Herald MSPs to hear case that TV coverage of indyref has been biased against Yes campaign Tuesday 11 March 2014 Claims that television reporting of the independence referendum has not been fair and balanced and has damaged the Yes campaign will be scrutinised by MSPs today. Professor John Robertson, author of a University of the West of Scotland report on BBC and ITV coverage of the referendum, will give evidence to Holyroods Education and Culture Committee. The committee will also hear from BBC Scotland director Ken MacQuarrie, head of news and current affairs John Boothman and referendum unit editor John Mullin, who are expected to hail the BBCs extensive coverage of the referendum to date. Dr Robertsons research found a numerical preponderance of anti-independence statements over pro-independence statements by a ratio of 3:2 on Reporting Scotland and on STV. One obvious explanation lies in the editorial decision to allow all three anti-independence parties to respond to each SNP statement, creating an unavoidable predominance of statements from the former even when these were kept short, he said. The Reporting Scotland imbalance tends to normalise the No/anti-independence position and put the onus of the Yes/pro-independence position to justify itself. In many cases, reporters would round off with a compromise assessment so as to leave the two campaigns in a kind of balance. Quite often, however, a statement strongly supportive of one side would be left hanging as the final thought. This was more likely, especially on Reporting Scotland, to be an anti-independence statement. Comparing Reporting Scotland with STV News, the former seems less balanced and fair to the Yes campaign, if only in the tendency to give pro-independence statements a greater frequency of opening and closing debates. 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. He concluded: On the objective evidence presented here, the mainstream TV coverage of the first year of the independence referendum campaigns has not been fair or balanced. Taken together, we have evidence of coverage which seems likely to have damaged the Yes campaign. In evidence to the committee, BBC Scotland said: There has been extensive general news coverage, across all of our broadcast platforms, of all of the key events in the debate so far this year, including the statements made by the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, on the Scottish Governments proposed currency union; Chancellor George Osborne, backed by Labour and the Lib Dems, ruling out a formal sterling union in the event of a Yes vote; the First Ministers speech to business leaders in Aberdeen and the meetings of both the UK and Scottish governments, within five miles of each other, in the North East. All of these have proved to be major events across all output, both on BBC Scotland and on network. There has been rolling coverage and a number of co-presentations, most recently with the Today programme, with James Naughtie presenting from Aberdeen and Sarah Montague in London.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 11:42:37 +0000
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