EARLIER today The Scotsman published a piece by Ian Small, the head of public policy and corporate affairs at BBC Scotland.
Small begins by deriding social media then cites two statistics from a recent survey – that 50% of us worry about fake news and that 64% cannot distinguish between it and actual news.
This leads in nicely to the recent YouTube censorship controversy, which saw two pro-independence channels taken down after the BBC reported them for copyright.
READ MORE: BBC drop copyright complaint on Peter Curran's pro-independence YouTube channel
To Small’s chagrin, the BBC “institutional bias” debate was thus rekindled.
Who would have thought that seeing the BBC’s actions result in two pro-independence channels being taken down would lead some to think that the BBC had it in for pro-independence content? Especially when no channels of a Unionist persuasion, which have also breached BBC “copyright”, were targeted, and given that chiefs in Scotland were not consulted by London before the action was taken.
READ MORE: Confirmed: BBC Scotland WASN'T consulted over Wings YouTube ban
Small then references Ofcom’s Media Nations: Scotland report, which reveals no more than the fact that “four in five regular viewers in Scotland rated BBC One’s wide range of quality news highly".
So regular viewers of the BBC’s news output rate its news highly. What about non-regular viewers of the BBC? Or those that don’t watch the BBC at all?
The piece fails to mention a UK Government study in 2016 on the BBC’s future, based on two mass surveys, which found that Scottish viewers were consistently the most critical and least supportive of any demographic group. That applied whether based on place of residence, age, or social group.
National columnist Lesley Riddoch also comes in for some flak. One criticism is of her raising that the recent All Under One Banner marches have not been covered adequately by the BBC.
READ MORE: WATCH: Alex Salmond's video diary on BBC's YouTube censorship of Wings
BBC journalist Nick Eardley has apparently corrected Riddoch, pointing her in the direction of some web articles. The fact that Riddoch was talking specifically about the broadcast media – you know, from the British Broadcasting Corporation – is brushed over by Small as “at odds with the digital world in which we all live”.
Small ends his piece, commendably, by offering to talk to those with grievances. The sentiment here is welcomed but many independence supporters will see his article as yet more spin from the Beeb.
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