A New Year has arrived and, once again, little seems to have changed, certainly not at Pacific Quay, home to the inappropriately named BBC Scotland. Three days into 2012 and, already, they have allowed themselves to be accused of political bias. I say allowed because, in this instance, it seems to be both deliberate and unashamedly so.
"Scottish" Labour's Health Spokesperson, Jackie Baillie MSP, issued a fatally flawed press release entitled "Exposed: New Research reveals Scotland is Superbug Capital of Europe" and was swiftly appearing on BBC Scotland's early morning news programme, Good Morning Scotland, where a friendly interview was conducted. No attempt was made to question her figures and no research appeared to have been made in order to ascertain the truth or otherwise of her assertions. Here is the nub - her figures dated from 2005-6 and related to a period when Labour and the Liberal Democrats were in control at Holyrood so whatever they might have been, they were most certainly not new.
Let's be fair, then, and assume that BBC Scotland made a truly genuine mistake in believing they had spotted a story (emanating from a Labour press release or phone call) and made a genuine mistake in airing the interview when, due to the holiday period, they had not run their typical checks on the story. Were I to believe that was so then you would not be reading this effort but might either have been reading what I thought of the Scottish 6 or the re-opening of the Borders Railway (contain your excitement, they are for another day!).
Almost immediately after Baillie's interview (and, it seems, a similar story being printed in The Scotsman) it was made apparent by many and varied Tweeters that the story was, let's be blunt, a pack of lies. One who Tweeted the actual facts was Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Health, Nicola Sturgeon, who wrote "Labour's attack on NHS today using 2005/6 data is shameful and ignores staff achievement of reducing cdiff & MRSA by 70% since 2007" and who further added a link to the proof of the pudding which is the actual and factual Scottish Parliament Research. Kate Higgins wrote this excellent piece at Burdzeyeview which covers the "mistake" better than I can - but don't visit it yet!
Why then do I accuse BBC Scotland of deliberately attracting accusations of political bias towards themselves? Well, by 8am, I was aware that the story was bunkum and by 10.30am I was in possession of documents which proved it was a pack of lies. The BBC have greater resources at their beck and call than I do with my laptop and iPad and so they will, also, have been in absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the story was nonsense. BBC Scotland continued to run the story until 6pm.
I repeat: BBC Scotland continued to run the story both unquestioned and, it appears, unamended until 6pm. I look forward to their apology and retraction but I suspect there is as much chance of that happening as there is of Ms Baillie doing the same. The damage has been done and that was the whole purpose of the exercise.
Moridura, the excellent blogger Peter Curran, ran a typically fine piece yesterday concerning Alex Salmond's appearance on The One Show and suggested that many pro-Independence supporters seem desperate to find bias in BBC presenters. I thought that Alex's appearance on the show was excellent and would suggest that both Matt Baker and Alex Jones were well out of their comfort zone and so any apparent bias was, probably, unintentional. It remains, though, the best (by far) BBC interview of Alex Salmond since May last year.
Sadly, the same cannot be said of the BBC following yesterday's events and I would challenge anyone to convince me that Jeremy Paxman and Kirsty Wark are not hostile or that, closer to home, Seonag MacKinnon, the wife of Peter McMahon who is The Scotsman's Business Editor and a former Labour spin doctor, doesn't begin her reports, perhaps unknowingly, from a slanted perspective. To copy from the ludicrous BBC HD sound promo "Glenn Campbell, don't get me started on Glenn Campbell".
The Scotsman newspaper struggles to live up to the name newspaper these days but, whilst accepting and promoting its own political bias, regularly prints magnificent writings from the wonderful Joan McAlpine (one of my MSPs) and others who support Independence for Scotland.
Here then is a question. Who is there within the ranks of BBC Scotland who is permitted any airtime whatsoever to espouse an alternative viewpoint? The Scotsman is a commercial organisation and is, therefore, entitled to be biased if they so wish. The BBC is funded by both of us, dear reader and is supposed to be beyond reproach. If only that were so.
Now, back to Borders Rail...:-)
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