Biased BBC

Watching the Look North (East) news late on 28th August, I was appalled by the biased coverage of the bank holiday’s accident reporting (covering Lincolnshire, and where bikes featured heavily thanks to Cadwell BSB and a few ‘juicy’ pictures & videos).

I was fuming, so I sent the following to the BBC:

During this news bulletin at approx 22:30, a great deal of airtime was devoted to the Lincolnshire Police and a spate of accidents over the bank holiday weekend.

The police were quoted that there were 40 accidents, and 3 fatalities. One of the fatal accidents was a motorcyclist, and another was (apparently) a pedestrian hit by a motorcyclist.

Almost all of that segment was either bemoaning motorcycles or motorcyclists. If there wasn’t an ‘interesting’ person on-screen portraying motorcyclists as street-racing, idiotic speed freaks, or camera-phone video of the aftermath of an accident, there seemed to be a shot of the wreckage of a motorcycle (or several).

In the interests of balance, I would have hoped for some figure being mentioned of the actual facts behind the number mentioned, and ‘weight’ apportioned between car and motorcycle wreckage.

No mention was made of the third fatality, and the viewer can only assume that a motorcyclist wasn’t involved, therefore it wasn’t fitting to the piece to make any reference to it.

Please include in your response the official statistics from Lincolnshire Police, hopefully including the proportion of those 40 accidents that involved motorcyclists.

If there is any resemblance between the balance of your report and the facts of the case (in my opinion roughly 90% of those 40 accidents would have to be caused by irresponsible riding and/or excessive speed for the report to be fair and balanced) I would be astounded. If there isn’t, I would like the editor (or other responsible person) to be quizzed as to their anti-biking stance, and removed from the editorial process.

I would hope they are not taking an opportunity to ‘bash bikers’ because they were recently stuck in a traffic jam and a few bikers were able to filter past them.

However, considering some treatment I have personally recieved from frustrated car drivers (and yes, I do also drive, cars, vans and I even used to be a bus driver) I wouldn’t put this past anyone. I would have assumed though that such a biased report would have been flagged by several people before airing.

I am left with the distinct impression that 1 biker fatality, with another biker hitting a pedestrian to cause another fatality (but who was at fault there?), coupled with some nice camera-phone footage of a helicopter and a damaged motorcycle when linked with the occasion of the British Superbike rounds held at Cadwell Park had ‘news-worthiness’ beyond the factual support available, and certainly did not respresent the reported facts in a balanced manner.

There are many possible reasons for a temporary surge in accident rates. Did your reporter or editorial team find out if 40 accidents is abnormal? Were the vast majority caused by or involved motorcycles? Is 40 actually lower than expected for a bank holiday weekend with decent weather? Do these 40 accidents all involve injury, or was the BBC used/abused into doing some of the dirty-work that ACPO and some high profile Chief Constables are intent on doing regarding the motorcycling community?

I look forward to your response.

I had this response:

“Dear Mr Hall,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding ‘Look North’ broadcast on 28 August.

I understand that you felt the report into traffic accidents over the bank holiday was deeply unfair to motorcyclists and that you felt the report implicitly blamed motorcylists for the spate of accidents.

I can assure you that this was not the intention, in dealing with such items the BBC is required to give a fair and balanced report. Balance cannot simply be judged on the basis of the time allocated to the representatives of either side of an argument however.

One spokesperson may make his or her points concisely while another needs rather longer to explain a point of view. Account also needs to be taken of the way a subject is covered over a period of time; perfect balance is difficult to achieve on every single occasion while overall it is a more achievable goal.

Please be assured that I have registered your complaint and concerns on the daily log, this is an internal document which will be made available to the production team as well as the senior management of the BBC.

Thank you once again for taking the trouble to contact us.

Regards

Richard Carey, BBC Information”

Well, thanks a bunch. Perfect balance is hard is it? 

I wouldn’t mind that attitude if there was ANY balance, but there was nothing but anti-biker opinion, statement, impression, comment and imagery. Absolutely no counter-point whatsoever.

I’m glad my complaint will appear on a daily log that might be seen by 2 people before it’s recycled to wipe one of their arses.

Makes me all warm inside to know genuine complaint can be treated with such rigour…I will never argue against a licence fee rise again, as I know it’ll be more than worth it, in such safe hands.

Regards, Trev