Lesley Riddoch: A dynamic Scottish Six is now possible

Hooray. You’d think most viewers and certainly every journalist would agree with NUJ Scottish organiser Paul Holleran, who said: “The Scottish Six is a no-brainer – it gives our members an opportunity to grow BBC Scotland into the impressive media operation it always should have been.” But listening to discussions of the Scottish Six on TV and radio the level of Scottish Cringe on display was quite extraordinary. Caller after caller imagined a dreary, ambition-free repetition of the same limited batch of news – others predicted costs soaring to allow Scottish staff to give a kilted take on the main news from Washington, London or Berlin. Wow. With the exception of a few cheerier voices and an excellent contribution by former BBC and STV News chief Blair Jenkins on Radio Scotland, gloom seemed to abound. Even after discussion was interrupted by the 10 o’clock news bulletin which offered a total mix of international, British and Scottish news as BBC Radio Scotland has done for decades.

Former BBC foreign correspondent Angus Roxburgh then weighed in with a lengthy blog. He agreed with the idea of the Scottish Six. “It is ludicrous that Scottish viewers must watch a half-hour programme of news from London (including health, education and other devolved issues that have little or no bearing on their own lives) before seeing a separate programme that covers those issues,” he wrote. “If the major story of the day is about education, viewers in Scotland should see it at the top of their main bulletin, not in a regional add-on.”

But, he went on: “With the best will in the world, I can’t see how it can be done without Scottish viewers having to put up with a considerable loss in quality.”

Roxburgh argues: “If Laura Kuenssberg or Jeremy Bowen is doing a live interview at the top of the Six O’Clock News, they can’t also do it at the top of a Scottish Six. They could do it – perhaps – at 6.15, but that would mean the Scottish Six is already a poorer relation, having to adjust its running order to suit London’s priorities.”

Now as a former BBC Scotland broadcaster, I’m the first to agree that the Scottish Six will present some difficulties. Again, hooray – with the right resourcing and new leadership in BBC Scotland, that unprecedented level of challenge will perk up the news operation no end. But Roxburgh may not be aware that BBC Scotland already has its own political reporters based at Westminster – as do most newspapers. The time-clash issue is not the only problem. Angle or perspective clash is just as problematic. If Kuenssberg has been chasing the “big beasts” of the Tory and Labour party for her UK six o’clock news piece, she will be unaware of SNP or Green views and under-briefed on aspects of that big issue as it affects Scots viewers. Top of the bulletin reporters and correspondents can only devote their paltry 40 seconds or occasional three minutes to the mainstream perspective and the one that affects the most viewers. We have agreed over many decades to call that the “national” or “British” perspective – but it isn’t and never was. For too long the British perspective has simply been the London one –and increasingly it doesn’t fit Scotland at all. Watching the “national” UK news during the European referendum was sometimes like watching life on another political planet and the alienation experienced every night for months, nay years, may have persuaded Scots voters to vote Remain out of sheer disbelief and defiance.

Ironically, you could argue that lessening Scots’ exposure to the daily parade of “national” news items about Ukip, immigrants, English junior doctors’ strikes and problems with English school exams might produce less annoyance with the Union. And as to the complaint about undue SNP influence if a national bulletin is based in Scotland – must we then conclude network BBC News has had a century of UK Government bias?

Agenda setting is currently an exclusively London privilege and the present discussion of the Scottish Six demonstrates it. The idea of an hour-long news programme from Scotland didn’t make news on network TV and radio until a House of Commons Committee recommended it. Never mind its 20-year journey to that moment. Never mind how antiquated that makes the Commons’ welcome but overdue support. Like an old coat, BBC network reports about Scottish affairs tends to be news for producers and viewers south of the border but heavily “pre-loved” by Scots.

But of course, the aim of the Scottish Six is not to ignore England and the rest of the world, but to analyse it from a Scottish perspective. That’s not to say English-focused stories will be axed, but they should appear far further down the running order. On the other hand, Holyrood should get more serious coverage, the Scottish arts could have a nightly slot and BBC Scotland could correct its central belt bias with a nightly round-up of news from around Scotland. What’s wrong with a BBC Scotland foreign correspondent in Washington and one based in Berlin, since Scottish interests in Europe are now so very different from the interests of rUK? Radio Sweden has 16 foreign correspondents for a population of nine million and not all of that difference arises from the fact they are an independent state. As a mature democracy they recognise no-one else will cover Swedish interests if they don’t. It’s called taking yourself, your democracy and your nation seriously. And it should have been happening in Scotland since devolution.

Roxburgh observes: “Scotland has many talented journalists, some of whom, like Laura Kuenssberg, Quentin Somerville, Iain Watson and James Cook, already work for BBC network news.” Now of course many journalists will want to work abroad or in London for network news – I did for a time and it was great experience. But wouldn’t it be tremendous if some didn’t feel they had to leave Scotland to progress? If they believed there was a meaty enough editorial challenge on offer right here? That is now possible. But it’s not yet in the bag.

BBC Scotland has been making pilots for several months – but all behind closed doors, so no one’s sure how the hour-long slot will be filled. The bizarre suggestion that the Scottish Six could be jointly presented from Scotland and London with the latter presenting UK and international news is still under active consideration by Director-General Tony Hall. There should be no doubt that such a semi-devolved option is completely unacceptable. As Culture Committee member, former BBC Scotland broadcaster and SNP MP John Nicholson put it: “The BBC must resist any hybrid options with a parallel studio and co-presenter in London for non-Scottish stories. As the committee concluded, this would be both needlessly extravagant, and patronising.” Quite.

Of course some anxieties about quality are understandable. Some opt-out programmes have seemed like cheap, cut-down and uninspired versions of their network counterparts. Sometimes entire editions of Reporting Scotland seem to contain only murder stories from the High Court and football. Newsnight Scotland was replaced with Scotland 2016, but it has lagged behind STV’s Scotland Tonight from the start and has recently been axed. Some listeners and viewers might rightly ask if more of the same is worth the candle.

It’s not. But what’s on offer now is just a dim reflection of Scotland’s vitality and a dim flicker of the capacity of our journalists. It’s not just Yes voters who’ve been dissatisfied with BBC Scotland’s current offer. A recent report found less than 50 per cent of Scots think the BBC is good at representing their lives – the lowest satisfaction rate in the UK – and that vote of no confidence wasn’t just aimed at output generated in London or Salford. It was aimed at Controller Ken MacQuarrie and the management at Pacific Quay. Something has to change.

The biggest technical challenge – as long as resourcing issues are met – is not how to handle cameras but how to break up an hour’s news with the same presenters but without adverts.

The BBC network programme Sixty Minutes came off air decades back after research found the title and the hour-long duration was just too daunting for most viewers. Of course Radio Scotland has Scottish Six-style rolling news programmes that last for hours.

And if the BBC is wise, it’ll take some tips from radio about format. But imagination is needed to produce a one-hour programme that feels dynamic, pacey and varied throughout. Reinventing aspects of the 70s’ BBC network programme Nationwide might work – with reports fed in from different presenters around Scotland. For too long, Scots have ignored our own genuine, local, cultural differences to make sure the single central Scottish offering wasn’t further weakened. It’s high time to stop that. The Scottish Six could be the chance to glory in the diversity of Scotland once again.

Scottish Six producers also have to create an authentic Scottish perspective on the world – what agenda will it have? One that is hyper-anxious about the health of North Sea oil but not fussed about the unequal fight to develop renewable energy in the teeth of Westminster resistance? One that’s pre-occupied with football, murder and satisfied with press handouts? One that continues to have no interest in Nordic neighbours because they look remote and insignificant from London?

Above all, will the new programme accept its own vital role in extending Scottish democracy and start treating constitutional change like a popular political reality not a tatty conspiracy against all things sacred? Unpicking the Scottish cringe and its associated reflex reactions from several generations of reporters and production staff will be tough. The BBC’s mission has always been to educate, inform and entertain and to reflect nation onto nation. Now BBC Scotland’s primary task must be reflecting the Scots nation to the Scots and that means some staff – junior and senior – may have to educate and inform themselves about our vast, wee country. Given the limitations of Scotland’s old education system there’s no shame in that.

A dynamic BBC Scotland is finally possible. Now Auntie must deliver.