Saturday, February 11, 2017

Bombshell on BBC bias : BMG poll reveals that less than a quarter of the Scottish public actively reject suggestions of BBC bias against independence

As you may have seen overnight, it turns out that the BMG/Herald poll also asked a question about BBC bias against independence.  Because the poll was not commissioned by a pro-independence client, it's going to be hard for the corporation to dismiss the results out of hand.  36% of respondents agreed with the statement that "the BBC tends to report news that is biased against the cause of Scottish independence", and only 23% disagreed, with the remainder (41%) apparently saying they neither agreed nor disagreed. The datasets haven't been released yet (and as it's the weekend we'll probably have to wait at least a couple of days), but the Herald article reveals that belief in BBC bias is heavily concentrated among people who voted Yes, and to a lesser extent among the young - presumably because there's a fair amount of overlap between those two groups.

If you'd told me a poll on this subject was coming, I think I would have been able to predict that a third or more of people think the BBC is biased. The real shock, and what should genuinely alarm the corporation's bosses, is the fact that less than a quarter of respondents actively dismissed the notion of bias. Judging by the affected incredulity the BBC adopted when brushing off the accusations of one-sidedness in 2014, this is an institution that has remained fairly relaxed about the loyalty of its 'natural constituency' - ie. the people who are supposed to reflexively dismiss any notion that the BBC isn't scrupulously fair and impartial as the ravings of brainwashed lunatics. You can see from the reaction of opposition parties in the Herald piece ("celebrate the BBC!" demands Willie Rennie) that they also still believe that the impulse to defend the BBC to the death is alive and well among Scotland's silent majority - but this poll suggests they're wrong. Even without seeing the datasets, basic arithmetic will tell you that more than half of No voters presumably declined to actively reject the suggestion of bias.

And in all honesty, that's hardly surprising, given that No voters saw the same BBC coverage as the rest of us during the crucial penultimate week of the 2014 campaign. BBC news at network level seemed to have been sleepwalking through the campaign until the YouGov poll putting Yes ahead was published on the penultimate Saturday night. Lorry-loads of London journalists then suddenly descended upon Glasgow and Edinburgh, and having had no experience of covering the issue, they imagined they were somehow being impartial by putting out wall-to-wall coverage of "warnings of economic Armageddon if Scotland becomes independent" stories, just so long as they always gave the Yes campaign a defensive right of reply to the "warnings". After a week of this unmitigated hysteria, they finally seemed to take a step back and put their house in order to a limited extent, but by that time the damage was largely done - both to the Yes campaign, and ironically, to the BBC's own reputation in Scotland.

They say that the first step towards solving a problem is to recognise that it exists. Donalda MacKinnon has gone further down that road than anyone before her, but she still seemed to be saying that the problem was that people believed the BBC was biased, rather than that bias existed. It can only be hoped that there's considerably more self-awareness in private than there is in the BBC's public pronouncements.

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37 comments:

  1. The 'Vote No Border' and the 'The Vow' plus Nick Robinson 's dubious alternative facts sagas in 2014 showed the BBC's collusion with Number 10 Downing Street.

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  2. KODI

    Exodus


    YouTube them

    No more BBC

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    1. OK, the news on BBC.

      But. But. STV is fucking shite from top to bottom. They make fuck all and shill Ant & Dec and other honk like crazy.

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  3. Maths was never my strong point, but does that mean that more than three quarters of the Scottish public thinks that the BBC is biased?

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    1. No. 36% agree there's bias, 23% disagree, and the remaiming 41% neither agree nor disagree.

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    2. Well, if you strip out the DK's, would that not mean that 61% of Scots think the BBC is biased, given that would be the way it would be presented by the unionist media if it was a poll on Independence.

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    3. Fanatics will always claim bias. The BBC bent over backwards to accommodate the Nat sis. The aim of the Nat sis is to continually moan about anything with our without substance until their aim is acheived.
      It was not the fault of the BBC that the Nat sis did not come up with a currency solution or offer a solid economic plan. It was the Nat sis who said entry into the EU would be a cakewalk. It was the Nat sis who said there would not be a hard border with England. It was the Nat sis who said dinnae worry vote for us and everything will be all right! Two million did not believe in them.

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    4. Yeah, Fake News and Alternative facts, the BBC are the masters at it, what are they like? The sooner we get rid of them the better.

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    5. Just fancy! According to some people, the 36% of Scots who think the BBC is biased are fanatics, and the 23% who disagree are not. As One_Scot says, that's 61% who say the BBC is biased once you strip out the Undecideds! Compared to Unionist and BritNat trolls, that's a very, very large group. Those Unionist and BritNat trolls should just get over it, don't you think?

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    6. why the name change asshole

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    7. It's certainly interesting that the Herald - never usually bashful at finding sensation from figures - could easily have decided to present a headline based on the 36% "biased", 23% "not biased", and ignoring the 41% who did not express an opinion either way. That would easily have supported a headline of "61% think the BBC is biased" (i.e. 61% = (36 out of 36+23 expressing an opinion).

      Somehow I think that if the figures had been the other way around (23% for biased, 36% for unbiased) we'd have had a headline something like "Nearly 2/3 of Scots think BBC is fair and unbiased".

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  4. I was phone polled by IPSOS MORI last Sunday. Questions centred round the BEEB and where "our" news should come from. Scottish 6 maybe? Or an internal poll for the BEEB?
    Its long past time we were allowed FOI questions of this organisation. Their "journalism" is largely based on publicly paid for queries, and as its our money that funds the BEEB, we should know what drives their decision making process.

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  5. I took the week off work leading up to vote. One mid morning BBC cut a live feed from Glasgow that had a blond girl with a yes placard in the background, feed went dead then back to London studios, seconds later went back to live feed in glasgow, blond girl had physically been removed from screen leaving a obviously staged group on better together campaigners, I'm still angry and I'm English

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  6. Obviously all the pretty girls support Yes ;-)

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    1. Glasgow Working Class 2February 11, 2017 at 12:14 PM

      Clearly they are a minority. Dumb blondes.

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    2. Absolute bloody state of this sexist paperweight.

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    3. Let him have the cojones to come out and be spiflicated by some of the smart blonde women I know...

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  7. Here's the thing.
    My staunchly unionist pal says "of course the BBC is biased on independence.And so it should be.Thats it's job." Can't argue with that.

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    1. I've encountered similar arguments from Unionists. They don't seem to be able to explain why the BBC denies this bias, though.

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    2. Glasgow Working Class 2February 11, 2017 at 1:49 PM

      Fundamentalists on both sides will bump their gums about being bias. There is a complaints procedure in place.
      The main thing is that Kim Yung Eck and his devout followers never get their hands on the state media.

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    3. Absolute bloody state of this.

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  8. I remember getting asked questions on the bias of the BBC recently,and I thought it odd that we were even getting the chance to answer such a question,I did answer yes to BBC bias.

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  9. GWC2 digs Camus. Hence the name changing metamorpheses (or is the 77th Brigade in a shambles?).

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    Replies
    1. Glasgow Working Class 2February 11, 2017 at 1:51 PM

      You are losing it auld yin if that is your main contribution to the issue.

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    2. Absolute bloody state of this.

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  10. Chief BBC politics presenter telling outright lies and abusing anybody who attempts to correct him. BBC Saville. More bent than JK Spanner's moral compass.

    Speaking of which. She's losing an argument with Piers Morgan. Just goes to show how thick she is. Same as every other member of Nazis in Union.

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  11. I'd be curious to know how many people think the BBC is biased against the EU. I think it is a little more subtle than the anti-Independence/SNPBaaaad meme but it is there.

    Before June there was very little reporting of what was going on anywhere in Europe, now there is a lot more especially if it can be portrayed as EU is falling apart/in a shambles etc etc.

    It is amazing how many people are swallowing the propaganda hook, line and sinker.

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  12. Glasgow Working Class 2February 11, 2017 at 6:44 PM

    The BBC and liberal elites were shocked when the result was announced and in fact the BBC played the same Jock Nat si routine when the fash lost the Jock referendum, the punters are stupid and we know better. Cheerio Nat sis and all UK MEP'S get a real job ya skivers. Time to cut by half the Jock MSP'S and then go fur ra Lords big style.

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    1. Trump's Golden Shower of KippersFebruary 11, 2017 at 9:01 PM

      David Archibald ‏@GlasgowsDA Feb 1
      More
      it would appear that Nigel Farage despises everything about the EU except the wages and expenses.

      https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/01/nigel-farage-among-ukip-meps-accused-of-misusing-eu-funds …

      UK UncutVerified account ‏@UKuncut Feb 3

      It's the new expenses scandal. Nigel Farage, Paul Nuttall and six other Ukip MEPs are under investigation.


      UKIP Nonsense - 48% ‏@UKIPNFKN Feb 6

      'Poor' Nigel Farage finds it hard to get by on £109,000 a year plus

      Delete
    2. Hey quiz. Are you Stephen Oops-a-Daisley, quiz?

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    3. Glasgow Working Class 2February 11, 2017 at 10:36 PM

      I went to Edinburgh last night for a knees up, I met an American sailor at C C BLOOMS, after a few bevvies we went for a walk around the gay triangle.
      We looked a peach as a couple (I forgot to mention he is 6'4" and as black as night and his skin just glistened in the moonlight).
      I'm getting off track, people all along the street were smiling and waving to us as we sauntered along him in his sailor's uniform and me in my favourite tartan mini skirt with the sevco tartan.
      The good news is he is a trump supporter.
      I'm taking the next couple of days off cos he nearly split me in half. This is what you are missing fash nat sis come and join the union you know it makes sense.

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    4. Glasgow Working Class 2February 12, 2017 at 1:08 AM

      A Gleswegian could not afford the bus or train fare tae Embra due to Nat si Thatcherite policies. Except for party going pensioners.

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    5. Jeez, the state of you! What a nasty piece of work you are - misogynistic, homophobic, racist... you do realise that hate speech is illegal, don't you?

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    6. The BBC is heavily biased. On Thursday an old education report was discussed at FM questions. BBC Scotland decided to lead it's report with Ruth Davidson's heavily loaded critical question blaming the SNP goverment.. Then nothing. That was it's ooverage. Well it made me laugh.

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    7. Simples. 41% dont watch BBC news and of the 59% percent who do 36% think its biased against Scotland and the remaining 23% are Unionists.

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