BBC used 'flawed model' for 2014 referendum, former journalist says

John Nicolson, who was elected as an SNP MP in 2015 but was working as a journalist when the independence referendum was called, told The National that he believed the BBC had subjected the Yes campaign to “much more rigorous scrutiny” than the No side.

Nicolson, who worked with LBC, ITV, and the BBC over decades before moving into politics, said: “I know that the BBC got a lot of criticism, and afterwards the head of BBC Scotland said to me that he accepted that the BBC had handled the referendum debate as if it was a General Election.

“Of course, that was a flawed model because you had three of the four biggest parties at the time against independence. So, to do three-to-one panels really underrepresented what we subsequently discovered was pretty much half the country.

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“I think the BBC also accepted that it had covered the referendum subjecting the challengers, the Yes campaign, to much more rigorous scrutiny than the establishment.”

However, Nicolson argued that, having worked for the BBC and knowing many of its journalists personally, some of the online claims about them deliberately working against the cause of independence were fabrications.

“People think you go in the morning to the BBC and you're told what to say and think by bosses at an editorial meeting. That's just not what happens,” he said.

“In my experience, I would say that the vast majority of BBC journalists privately are left of centre. And I would say a clear majority of BBC Scotland journalists in my experience are pro-independence, not anti-independence.

“What I would say about the BBC, however, is that it's an establishment institution. It’s conservative with a small C, and I think we saw that in the referendum debate.”

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However, while Nicolson said he believed the BBC struggled to treat “both sides fairly”, he said the output from Scotland’s print media was closer to “crude propaganda” for the Unionist position.

The Unionist dominance of Scotland’s print media was never clearer than on the day of the referendum itself.

The Times of Scotland ran a front page editorial on “our proud Union”, urging Scots to “reject independence”. The Scottish Daily Mail ran an image of the Saltire and Union flags tied together and called for people to vote to “secure Scotland’s future in the glorious and remarkable family of nations that is Great Britain”. The Daily Star in Scotland, known for its unserious headlines, ran a rare straight front page quoting Gordon Brown saying: “We will build the future together.”

The Scottish Times and Daily Mail front pages from September 18, 2014 (Image: Archive) Incidentally, the UK Daily Star ran a front page story claiming that 700,000 Scots – more than 15% of all registered voters – would move to England in the event of a Yes vote. That same story had been headlined in papers like the Times and Express the previous day.

Even among the papers which were presented as neutral, suggestions were rife.

The Herald, which on the face of things did not advise people how to vote, ran a front-page advert with the word “No” in huge print.

The Record gave heavy-handed hints to its own Unionist position – which was in little doubt after running The Vow two days before. Its sister paper The Daily Mirror ran with: “Don’t leave us this way … Vote No today and keep Britain truly GREAT.” The words were strikingly similar to those on the front of the Scottish Express, which politically is often its tabloid opposite.

The Herald and Daily Mirror front pages from September 18, 2014 (Image: Archive) The Sunday Herald was the only paper to overtly back Yes, and its then-editor Richard Walker would go on to found The National in order to put pro-independence voices in Scotland’s media.

Nicolson said that Scotland’s media did not “make the slightest effort to show any balance”.

“I started to follow the press very closely, and I was astonished at the crude propaganda that was being churned out,” the former BBC Newsnight reporter told The National. “Some of the stories were ludicrous.

“I remember one story – and it was in a national paper, a broadsheet – it was that Orkney and Shetland were vulnerable to attack by Vladimir Putin if we became independent.

“I remember thinking surely people are going to laugh at the crudity of the propaganda.”

Former BBC journalist and SNP MP John Nicolson appearing on the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg Show in 2023 (Image: PA) He went on: “What's extraordinary about it was the shameless way that the vast majority of the Scottish press just echoed and amplified the crude messages coming from Better Together.

“There was just such a broad range of bizarre and silly stories that they planted about pensions, about defence, about the hostility of the European Union to Scotland joining – pretty much any of the stories could have been and should have been debunked by decent journalism.

“So much of the inside of the newspapers, and certainly the headlines, weren't what I would recognise as journalism, where the arguments of both sides were examined, subjected to scrutiny, fact checked, basic journalism. It just wasn't happening.

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“There were very crude screaming headlines followed often by the Better Together claims, and then maybe a final sentence with a kind of half-hearted rebuttal from the Yes camp. The coverage was truly atrocious.”

But the story wasn’t universal, Nicolson said. “There were some honourable exceptions, of course.

“Neal Ascherson wrote beautifully and thoughtfully about it. I was very struck by how good Allan Little was in his analysis as well.

“I would single the two of them out, I think, in particular for objective, good quality thoughtful journalism, at the time.”