This purpose of this page is to organise as much articles as possible, articles of media bias against the Scottish independence movement and have it all under one roof. It's also the main hub for organising future protests against the BBC.
This site will contain a back catalogue of cases of BBC bias, links to relevant blogs and news articles and also some articles about other media bias, as well as positive stories about Scotland and independence which you'll be hard pushed to find in the mainstream media.
It will also contain a section where you can help promote the site.. Stickers and flyers will be available to help make this big. This first demonstration is coming up soon but this is only the beginning....
thanks for everyone who has supported us so far on facebook.
A fantastic opinion piece summing up what more and more people are believing to be the case when it comes to the BBC's reporting in Scotland. A scathing attack on the BBC.
This one is quite long, but a good read. Get ready to be angry.
Scotland must be the only country in the world in which every single major media outlet in the land, including the state broadcaster, is opposed to its government's fundamental raison d'etre. That the Scottish National Party won a historic majority in May's national election on this vastly uneven playing field is a testament to the vision, skill and competence of the SNP and the political bankruptcy of its Unionist opponents...
Here is David Dimbleby perpetuating the myth that Scotland is subsidised by England.
He must have got his news from the Daily Mail.
The fact that he is supposed to be an impartial presenter does not come across well here. In a way you can't blame him for believing the English media, but it goes to show (at least) the lack of care taken by presenters and journalists in general. There is a huge lack of respect and understanding of the Scottish constitution within the BBC. Scotland more than pays here way which has been proven time and time again.
BBC’s Paxman accuses Scottish government of ‘riot whingeing’
In this article it explains how Jeremy Paxman has critisised Scotland and Wales for complaining about the use of the term 'UK riots' on BBC broadcasts. The BBC rightfully changed this, but this upset Paxman.
He then goes on to say there is too much public spending in Scotland and Wales. Again, a BBC reporter props up the myth that somehow Scotland gets too much money from the Union.
BBC presenter Jeremy Paxman has described as ‘Celtic whingeing’ the reaction by Scottish and Welsh authorities after they complained about the BBC’s description of the recent English riots as 'UK riots'...
This article is a good example of how the BBC at best leave the SNP as an after thought. At worst are purposefully giving the unionist parties the most (qualitative and quantitative) coverage. This is not an isolated case, once you know what to look for it happens all the time.
It has struck me for some time that there is obvious pro-Labour, anti-SNP bias within the editorial policy in the BBC Scotland news room – often extremely blatant bias such as non or under-reporting of positive news on the SNP side (e.g falling crime figures or rising employment figures) or the burying of anything negative on the Labour side (e.g Mr Gray’s habit of insulting other nations, even in Parliament)...
This article starts off discussing how a Labour politician accused the BBC of being bias for allowing Alex Salmond on BBC Question Time. Now that's funny.
The rest of the article explains how the BBC reported the upcoming Scottish elections. Firstly they commissioned a poll before the SNP had even released their manifesto which is a possible breech of charter as it can be seen as interfering and unbalanced.
After the SNP overtook Labour in the polls the BBC decided to all but ignore this fact and continue as if nothing had happened. Are the BBC trying to shape the public opinion? You decide.
It was one of last week’s most surprising headlines and it raised eyebrows amongst those of us who have been following the political output from BBC Scotland this last 24 months. The team at Pacific Quay were facing allegations of political bias...
Little slip up here by the BBC. Wouldn't usually be much of a big deal, but the fact is these things happen more and more often as time goes on and they always seem to be detrimental to the SNP. This is pre-SNP majority and things are only to get worse.
IT’S not often my old mate, Douglas Fraser, BBC Scotland’s business and economy editor, gets his facts wrong. But wrong he was yesterday when analysing the latest job figures for Scotland.
Here’s what Douglas told us on the BBC Scotland website:
“The latest survey figures saw 7,000 more people...
Nation to nation: the problem of speaking for Britain
An article by respected Journalist Gerry Hassan who often writes for the Scotsman newspaper discussing how the BBC is uncomfortable with constitutional change and still hasn't accepted Scottish devolution.
Question Time is the BBC’s flagship UK political programme, or at least once was. Now with populist current affairs programmes such as ‘The Week in Politics’ and ‘The Daily Politics’ we are dealing with a crowded marketplace.
More...
Here's a video to along with the article showing Dimbleby's lack of respect towards Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish constitution in general.
Much of question time is dedicated to policies that only affect England so why can we not have any discussion about Scotland when this episode is taking place in Scotland?
Over the course of these articles the media's hysterics, and specifically the BBC's reporting over the Megrahi case come into question.
If you only have time for one section (it is rather large) I'd suggest part 2.
In summary: In 2007 it emerged that a deal was being arranged by the Labour led UK government to release Al Megrahi as a trade off for better relations with Lybia and open up trade with them again, i.e. oil etc. The SNP were opposed to this and led the way to exposing this deal.
The media did little to cover this, there was no 'outcry' quoted on the BBC and it was brushed away without much thought. Salmond was accused of 'picking fights' by the media.
2 years later when it turns out Al Megrahi is terminally ill and released on compassionate grounds under Scots law, the media go into a frenzy, led by the BBC. There were no dodgy deals by the Scottish government, but this got much wider coverage. Why? Because it was a reason to put the SNP down.
Also the BBC's reports now attempted to mix Labour's deals with Lybia in the past with this story to make it seem although they were related.
Part 1: The Desert Deal
...Few posts on the blog attracted more by way of traffic and comments than our analysis of the coverage provided by the Scottish media of the release, on compassionate grounds, of the man known as the Lockerbie Bomber, Al Megrahi....
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Part 2: Outrage at the BBC
Part 2 goes into detail of how the BBC reported the release of Megrahi on compassionate grounds and tried to spin the story against the Scottish government.
...In 2007 a dialogue with Libya was secretly opened up by the Labour government. This culminated in a secret desert meeting in May of that year between Tony Blair and Col Gadaffi, the purpose of which was to agree a deal that would lead to the return of Al Megrahi and help the advancement of UK business interests in Libya....
More...
Part 3: The Backlash
Part 3 reveals how there wasn't really much 'backlash' across the U.S despite how the BBC chose to portray it.
...In the days and weeks following Megrahi’s return to Libya the news coverage turned away from the release and onto international reaction. The story was global, it received huge coverage not least because of the pronouncements by senior American politicians...
Pacific Quay mob linked to disappearance of £1.3 billion
This article demonstrates the BBC's amazing ability to pretty much ignore anything positive about Scotland, especially a story that shows an independence supporting party running the country rather well.
In brief, the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland figures show Scotland in the year 2008/2009 had a budget surplus of £1.3 billion. That means we made £1.3 billion more than we spent, the opposite of being in deficit (debt).
The BBC of course decided to virtually ignore this.
...last Wednesday the annual Government Expenditure for Scotland Report (GERS) revealed that for the fourth successive year Scotland ran a budgetary surplus, or to put it into simple terms Scotland generated more money than she spent - £1.3 billion more to be precise. This meant that a Scotland with full control over its own finances would have had £1.3 billion MORE to spend this year than it has. Indeed, if we go back four years then the nation would have had a tidy £3.5 billion more....
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And here is a link to the official GERS figures
Scotland's public finances are in a healthy position, with the country generating more income than it spends even in a period of recession, official statistics published today show. This is the fourth year in a row that Scotland has generated a current budget surplus, compared to a UK-wide deficit over the same period.
Here's a fine example of the BBC having a field day. A public service broadcast for the Labour party. Only, it's supposed to be a news show. Labour are given a day of unchallenged free-reign. Ever seen any other party get such treatment?
It hit the headlines recently after two Dutch models were arrested in South Africa for taking part in an informal advertising stunt in a world cup stadium for a German brewery. Ex Wimbledon footballer Robbie Earl was sacked from his role as a football pundit after his world cup match tickets were used for a similar stunt.
Ambush marketing is in the news. An advertising stunt that takes place around an event but does not involve payment of a sponsorship fee to the event – in other words it is entirely free.
So what you might say, what of it?
Well last Sunday (13 June) on The Politics Show Scotland we witnessed something quite similar as a large chunk of the show was given over to what can only be described as free advertising for a political party.
This is an article from back when BBC Scotland first decided it was appropriate to censor any mention of the news site 'newsnetscotland' (a pro independence site which is also critical of the BBC). At the time it was not as big as it is today but the BBC obviously saw it as a thread. I as the person running this site personally tried mentioning the site only to have the message censored. However, I was allowed to mention Labourhame (a pro-labour/pro-union site). This was before the ban on comments all together.
All who visit this site will know that from time to time we like to cast a critical eye over the political offerings served up by those public servants who occupy Pacific Quay – or BBC Scotland as it is more commonly known.....
Interesting old article on some BBC heckling of the SNP, making statements for them and bigging up Labour. This was before the SNP won its majority and the BBC was yet to up the anti, but was still doing well in the practice of partiality. The video's don't seem to stream any more, but are still downloadable.
Three events dominated the Scottish news this week;
The Conservative/Lib Dem alliance, the failure of Labour negotiations with Lib Dems and Thursday’s First Ministers Questions at Holyrood; the first since the departure of Gordon Brown.
How were each of these events covered by our media, and how did coverage North and South of the border differ?..
An old-school case of the BBC making an error with SNP content. This happens too often to be down to coincidence. It's at least neglect, possibly darn right arrogance.
The BBC have been accused of sidelining the SNP after it emerged that theirs is the only Party Election Broadcast not available on the BBC’s online iPlayer.
When visiting the iPlayer site the link for the SNP election broadcast is marked 'Coming soon'....
BBC accused of discriminating over 'democratic disgrace'
More from the BBC's snubbing of Scottish and Welsh parties from the electoral debates.
The SNP have described the BBC Trust’s decision to reject the appeal against the exclusion from the leaders debate of both Plaid Cymru and themselves as a ‘democratic disgrace’.
They also accused the London based corporation of “discrimination” against Scotland and Wales...
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Here's what Ofcom have to say on the matter:
"6.2 Due weight must be given to the coverage of major parties during the election period. Broadcasters must also consider giving appropriate coverage to other parties and independent candidates with significant views and perspectives."
continuing
"Meaning of 'major party': At present in the UK major parties are the Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. In addition, major parties in Scotland and Wales respectively are the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. The major parties in Northern Ireland are the Democratic Unionist Party, Sinn Fein, Social Democratic and Labour Party, and the Ulster Unionist Party."
This article demonstrates some of the attitudes from within the BBC and how neglectful they are of anything Scottish.
When I was chairman of the Scottish Independent Programme Producers Association I helped to negotiate terms of trade with the BBC for independent production. One of my non-negotiable demands was for the corporation to contract with Scottish producers under Scottish law.
'But we deal with the whole world under English law!', they said.
'You may deal with the whole world under whatever law you feel most appropriate,' I replied, 'but you are the British Broadcasting Corporation and in Scotland you are constitutionally bound to accept Scottish law.'
There could be no argument, but it took three years to get it accepted. It says a lot about the BBC....
Here is an early example of the way BBC Scotland presenters treat their SNP guests. Using labour spin as fact, heckling, interrupting and giving less time to them than their unionist counterparts.
BBC Scotland presenter Glenn Campbell has come under fire following his handling of a live election debate.
The Politics Show Scotland saw Labour’s Jim Murphy the SNP’s Angus Robertson, Conservative David Mundell and Liberal Democrat politician Alistair Carmichael answer a series of set piece questions posed by Campbell...
