Fairness In The First Year
Posted on
January 19, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
For those of you wanting to look at the report on broadcasting bias from the University of the West of Scotland, we’ve uploaded it to the Repository, and you can also grab it directly from this link. Thanks to the alert readers who sent it in.
Short, snappy and damning.
Will it appear on either STV/BBC or in the rags?
I’ll be surprised and delighted if it does.
shocking reading!
My Take.
link to norrie.wordpress.com
BBC worse than STV, and the 3:2 bias doesn’t properly describe it – in many of the categories the bias is much much worse than that, particularly on the BBC.
What happens next ?
Going forward monthly updates on the stats would be excellent, as we could see whether they are responding to the criticisms, but I expect the authors aren’t resourced up to turn this stuff around that fast.
HEY Norrie, love your take on Hague – pure excellence 😀
The ‘abusive’ numbers in the table are very revealing. 37 instances of televised abuse of pro-independence people against 6 of the anti-independence people.
This gives a lie that abuse in this debate comes only from nationalists. The opposite is the case.
Guaranteed it will be torn to shreds by unionist ‘experts’.
Good for them to have monitored the broadcast media. It would be interesting if they could do a further interim report up to the start of the official campaign period.
SquareHaggis
Ta
Well who’d have thunk it, television news programmes are anti Scottish independence! Excuse me folks if I do not hold my breath waiting for BBC/STV/ITV/SKY to actually broadcast any sort of report about THEIR inability to remain neutral about Scottish independence!
I stopped watching TV back in 2006 because of this stuff.I follow the politics online now but was obviously still exposed to the TV a little here and there where i would catch the same-old.This has been going on for far longer than my life.This stuff stretches before most of us were born.
Thank you Reverend. Just jump right in…
“Personalisation of political issues is long-established strategy to weaken arguments, shifting focus from collective reasoning or shared values to supposed personal desires and personality traits.
Historically, this tendency or strategy has been used to demonise and to undermine numerous political figures in the UK including Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock.
In the above data, the repeated association of the Yes/pro-independence campaign with the personal desires of Alex Salmond was regular and frequent. No such equation between No/anti-independence figures’ personal drives and the No campaign was made”
You could add people like Arthur Scargill too. Demonise, undermine, slander, lie and misinform, the press, ITV and above all BBC’s game plan for YES Scotland 2014.
60/40 split on coverage in favour of anti
BBC 80/20 split in finishing an article on an anti note
Abusive to pro-independence people 19 occasions to 3
Personalising the debate – anti 0 times personalising to Salmond 35 times
Not much to choose between them but BBC slightly worse than STV especially on finishing on an anti note. The BBC really is the establishment at play.
Very disappointing.
I wonder if the point will be made or question raised on this week’s Question Time from Dundee.
Yet, despite this imbalance in the reporting of the debate, No is losing ground. Scots are not daft. Go and speak to them.
On televised abuse pro-union broadcasters (for that is the reality) are allowing on a weekly basis derision and vitriol deliberately aimed at nationalists to be aired. Now that is telling as it smacks of collusion between the broadcasters and opponents of independence. The BBC and STV are poisoning the debate.
If the BBC is run on the basis of a Charter (contract) and has a Board of Trustees to ensure compliance, why is it increasingly up to external organisations to highlight serious breaches in its standards?
If the BBC continue to breach their contract and the Trustee fail in their legal duty, is the BBC licence fee enforceable?
The BBC need to publish this report, accept or challenge its findings and set out, in detail, how it plans to regain the trust of the Scottish public.
The MSM cannot and will not give us a fair crack of the whip, so it’s more important than ever that we get organised on the ground.
Tonight, about to go on the A78 out of Stevenston, I was behind a 4X4 with a spanking spare-wheel cover – ‘Believe in Scotland’ superimposed over the Yes logo. I caught up, overtook, honked, pulled-in so he could see my Yes stickers, we exchanged thumbs-up via the indicators. Fair cheered me up.
We are everywhere, but we need to get more visible as a matter of urgency.
The game changers will surely be the live televised debates which I would hope will be primetime. As has been seen with the debates between the two Blair’s recently, the swing is always to yes. stay positive they have run out of scare stories and the Scots will see this in time.
@handclapping,
Yep – speak to them, deliver leaflets, get out on the streets. This one’s going to be won on the streets.
Both the BBC and STV have been poisoning the debate.
@ Ian.
Was out delivering my first batch of papers tonight. Gave the organiser a Yes sticker for her car – I’ve already got 4 on mine.
While it is easy to get annoyed with individual reporters they do deal with the news story of the day as given to them. If that is an anti-independence brief from Better Together then like Ron Burgundy that is what they will run with. The real question is who is pulling the strings? Who is setting the agenda at the BBC and STV to actually run with these stories and who chooses to ignore Yes Scotland releases?
I’m willing to bet that it is small number of individuals that are poisoning this particular well. Paton needs to get a grip and I would like to see Holyrood calling these individuals in for a chat about fair and balanced reporting.
Ivan:
If the history of the BBC is any indicator, nothing. Too much arrogance, and besides, a lot of their problems are due to natural, ingrained bias by reporters and presenters, which can only be changed by being kept an eye on by strict management. Oh…
@Ian B
“The MSM cannot and will not give us a fair crack of the whip, so it’s more important than ever that we get organised on the ground.”
Agree completely. I think we need to get more people involved directly with the Yes campaign, myself included. I am hoping Rev Stu will have campaigning activities lined up for this year, as the MSM are beyond help I am afraid.
“I am hoping Rev Stu will have campaigning activities lined up for this year”
He does.
The report author’s details:
link to uws.ac.uk
He can now expect ad hominem attacks from BT via their MSM buddies, but, looking through his publication history and research interests, there doesn’t seem any obvious weak spot they can exploit.
He will also be familiar to, and with, the prominent academics in other Scottish institutions who’ve spent decades trying to have critical media studies taken seriously – those people will have to respond to this report: if they think it’s fair and balanced, they should say so; if they have reservations about Robertson’s methodology and/or conclusions, they should explain why; if the UWOS is prepared to allow the release of the original research data, they may want to do their own analysis.
But whatever happens, academia must not be allowed to sit this out.
Why do you think that broadcasting was made a reserved matter?
@Ian
They will do the usual Pravada act of omitting to cover anything that does not support their diehard Unionist views. I would be amazed if they report this.
@Andrew Morton
“Why do you think that broadcasting was made a reserved matter?”
Nail smacks hammer with the force of an Andy Murray first serve.
E MAIL link,s to your M.S.P. It need,s to be raised at F M
Qs, this week.
The ‘Yes’ side need to see this academic report as a game changer in the way that the media has treated the Referendum Debate so far. Blair Jenkins needs to express fulsome anger at the findings. No more softly-softly, former friends and colleagues nonsense. This is grave beyond description and to quote Lord Foulkes “they are doing it deliberately”.
Don’t watch it, buy it or participate. It’s nonsense. Feel better. Rise above it. Easy.
sky must resent the easy money licence fee, one would have thunk they might report these findings.
@muttley79 –
Whether the MSM deign to report these findings, let alone analyse the data, is a separate issue.
This is an academic report. There is a culture of peer-review which requires people working in the same field to submit one another’s work to serious critical review.
Robertson is to be applauded for this work because he has, in effect, (to borrow Andrew’s tennis analogy) lobbed the ball into his peers’ half of the court when they’re all sitting on the sidelines, refusing to play.
His peers may unanimously rubbish the report, award it full marks, or have an almighty argument about it. But they are duty-bound to acknowledge it.
Vistaprint.com do a range of personally designed printed items from business cards, flyers to t-shirts. I got 250 business cards made up advertising all the prominent indy sites, with the same info printed onto a t-shirt.
My plan is to wear my t-shirt and issue the business cards, which also have a calendar on the back so it’s a handy little item to hold on to, to all en sundry.
Business cards about £18 for 250
t-shirt about £10
I’ve just e-mailed Dr Robertson to let him know we’re having this discussion, and thanking him for a courageous piece of work.
PS. If anyone else would like to take a minute to send the man a message, his e-mail address is:
John.Robertson@uws.ac.uk
Zero chance of our foreign owned media reporting this.
Still, just a managerial muddle rather than malignant design, eh, Mr Bateman?
On another note, England waking up to the fact a referendum is taking place. Salmond being attacked in the English (as if there is a Scottish) Daily Telegraph.
Or 250 business cards free, to your own design, you pay only postage and VAT.
(Less than a fiver.)
I was handing them out today at Yes Aberdeen’s get-together, in the hope that they germinate interest among the DK’s – (Dinna Ken’s).
What a nice piece of work, it really does not pull any punches and shows the straight facts about how bias our two broadcasters are.
I hope the team who produced the report would now publish a month update, just to show the country how the media they pay for are behaving.
A great and unexpected report from the University West of Scotland, well done.
Great stuff guys, very happy to see that this has been pounced on despite my own and others, unsuccessful attempt to get heads up on the Herald site. We simply cannot accept that this is not answered on MSM! So do not let go of it until we get retribution. Fairs fair!
Its actually more shocking to read this again. The BBC sells itself around the globe as being impartial and independent yet here is definitive record of same BBC routinely “demonising” Scotland’s First Minister and attacking Scottish democracy. From impartial and independent to BetterTogether propaganda machine.
@ Ian Brotherhood 10.30, job done e mail sent.ah hope a lot more take the time,we need people like them.
Put this in the last thread, and you all moved here so repeating it.
An idea I’ve been pondering this afternoon. And the pdf link makes possible.
What if ‘we’ were able to deliver, by hand, hardcopies of the big stories that were likely to be buried, to the different news vendors Herald, Record to STV and BBC, and all significant others.
If two people were to deliver these and have them signed or acknowledged as having taken delivery FAO the Editor/ Controller etc . It could be filmed and uploaded to Youtube as proof of these organisation’s being aware of said incidents and thus when, or if, they don’t publish/run with these stories, having made an editorial decision to not inform the public.
That the line taken may, just perhaps, be being centrally coordinated is never going to wash with the general public, so we need to just be smarter than them.
Anyone up for this who’s based close to the culprits?
@ tartanpigsty, good idea,I wish I could,but Im sure some poeple will take that suggestion up.
Spread the word folks, get on the forums, attach a link to these findings, email family friends colleagues and urge them all to witness just how hollow a NO victory would be.
This evidenced proof of a travesty unfolding before our very eyes. Shame on them
This story will be headline news tomorrow on the BBC leading to the head of current affairs making a heart felt apology. He will admit that they have let down the people of Scotland and will promise to try much harder in making their output more balanced and fair in this most important of years.
Either that or they won’t give two f**ks and carry on regardless.
Anybody know if this study was submitted as evidence to the BBC Trust’s recent consultation on the Independence Referendum? If not, is it too late to submit it (Because, if you don’t make the deadline, it can’t be true…)
@ronnie anderson –
Good on ye mister.
Tell ye this my friend – over the years I’ve come into contact with various ‘professors’ and ‘doctors’ of this, that and whatever else. Some of them are very fine human beings who have no problem separating their professional status from the same day-to-day shite lesser mortals endure.
But for some? Those letters behind the name become the be-all and end-all, the centre of their lives, and anything which even vaguely jeopardises that superiority is dismissed. They feel ‘entitled’ to be aloof, dismissive, and can even justify willful ignorance if need be. They are ordinary humans like the rest of us, but they possess two qualities which, when combined, can produce awful consequences – intelligence and cowardice..
A lot of folk have had to climb very greasy poles to get where they are, and it’ll take a lot to shift them. All the more reason to support the rare voices of decency and sanity who show them up for what they are.
Just do not let this report fade into the dusk folks.
@tartanpigsy, yes, something radical needs to happen. This cannot be permitted to continue without action – until something changes and/or acknowledgement and exposure in the main stream is achieved.
O/T
Met Robert Burns last night. He’s usually very busy at this time of year but he wrote this wee poem (in my head)
BUT LIARS FLOURISH
Oh would some pow’r the giftie gie us
Frae fearful hesitance to free us
And see oorsells as ithers see us
An honoured nation
In a’ the warld they look at us
In admiration
But liars flourish here at hame
And catch the feart wi’ coward claim
An’ Scots amongst us so defame
In a’ creation
That only Scots cannot reclaim
Their ancient nation
We’ve nae the wit nor proper courts
Tae order a’ the bits and pairts
O’ governmental ruling airts
Or so we’re telt
And some among wi’ shallow hearts
Are easy selt
Oor Irish cousins look in wonder
And puzzled folks from here and yonder
And Dane and Finn and proud Icelander
Gaze on in awe
As “proudscots ” hesitate and flounder
And sell us a’
The liars lie in mony guises
In print, on air, where chance arises
Cos London’s favour’s where the prize is
For them that’s paid
And London’s aims their ain comprises
And Scots betrayed
Oor feart and feckless are confused
Wi’ lies their hapless trust abused
A nation’s sturdy wealth refused
For placemen’s bribes
Oor confidence in self defused
By sleekit scribes
But listen well and tak guid heed
The London money pooch is deid
They cling tae us in frantic need
But no tae aid us
Tae tak oor oil they maun mislead
The fools they’ve made us.
Sae if you hold that Scots alane
In a’ the warld hiv no much brain
And cannae dae whit’s needin daein
Tae tak home rule
It’s London’s greedy game you’re playin
And you’re the fool!
David McEwan Hill 2013
@Ian Brotherhood, I have met many people in my life the great & the good, in Law/politic,s/Lord,s in my time,but the further up the greasy pole they get, the more people they dont wish to know,I have a phlosiphy,NAE CUNTS CLIMBING ON MY BACK, when I do come across, Politician,s & shake their hand, I hold it up in front of them & count my finger,s Wee Alex Neil killed hisel laughin when I explained it on our first meeting, many year,s ago, we have a great relationship,I dont talk shite tae him,he dizna talk shite tae me.lol
@Dave McEwan Hill
Wonderfully expressed, thank you.
@Dave McEwan Hill,Jist as weil am no sleeping rite the noo,am noo up awe nicht typeing that oot,am no weil man hey some simpathy,I bow lowly tae your wit.
Hear the squirms at the BBC.
Bias at Pacific Quay?
Wisnae us we say, how could it be?
World renowned impartiality.
Hear the squeals at the STV.
Nae report on bias, we can see!
Feel free tae send it, tae McKay or me.
So we can trash it together with BBC
@Dave McEwan Hill
Wonderful work. It should be spread far and wide with Burns supper season coming up. Do you have it on a site anywhere that we can link to?
Spot on Ronnie ” E MAIL link,s to your M.S.P. It need,s to be raised at F M Qs, this week.”
I will be contacting some foreign media stations copied to the BBC in London, as I think they might take action if London thinks it’s ‘Media Clout’ is being diminished by ‘BBC Jocky’
@TrainingDay.
Derek Bateman has just uploaded a very interesting article on Newsnet about this report.
He is very scathing, disappointed and not a little embarrassed.
This is a game-changer.
“Either that or they won’t give two f**ks and carry on regardless”
Yes James, but we wont’
What about getting permission from the University and sending this research to the ODIHR?
We cant just stand by and do nothing, I have contacted them on several occasions now and although I am getting a stock answer (no) I sense the personal response I got from their spokesman had an element of sympathy for Scotland’s plight
I do believe if we send a continual stream of emails and letters to them they will contact the UK government in back channels and tell them to address the imbalance.
Representative people like yourself Stu, Derek Bateman, Gordon MacIntyre Kemp, Ian Bell, and so on could co sign a letter maybe it would strike home.
Don’t we need to demand that Ken McQuarrie should immediately make a statement setting out the measures he will take to address the institutional political bias at BBC Scotland?
“Overall, however, both feature a preponderance of anti-independence statements, a majority of anti-independence evidence and a heavy personalisation of the debate around the character of Alex Salmond with the latter often portrayed as selfish and undemocratic.”
Exactly what has been said and pointed out many times since the beginning of the campaign!
Well done and thank you to the University of the West of Scotland and Dr. Robertson and his colleagues for providing the evidence of broadcasting bias against Scottish independence in Scotland and the UK.
We await a ‘response’ from the broadcasters in question…
Anyone seen or heard any reactions from the guilty?
BBC Scotland are unsuprisingly ignoring the UWS report and continuing on their merry way, this morning attacking the Scottish NHS (again) on TV and radio.
And yet when it comes to the privatisation of the NHS in England, the BBC are remarkably coy.
Dave, marvelous stuff man. My Ayrshire blood is near boiling but your words inspire and sooth the soul.
Training Day @09.03:
“BBC Scotland are unsuprisingly ignoring the UWS report and continuing on their merry way, this morning attacking the Scottish NHS (again) on TV and radio.”
I find that retuning to Celtic Music Radio is good for the blood pressure.
Televised reporting of the debate has been biased, personal and abusive that has damaged the Yes campaign. We may have a free vote in this referendum but it has clearly not been a fair debate. Pro-independence supporters have every right to cry “foul”.
@Patrick
Just read the Bateman article. Seems to me he’s still having trouble coming to terms with the central problem – that the bias of the BBC is deliberate, calculated and consistent, and can’t be ascribed, as Bateman tries to do, to ‘Kenny’ McQuarrie’s managerial ineptitude. Derek is a fine writer but really, he should stop taking us for fools in his ongoing attempts to salvage the reputation of the BBC. We know exactly what the BBC is, Derek, and it ain’t come about by accident.
That’s my letter of complaint off to my MSP, and copied to presiding officer and DFM. + the first 50 Yes papers delivered in my part of the “Iron Burgh”
A year-long study by experienced academic researchers shows substantial bias in TV news coverage of the independence referendum and nobody in the Scottish media thinks it is a story. Is that not a bit spooky?
@ Dave Hill.
excellent.
[…] debate was biased against the Yes side by a 3-2 margin between September 2012 and September 2013. link to wingsoverscotland.com […]
@Ian Brotherhood and Ronnie
“But for some? Those letters behind the name become the be-all and end-all…They are ordinary humans like the rest of us”
Indeed Ian, and we should all remember that they ALL (including Brenda) have to sit on the pot to shit. However, Brenda may have some flunky to do the wiping.
The results table published on page 6 of the report (you would think they would have had enough in the “ink” budget to actually print the page numbers!), reveals the key themes of the ant-independence mind set.
1. Express the idea that independence is the idiosyncratic, singular, capricious & highly personal project of Alex Salmond, rather than the expression of a large section of the electorate who voted his party into a majority led Government.
2. Demonstrate, regardless of fact or obvious contradiction, that Scotland will be economically disadvantaged upon independence.
3. Leverage scientific & academic advice which is neither impartially funded & researched nor sufficiently robust to stand close scrutiny & review.
Despite the report’s conclusion, there is in my opinion, zero probability that the media will alter its content, style & balance to address the blatant bias.
I can only guess that they have individually & collectively decided, despite all the evidence emerging to the contrary, that they genuinely believe that remaining in a subsidiary region within a near bankrupt British State with all its gory corruption, social discourse & widening poverty gap, is better than risking independence.
Why is this? Again, I can only guess that as the social & poverty gap widens, those that work in the media genuinely believe that they are on the right side of the bridge that spans those widening gaps. i.e. no matter how bad it gets, the worst that will happen to them is that they get the opportunity to report it.
It would seem then, that the British Government’s strategy to demonise the poor, the disadvantaged & the unemployed is achieving its intended effect. When William Hague spoke in Scotland last week, he had a sign attached to his podium marked, “FOR HARDWORKING PEOPLE”. Nice touch Mr. Hague!
@GPurves
Re a BBC statement you’d hope that YES etc would be doing that, though funny neither YES or SNP have tweeted about it.
Maybe a press release etc is in the offing or of course maybe they’re waiting for an official release from UWOS.
@ Dave McEwan Hill: Excellent piece and so apt.
Bateman’s reaction:
link to newsnetscotland.com
@ Patrick Roden 05.55, Well done Pat,we all need to kick up wherever, to whoever, we can,the stake,s are to high a price to pay, for our lack of stamina/in this fight,we re only just starting.
Time to dust this one off again.
kininvie at 2.31
Don’t know how to do that kind of stuff. Anybody that wants to do anything with it can do what they like
Like many others have already commented, I am very surprised that the UWOS analysis only shows a ratio of 3:2 in favour of dependence.
Another typical example of BBC bias again today.
Minister says SNP’s EU plan ‘flawed’ is the headline, cue picture of The Secretary of State for Portsmouth.
Beneath the article says “Two politicians from opposing sides of the Scottish independence debate make key speeches on whether a post yes referendum vote would lead to EU membership.”
Balanced? Impartial? Never!
@Training Day, I agree bud, but you can feel the tortured realisation in Batemans article that he is wrong and we were right all along.
He might take a few days or even weeks yet but he will no doubt come to his Rubicon crossing when he must decide if he will continue to protect people who are now proven deceivers or cross the Rubicon and fight with the rest of us against the BBC bias that has become institutionalised.
This is an academic study, DB will have to convince himself that not only are we all wrong but the facts presented in this study are simply a result of continuing management incompetence.
It’s the BBC’s reaction (or rather, the expected lack of reaction)as well as their failure to even attempt to address this bias, that will finally cause Derek and hopefully thousands of others, that they have been getting duped for all these years.
For Derek…Sorry mate but has it ever occurred to you, that the reason people at BBC management never encouraged bias when you were around, was because they knew you had ‘gone native’
@Ronnie, cheers bud 😉
Emailed John Robertson and asked for his permission to print his findings on the back of my business cards and bills to give to my customers. He emailed straight back saying Yes as long as I don’t change the wordings. Ace.
Surely The SUN won’t let this oppurtunity to bash the BBC go amis.
If they don’t run this it’s food for thought.
Training Day, totally agree with you re BBC apologist Derek Bateman.