BBC promises 'greater sophistication' in Europe coverage
The BBC has promised “greater sophistication” in its coverage of Europe.
Today’s pledge comes after an independent panel accused the BBC of unintentional bias.
January’s report, commissioned by the board of governors, said impartiality had been undermined by “an institutional mindset” and a tendency to polarise and over-simplify issues.
It found a measure of ignorance of the European Union on the part of some journalists and a failure to report issues that ought to be reported.
Today BBC News promised to broaden the range of opinions involved in the debate and improve training for staff.
It pledged greater focus on and understanding of the European institutions as well as issues within the EU.
The BBC said it would move more coverage of the debate beyond the “Westminster prism” after the report accused the BBC of not airing the opinion that Britain should withdraw from the EU, because none of the Westminster parties stood on this platform.
BBC News has also decided to recruit a new Europe Editor to focus on the politics, policy and economics of Europe and the EU.
It will also recruit an additional Europe Institutions Reporter to report for radio, TV and online on the EU decision-making processes in Brussels and Strasbourg.
Today BBC director of news Helen Boaden said: “We are fully committed to providing in-depth, fair and impartial coverage of Europe and the EU, and to engaging our audiences on this highly complex subject.
“This commitment has already been reflected across much of our output. Lord Wilson’s report contains constructive suggestions which we will build into our overall strategy.”
Lord Wilson, the former cabinet secretary, cleared the corporation of deliberate bias in his independent report.
But he said: “While we have found no evidence of deliberate bias in BBC coverage of EU matters, we have found that there is a widespread perception that it suffers from certain forms of cultural and unintentional bias.
“In essence it seems to be the result of a combination of factors including an institutional mindset, a tendency to polarise and over-simplify issues, a measure of ignorance of the EU on the part of some journalists and a failure to report issues which ought to be reported.
“We think that the BBC’s coverage of EU news needs to be improved and to be made more demonstrably impartial.”
Presenters appeared to be ill-briefed and “the problem of ignorance among BBC journalists must be addressed as a matter of urgency,” the report said.
Today’s response said it recognised the need for a range of voices to give full expression to the nuances of the European debate.
It reinforces the need to continue to challenge and question the views of interviewees, it said.
The Board of Governors said: “The Independent Panel found no evidence of deliberate bias, but it concluded that the BBC’s coverage of Europe needed to be improved.
“Furthermore, we noted that, on the evidence of the MORI research, the BBC was not succeeding in providing basic accessible information on the topic of Europe for licence fee payers and urgent action was needed.
“If the BBC is to maintain the public’s trust in its news service, it has to demonstrate its commitment to accuracy and impartiality.
“The response from BBC News is comprehensive and, we believe, demonstrates both recognition of that need and a commitment to delivering it.”
Anti-EU constitution group the Vote No campaign today responded to the report, saying: “There are some good suggestions in this report, but overall the BBC’s response to the independent review has been disappointing.
“The independent review was very critical, but too many BBC executives still refuse to accept that they have got anything wrong.”
It complained that the BBC was refusing to release a copy of its log of its EU-related coverage.
“We don’t understand why the BBC is still refusing to release information which would allow proper scrutiny of their coverage. If the BBC were more transparent there would probably be less criticism.”
