBC's reach on the British public, news-wise. And it has a pronounced left-liberal bias on a whole range of subject (though not necessarily on everything).

This is a TV and radio broadcaster, after all, that, it emerged in the course of the largely-pro-BBC, BBC-funded Prebble report, really did censor phone-in callers who expressed strong reservations about immigration (on Radio 4's Any Answers), because they felt such opinions might cause offense. (I'm still surprised that this admission hasn't been raised merry hell about by anti-BBC bias campaigners - as Sir John Major might have put it. It seems quite extraordinarily damning to me).

Such a broadcaster has hardly encouraged 'shy Tories' and 'shy Kippers' and 'shy anything that doesn't meet with the BBC/Left's approval people' to speak their minds without fear of being shamed by the BBC/Left. If it had, we'd have seen Question Times like the one from Leeds in the last week of the election far more often, wouldn't we?

Lies, damned lies, and Cardiff University academics

Mark Twain is the likeliest candidate for having coined the killer quote, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics".

I've always felt that to be deeply unfair to statistics. 

Statistics are invaluable. It's how they are used - and misused - that's the problem. 

Think of it this way, if you like. People (though not Mark Twain) sometimes say, "There's no such thing as a bad dog, just a bad owner." Well, I'd say there's no such thing as a bad statistic, just bad users of statistics.

As someone who (in the past) based an entire BBC bias-related blog around statistics, I'm bound to say that of course. But the importance of using statistics to help answer the question "Is the BBC biased?" is something that many people (besides me) cling to with hope in our ever-optimistic hearts of finally nailing the BBC down over its strangely slippery bias.

That's why high-profile statistical reports about BBC bias always create such a stir (in certain circles).

Not that they usually seem to do much good. 

However watertight they may be, people who dislike their findings are free to dismiss them (and they'll find plenty of like-minded people cheering them on as they do so.) 

Similarly, it's a simple fact of life that reports that come to conclusions about BBC bias which confirm our personal opinions tend to be the ones we find most persuasive, and about which we are least critical. 

Thus, my world-famous interruption stats proved popular with UKIP and certain Conservative MPs, plus right-leaning readers of blogs about BBC bias. Left-wingers ignored them. The BBC dismissed them. 

Can you guess what I found?

Similarly, a Centre for Policy Studies report investigating the BBC News website's coverage of right-wing and left-wing think tanks, tied to citations of the right-wing Telegraph and left-wing Guardian, found an enthusiastic response at the Telegraph and at right-wing blogs but got trashed at the Guardian and left-wing blogs, and the BBC actively rubbished it. 

Can you guess what it found?

Plus (and from a different perspective), when Labour activist Phil Burton-Cartledge published findings about BBC bias on Question Time on his A Very Public Sociologist blog - along with his own interpretations of those results - the left-wing Twittersphere and the New Statesman were delighted. Right-leaning blogs like Biased BBC weren't impressed and couldn't believe what they were reading. 

Can you guess what Phil found?

Next. When John Robertson, an academic from the University of West Scotland, provided detailed statistical evidence of pro-union/anti-independence bias in the BBC's coverage of the independence debate, pro-independence/pro-SNP people danced a caleigh while anti-independence/pro-union types cocked a deaf 'un. The BBC went on the warpath. 

The mostly influential BBC bias-related statistical report of recent times though came from the University of Cardiff. It provided the statistic backbone for the BBC's own 'independent' study into the BBC's coverage of immigration, bias and religion - the Prebble Review - before developing a life of its own (thanks to the efforts of the left-wing academics behind it), finding great favour with left-wingers like Owen Jones, It appalled the Right. 

Can you guess what it found? 

We've dealt with all of these before at Is the BBC biased? and, I hope you'll agree, dealt with them fairly - except, of course, as regards my interruption stats, which are an unassailable paragon of objectivity and statistical rectitude and, thus, completely beyond criticism!

As a result, the CPS findings were found (by me) to be flawed, even though they accord with my own findings and right-wing intuitions, and Phil's finding on Question Time were given one-and-a-half cheers (not three cheers and not no cheers), despite running counter to my own suspicions and despite Phil's left-wing gloss on them. The Scottish independence report was only touched on briefly, and I can't really give a proper opinion on it without wasting hours and days investigating it (which ain't gonna happen), though it looked pretty convincing to me, even though I think a 'yes' vote in Scotland would be a very bad thing. 

That's me plugging my attempts to be fair-minded there. (You'll have spotted that, of course, being shrewd types.) It's me saying I 'dis' the Right' and 'give respect' to the Left if I see the evidence inclining their way. 

I can't help it. That's the way I am. So gimme a medal for it.

But even I was far from respectful towards the the most influential report of all, and joined in the robust rubbishing of it by many on the Right. 

This was the Cardiff University report, which I regarded as a crock of shite right from the start.

It has a curious history. It was part-commissioned by the BBC itself, as part of the 'independent' Prebble review into BBC bias. The Prebble Review used it, by and large, to advance the view that the BBC was, by and large, impartial - much as you'd expect from an official BBC 'independent' report. Then the Cardiff University academics behind it began giving it a new life, using it to advance the startling view that the BBC is pro-Right in its bias.  

The Left loved it (some, no doubt, with tongue firmly in cheek.) We right-wing bloggers were aghast. Alan at Biased BBC bashed it. I bashed it here at Is the BBC biased? 

And we were right to do so.

One of our lines of attack on it smacked somewhat of the ad hom fallacy, but - as fallacies go - this one had legs, and it was worth using them to run with. Let's sprint through it again.

We noted the BBC Trust's direct funding for the report. 

We noted that Cardiff Uni prof Richard Sambrook (former director of BBC News, the BBC World Service and BBC Global News) wrote part of it. 

We also noted that the lead author charged with publicising it, Mike Berry, is associated with the far-Left Glasgow Media Group (a group that tends to see blues under the bed). 

Plus, we noted that the other listed authors contained far-left Red Pepper writer (and European Commission-commissioned academic) Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Kerry Moore (who has written about the British media's ill-treatment of Muslims), Lina Dencik (who describes herself as an 'activist') and Arne Hintz (who describes himself as an 'activist')

...in other words, as fine a collection of disinterested academics as you could possibly hope to find - as I'm sure you'll agree! 

The report got another media boost (in the left-leaning press) when Cardiff Uni media department boss-man Justin Lewis accused the Beeb of downplaying the report it funded/commissioned and of suppressing its findings that the BBC is pro-Right. We noted that Prof Lewis is a dyed-in-the-wool leftie, whose take on the BBC comes from the far-Left. 

We were suspicious, to say the least, of a BBC-backed report which the BBC used ('independently') to back its contention that it is an unbiased broadcaster of news. 

We were even more suspicious - given how convenient it is for the BBC to be able to advance one of its favourite arguments, "We get complaints from both sides; therefore, we must be getting it about right" - that the BBC-backed academics behind it (including a former VERY senior former BBC news supremo) then trotted out the remarkable claim that the BBC is actually right-biased.

Moving away from this line of argument, I complained that the Cardiff report used "a very small sample, the exhaustive concentration on which could lead to some very skewed results", contrasting that (modestly) with "my own intensive period of research", noting that "a massive sample such as this is surely preferable to a small sample, such as that used by the Cardiff team. Small samples are more prone to lead to statistical errors."

Well, blow me down with a feather, but there's a new report out today from the right-leaning think tank Civitas that rubbishes the Cardiff report along much the same lines as Is the BBC biased? and Biased BBC. 

It's an-easy-to-read 21-page report (and that even includes the footnotes). It may even turn out to be shorter than this post. 

I both recommend it and give my thanks to its authors, David Keighley and Andrew Jubb, for agreeing with me over everything I've ever said on the subject. I only wish they'd dedicated their report to me. [For any passing non-British people, this is an example of self-deprecating British humour. I don't actually mean it]. [[Or do I?]]. 

David and Andrew find that the BBC's Prebble report is "seriously flawed". They discuss Stuart Prebble's links to the BBC, the links between the BBC and Cardiff Uni's media department [another senior member is Richard Tait, former BBC trustee and Newsnight editor], and the university project director and the EU, saying the independence of the project is "severely compromised." They note (something we didn't) that the report was commissioned by BBC trustee David Liddiment, an intimate of the self-professed "liberal progressive" Mr Prebble. 

Excellent, compelling ad homs, as I'm sure you'll agree, but as a stats lover it's the critique of Cardiff Uni's methodology that really interests me...

...especially as it backs up my own criticism here at Is the BBC biased?.....[sorry for the break but I've had to move my big head off the keyboard here to type again].....that the Cardiff team based their study on what I at the time called "a very small sample, the exhaustive concentration on which could lead to some very skewed results" (contrasting it, oh-so-modestly again, with my own nine-month, exhaustive study of every interview with a party politician (some 2,200 of them) on all of the main BBC current affairs programmes over this period), adding that "A massive sample such as this is surely preferable to a small sample, such as that used by the Cardiff team. Small samples are more prone to lead to statistical errors."

David and Andrew's criticism of the Cardiff report focuses on several areas of concern that those familiar with statistics will be well aware of. 

The Cardiff team studied the Today programme, understandably. But they only studied part of it - one and a half hours (the same one and half hours) each day (i.e. only half of its air time), and missed an entire eight of their one-months-worth of programmes in 2012 - something I would never have countenanced when I did my nine-month survey of BBC interruptions. (A single missed edition, I felt at the time, would have scuppered it). Cardiff covered too short a period and missed too much.

This also provides an example of what are known as 'constant errors'. Omitting the first hour-and-a-half of the programme and the Saturday editions they omitted such things as the (pro-EU-inclined) business spot at 6.15-6.30 and, even more important, the mass of BBC interviewer-BBC reporter interviews that dominate the early stages of every Today programme. Why didn't they monitor Today over the entirety the programme, or over different periods of the programme each day? Why be so rigid?

Then there's 'convenience sampling', where the Cardiff researchers reached back, grabbed and re-cycled a random study from 2007 (something 'at hand') to compare to 2012, based on the BBC Trust's 2007 Bridcut Report into impartiality. This was presented as a 'before and after' but, as they had no report at hand from before Bridcut, they had to use one from just after Bridcut, making both post-Bridcut. 

David and Andrew's research is far more extensive and comprehensive. They recorded everything over the period Cardiff covered (luckily for us). They spotted 21 guests in that month in 2012 who spoke in favour of the EU/EU legislation. Fully 12 of them would have been missed by the Cardiff team because they appeared before 7.30 am or on Saturday. 

Worse, due to the Cardiff team's extremely restricted choice of criteria as to what constituted a relevant EU discussion, a further 9 speakers fell out of the Cardiff survey's field of sight. Only one of those 21 pro-EU guests, therefore, registered on the Cardiff survey. Wiping 20 pro-EU speakers out of a survey of pro-EU BBC bias certainly strikes me as a good reason to dismiss the Cardiff team's findings. As the Civitas researchers say, 

this methodology [by Cardiff] would have identified only 4% of the total number of pro-EU speakers who appeared on Today between 15 Oct and 15 Nov 2012.

They then note what will sound remarkable to many of us - the way the Cardiff researchers blatantly conflated ALL UKIP and Conservative right-wingers as holding identical views on EU withdrawal - despite the fact (as we righties - unlike those Cardiff lefties - know very well) that there's a huge range of opinion on the Right about Europe, from UKIP 'withdrawalists' to Conservative 'stay-in-the-EU-and-renegotiate' types and Conservative Europhiles). 

Even though the Cardiff team spotted a fall in UKIP voices on the BBC between 2007 and 2012, they (and Stuart Prebble) dismissed that because UKIP-type views were expressed elsewhere by Conservatives (many of whom didn't share UKIP's views on withdrawal). 

David and Andrew say

...in 221 full weeks of analysis of the Today programme, between 2005 and 2013, Newswatch’s research shows that Conservative withdrawalists appeared on only 14 occasions (equating to less than four times a year) and UKIP appearances outnumbered those by the Conservative withdrawalists by a ratio of almost six to one. Conservative ‘come out’ supporters made only 0.4% of the total EU-related speaker appearances, compared to 2.2% from UKIP. 

...which throws another spanner into the cogs of the Cardiff media machine.

The lesson of all this is that, in the absence of official BBC statistics on bias/impartiality (something they never publish), we shouldn't give up attempts to be statistical but we should, nonetheless, be rigorously sceptical about any such statistics-based surveys that come our way...

...and, I suppose, any attempted rebuttal.

“Who is in the dock?”

This is a post of two halves - one recycling an article from elsewhere, one reviewing a particular edition of the Today programme. The one, however, follows on from the other, and I think they can both shed some light on the preceding posts about the BBC's news priorities. 

The Telegraph's Charles Moore has written one of the best articles about BBC bias that I've read for a long time: 

Why does the impartial BBC not tell the story of the great majority?

Our self-righteous national broadcaster is woefully detached from voters’ real lives

The 'Liberal Progressive' hegemony

For starters, he spots something rather revealing in the Prebble Review and draws the obvious conclusion from it:

Stuart Prebble, ex-BBC, has this month produced a report for the BBC Trust on “Breadth of Opinion Reflected in the BBC’s Output”. Explaining his approach, he says that most attacks on the impartiality of the BBC are “based on the notion that it is largely run by a group with similar backgrounds and attitudes, loosely describable as 'liberal progressives’ – and, of course, I am one”.

Why “of course”? Is it unimaginable that the BBC would commission anyone other than one of their own sort to write a report on their own impartiality? Well, yes, perhaps it is.

Charles Moore then goes on to doubt the logic of Mr Prebble's assertion that, “… in common with the overwhelming number of journalists within the BBC…, I leave my personal politics at home when I go to work”, believing that to be absurd and comparing the statement to a doctor saying that he leaves his personal medical views at the surgery door. 

Then he wonders why, even if Mr Prebble were correct, the BBC keeps choosing so many of his fellow 'liberal progressives' to work for them. 

His suggestion is that 'liberal progressives' believe themselves to be fair and open-minded - unlike the rest of us. With what Mr Moore calls "beautiful, circular logic", that means that 'liberal progressives' necessarily are the only ones who can provide that breath of opinion which the BBC (and Mr Prebble) claims they provides. Those of us who aren't 'liberal progressives', therefore, aren't BBC material, as we we are neither fair nor open-minded enough to put BBC impartiality into practice; rather, we would push our own agendas. 

The problem, Charles Moore, argues is "that the BBC is self-righteous - in the exact sense that it identifies its corporate identity with righteousness". 'Breadth of opinion' is something the BBC can and does provide. So, where's the bias?

Two Questions

Mr Moore identifies a couple of key aspects.

Firstly, “Who is in the dock?”:

In almost all major stories, you can tell very quickly who this is. 

He cites an interview from this Friday's Today where James Naughtie treated the representative of a charity in a much gentler way than the Tory backbencher taking part in the same interview. Why this disparity?

Charities and pressure groups, in the BBC’s approach to life, are to be trusted, because they do not make profits. People who do, are not.

Secondly, “What makes a story?”

In the BBC’s view, some form of institutional validation is almost always required. 

Stories "must arise" from government reports, court judgements, union statements, etc. This misses out "the relation of politics to what voters need or feel". 

This is because the BBC is itself a vast institution, so it is happiest speaking to other institutions, like mastodon bellowing to mastodon across the primeval swamp. Its absolute favourite is the device by which the big cheese from the big body in question – the Government, the CBI, Unite – comes on, says his bit and then departs, leaving omniscient persons like Nick Robinson, Robert Peston or Stephanie Flanders to explain to us idiots what he was really talking about.

So what are they missing as a result?

Seldom do they see the story in a tax rise, in energy bills or planning delays, in their own stupefying executive pay-offs. Seldom do they expose the rise in the national debt or investigate why it is that, despite “cuts” every day, government spending still grows bigger all the time. The one entity, in short, in which the BBC feels permanently uninterested is the individual citizen.

Charles Moore's ultimate explanation and solution follow swiftly:

It is not surprising that the BBC takes him for granted, because it can. It takes his money by law, and without his consent, in the form of the licence fee. Until this ends, the BBC will, with the finest impartiality, refuse to tell his story.

Radio 4's 'Today'

To test this out, maybe a look at the very edition of Today which Mr Moore cites might be the best course of action. This was the Friday, July 12 edition presented by Justin Webb and James Naughtie. (The live page is here).

The Cigarette Packaging debate

What of the “Who is in the dock?” question. Well, listen to the interview Charles Moore describes - between Conservative backbench MP Mark Field and Harpel Kumar of the charity Cancer Research UK - yes, a 'breath of opinion' was provided  (one in favour of the government's position on libertarian grounds, one against the government's position on health grounds) but, yes, Charles was correct in his characterisation of the interview - with Mr Kumar's "pretty extreme assertions" going "unchallenged" by James Naughtie, while one of Mr Field's assertions brought a swift corrective intervention from the BBC presenter. "You could almost hear Naughtie’s lips pursing", as Charles Moore put it.

Now you might say that MPs should be interrupted more than campaigners, as they have power - even if they're backbenchers - and that James Naughtie's harsher treatment of Mr Field can be defended in that light. 

The Abortion debate

However, a later interview saw another MP - this time an Irish one (socialist TD Joan Collins) - set against another campaigner (Cora Sherlock, of the Pro-Life Campaign in Ireland) and this time it was a different story with the (pro-abortion) politician getting a much easier ride from the BBC interviewer, Justin Webb, than the anti-abortion campaigner.  “Who is in the dock?” Here, clearly Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign, who was interrupted and challenged by Justin much more strongly than her opposite number. Despite the 'breadth of opinion' on offer, the whiff of 'liberal progressive' bias hung about this interview.

The Drug Pricing story

On the “What makes a story?” question, this particular edition saw stories based on reports from a government commission and the Academy of Medical Sciences, an upcoming government announcement, a law being passed in Ireland, comments by the Chancellor, and some new proposals from ministers - much as Mr Moore described.

Now, is that unique to the BBC? After all, ITV, Sky and the broadsheet newspaper also report plenty of stories like that. 

The question, therefore, is the extent to which Today's agenda is set by institutions. Is it set much more than, say, that of Sky News or that of The Daily Telegraph? To know would entail monitoring, say, the same morning's Sky News Channel or that morning's Telegraph Online homepage. I didn't do it that day, so I don't know. Still, I'd lay good money on neither of them being quite so institution-driven as Today's running order that morning.

Other things about that particular edition of Today that strike me as being revealing include the choice of the story buried away at 6.10am - when few people are listening, and which never appears on the 'live page'. This concerned the call from the Academy of Medical Sciences for a change to the rigid and heavily-regulated drug pricing policy to encourage more effective stratified/personalised drug development. Reading up on this (using the link above at 'the call'), it made good sense to me. However, it would encourage private companies to make profits, so - if Charles Moore is correct - it shouldn't be well-regarded by the 'liberal progressive' BBC. Take a listen to the interview between James Naughtie and the BBC's Tom Fielden here (available for a few more days) and hear Jim introduce the proposal as "a bit woolly" (talk about preparing listeners to be disappointed in advance) and maintain a sniffy tone throughout. You might think he wasn't much taken with the idea (or with Tom Fielden from the way he spoke to him!) Treating such a fascinating story in this way, and never referring to it again throughout the remaining two and three-quarter hours of the programme is quite strange - unless you assume bias, of course.

The Banning Packed Lunches debate

Another early BBC-BBC interview provided even stronger suggestions of bias. This was the remarkable 6.30am interview between James Naughtie and Gillian Hargreaves (beginning 33 minutes in here), where both BBC people gave me the impression they were sympathetic towards the campaign for packed lunches to be banned in schools in favour of school dinners. When mention was made of Jamie Oliver criticising academy schools for not being a part of the scheme, Gillian made sure the Coalition got the blame by saying "set up by the present government" - even though academy schools were first set up by Labour during Tony Blair's first term in office. James Naughtie kept up the same line: "How is it that Michael Gove can have an enquiry into school dinners and say this is important when more than half the schools in England don't have any reason to comply?" When she said that her "overnight" enquires with the Department of Education hadn't got her very far over that question, James Naughtie interrupted to say, somewhat sarcastically, "You'd have thought it would have been an easy question to answer for the Education Secretary!" Gillian laughed. We're back with Charles Moore's question again: “Who is in the dock?” Michael Gove, the present government, academy schools and free schools, by the sounds of it. 

On the same issue, Jim sounded no less supportive-sounding of the scheme itself to ban packed lunches during the 7.10am interview with its main cheerleader, chef Henry Dimbleby (son of David Dimbleby). Here's a sample question to back up this claim: "And the argument, presumably, from the teachers is that if they have a decent lunch, a reasonably healthy lunch, you know, the better-behaved, the brighter , they will probably have a better time at school?" (Henry agreed with that). Now, there are many liberty-lovers out there who have been vigorously complaining about this latest would-be infringement on personal/family autonomy by the nanny state (on blogs across the internet - from the comments field at the Mail and Telegraph on the right through to Spiked on the left). This libertarian-inclined, state-sceptical attitude is far from the 'progressive liberal' outlook; thus, is it really any surprise that it didn't even occur to James Naughtie to ask either Gillian Hargreaves or Henry Dimbleby a single question that came from that anti-nanny state perspective? Is it too far from his own way of thinking? 

Conclusions

Well, those are my impressions anyhow - and they tally with Charles Moore's. From now on, those who claim that the BBC is biased in many ways may find those two questions of his - "Who is in the dock?" and "What makes a story?" - ringing around their heads. 

Nigel Farage on the BBC

UKIP leader Nigel Farage is not overly impressed with Stuart Prebble's review into the BBC's record of impartiality over immigration, the EU and religion. He's far less impressed though with the BBC's "shameful" response to the review.  He lays out his reasoning in an article for the Daily Telegraph. 

The passage which stood out for me was the following, which places his own part in the story in a way that strikes me as being shrewdly judged:

I acknowledge that there has been a significant improvement in the quantity of coverage of those with an anti-EU point of view. But there are still many occasions when the BBC will say to me, “Well, if you can’t do it Nigel, then we won’t cover it”, despite being offered perfectly able and competent replacements. I have become a BBC totem in some ways (just think of all those Question Time appearances). But, and this is the point, I am not the Eurosceptic movement. I am merely one man, and the broad mass of the population is hardly represented by me. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows those who wish to leave the EU are the majority, yet if were to judge by the BBC, you would get the impression it was just me. I am the get-out clause. “Well we had Nigel on,” they will trumpet. 

Further Reading

Finally, here's a short selection of takes on Stuart Prebble's report from across the online newspapers.

Helen Boaden (of all people)'s admission of what a lot of people already assumed is proving a popular angle, understandably - and makes for headlines that are unlikely to be what the BBC Trust was hoping for!

The Daily Telegraph: BBC did not reflect public view on immigration because of 'deep liberal bias', says review

Daily Express: 'Deep liberal bias' stopped BBC from properly reporting on immigration and EU

The Guardian: BBC had 'deep liberal bias' over immigration, says former news chief

Evening Standard: BBC 'missed immigration worries because it listens too much to Westminster'

Daily Mail: BBC's 'deep liberal bias' prevented it from reflecting public views on immigration, says former corporation news director

Now these newspapers all make the review sound much more damning that it really is.

The papers realise, however, that it's former BBC's News boss Helen Boaden's admission that's the killer quote - hence most of them leading with it.

Rather revealingly, the BBC News website's own take on the story completely fails to mention Helen Boaden's statement about the BBC's "deep liberal bias" over immigration - which suggests to me that they also realise that it's a killer quote. 

'Europe's Choice' was biased

Whilst acknowledging the interest and quality of the programmes, I complained about pro-EU bias in a couple of flagship series by the BBC's Allan Little - Europe's Choice and Europe Moves East.

Stuart Prebble's review comes to a not dissimilar conclusion:

Anyone harbouring the view about the BBC that it is by instinct in favour of EU membership, albeit with reservations, might have felt that they had their suspicions reinforced by listening to the excellent three-part series on Europe presented on Radio 4 by Allan Little. Broadcast on three consecutive weeks in January and February 2012, the first programme (Reshaping Europe) was an absolutely fascinating analysis of the modern history and political importance of the EU post the fall of the Berlin Wall; the second programme (Breaking the Pact) gave an equally fascinating and insightful perspective on the consequences of the failure of the EU to enforce the “Stability and Growth Pact”; and the final programme (Deeper Not Wider), argued powerfully the case for Britain to play a far more active role in the future shaping of Europe, on the basis that the job would otherwise be done by Germany, which does not want to do it. The themes of the series were revisited at the end of the year, two days before Christmas, in another excellent programme by Allan Little entitled “Europe Moves East,” in which Allan gained remarkable access to a whole range of very senior political and academic figures with specialist knowledge of aspects of Europe which we seldom hear reported. Altogether it explained brilliantly some of the serious fault lines in the structure of the EU, and the case for the UK playing a bigger and more dynamic role in addressing significant problems; however,in four programmes all about Britain’s role in the EU, there was not a single voice expressing the view that the UK would be better off out. You could almost hear the groans from the withdrawalist camp.

Indeed. It was clear bias.

Prebble Review: The BBC's Home Affairs Correspondents

Many of you may recall the outpouring of public disagreement with the BBC's Mark Easton on the issue of "white flight" - and I certainly remember the Today interview about it. Here's Stuart Prebble's take:

When asked about its coverage of immigration stories and the charge of “political  correctness” within the BBC on this subject, [BBC] the Executive gave some examples of its coverage. The first, from the relatively recent past, was the piece by BBC Home Editor Mark Easton on the Today programme on 20 February 2013 on the phenomenon known as “white flight”. Contributors to the Today package included Professor Danny Dorling from Sheffield University (dubbed by Simon Jenkins as “Geographer Royal by Appointment to the Left”) and former Labour MP Oona King; perhaps not a perfect example of balance between differing points of view, or of a range of opinions. Mark’s thesis can perhaps best  be understood by referring directly to his blog on the subject from the same day:

"Something quite remarkable happened in London in the first decade of the new millennium. The number of white British people in the capital fell by 620,000 – equivalent to the entire population of Glasgow moving out.

The consequence, as revealed by the latest census, is that white Brits are now in a minority in London, making up just 45% of its residents.

So where have they gone to – and why did they leave? 

I’ve been analysing and mapping the census data, and what emerges is a much more positive story than some headlines would make you think. 

The movement of the white British is often characterised as white flight – the indigenous population forced out of their neighbourhoods by foreign migrants. 

That may be part of the story, but I think the evidence suggests it is also about working class aspiration and economic success.” 

Mark’s theme seemed to be that it has long been the aspiration of city-dwellers to move out to greener pastures, and that increasing prosperity over a number of years has made this attainable for many of London’s indigenous people. There is no reason whatever to suppose that Mark’s analysis is not, as he indicates, at least a part of the story; however, that’s not how his report was seen by sections of the audience. At the last count there were reported to be something in the region of 2000 comments from the public on Mark’s interpretation of the exodus, and it seems that the majority of them disagreed with him

Among those complaining was Sir Andrew Green from Migration Watch, who wrote to Helen Boaden, then Director, News, now Director, Radio, as follows:

“Dear Helen,

I hope you will not mind my expressing disappointment at the handling of this topic today which seemed to be blind to the real concerns of the public.

Mark Easton, and especially his blog which concluded that white flight from London is ‘a story of aspiration ... a story of success’, was almost a parody. This kind of talk certainly weakens the BBC’s authority and credibility with many members of the public.”

In the course of interviewing for this report, I found Mark Easton to be one of the BBC journalists who is most frequently noted for his breadth of knowledge, his industriousness, thoroughness and professionalism. Though he clearly indicates that Londoners “being forced out of their neighbourhoods by foreign migrants ... may be part of the story”, many of his audience believed that they heard something different. This may be another example of people perceiving bias in places where they expect to find bias, but equally, it underlines the need for BBC reporters to take even greater care than usual to anticipate potential responses and provide the full context when reporting on these sensitive areas. 

On the same theme, I see that Biased BBC's Alan is quoted at some length:

I heard what some critics might regard as an even bigger journalistic “hostage to fortune” which gave rise to the following contribution to the “Biased BBC” website on 12 December 2012.

“The BBC’s Danny Shaw on Victoria Derbyshire’s show (1 hr 37 minutes) did a piece on Theresa May’s immigration speech ... his report was pretty balanced and even managed to put Labour in the frame for their immigration policy... What was surprising was Shaw’s reaction to May making the connection between housing problems and immigration… He said…‘She also referred to something I hadn’t heard before … she said immigration had actually increased housing demand in Britain… 1/3 of new housing being built for immigrants and housing might be 10% cheaper if it were not for this extra demand.’

He’s got to be kidding right? He’d never made a link between housing shortages and mass immigration? He must listen to the BBC for his news … it is rare to never when the BBC makes that connection ... how many ‘debates’ on housing shortages and the need to build more houses for the mysteriously growing population have avoided any mention at all of immigrants on the BBC? Many many many.

Still … maybe this report is the start of a new open and honest attempt to bring us the news as it is not as the BBC would like you to hear it.”

'Any Answers' - the screening filter

Many a complainant at sites like Biased BBC over the years would allege that programmes like the BBC's Any Answers were screening out people who expressed views the BBC didn't like, such as those holding anti-immigration opinions. 

Well, they weren't wrong - according to Stuart Prebble's report:

According to a former producer of Any Answers? who worked on the programme ten years ago, people ringing in to the telephonists who act as a first filter for the programme would probably have found that, if they said they wanted to come on air and say immigration was too high or was harming the country, they would not make it through to the next filter and on to air.

This was said to be partly a fear of having views that were considered unacceptable on the programme, and partly an understandable fear that contributors might go too far and say something which would cause offence – or indeed break the law. Andrew Green [of Migration Watch] would no doubt say that someone who argues against immigration levels should not be presumed to be racist, and he would be right. However, even regular and experienced contributors can say things live on-air that they might not say if given time to consider, and perhaps it is not surprising that hard-pressed producers would err on the side of caution and filter out views which might easily trip over the line of acceptability. The difficult question is always about where that line should be drawn.

So, there you go. Case closed.

Yes, the BBC is biased over gun control

Here's an extract from today's report from Stuart Prebble that certainly rings true:

I believe that many people listening to or watching the BBC in recent months would infer from its coverage that the BBC is in favour of gun control in America. This does not mean that opponents of gun control are not given airtime on the BBC but that, when they are, it seems to me that they are likely to be challenged in a manner which is different from the way that proponents are treated. This happens, I suggest, because of what we could call “an assumed consensus” within which we make editorial judgements – as evidenced by the Today programme presenter who declared in an interview on 23 February that “the British people are bemused by the anti-gun control argument in the US”. All our instincts tell us that having fewer guns in circulation must be a good thing, and so (to a greater or lesser extent) the BBC treats as eccentrics anyone who takes a different view.

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/breadth_opinion/breadth_opinion.pdf (p18)

Was the BBC biased? Yes, says an official BBC report

The BBC's official review into bias has been published. 

It was carried out by former ITV executive Stuart Prebble and found that the BBC had been out of step with the public on the issue of immigration and Britain's membership of the European Union. The corporation had a fear of causing offence over immigration and had, what former BBC news boss Helen ("Impartiality is in our genes") Boaden described as "a deep liberal bias" over the issue when she came in to the job in 2004. So that's that - and straight from the horse's mouth!

Helen Boaden, Director, Radio and until recently Director, BBC News, accepts that when she came into her role in September 2004 there had been a problem in the BBC’s coverage of immigration. She was aware, she told us, of a “deep liberal bias” in the way that the BBC approached the topic, and specifically that press releases coming from Migration Watch were not always taken as seriously as they might have been. 

With reference to the title of the previous post, the review did find that the BBC engaged in 'groupthink':

"A large group of people working together are in danger of becoming more homogenous in their thinking, not less, and so less able to see when the output reflects a narrow outlook."

The report finds, however, that things have got better in recent years - and, yes, all in all it seems to be painting a generally pretty rosy picture of BBC impartiality. (How unlike Ed West's intensively-researched study). 

It will take a little time to read and inwardly digest.