THAT one-third of Scots audiences believe the BBC’s news reporting is biased against Scottish independence, as indicated by your recent poll, is no surprise (“One-third of Scots think BBC is biased”, The Herald February 11).
London-centric bias does not stop with the issue of Scottish independence, however. The plethora of programmes about Henry the Eighth and his wives and other aspects of the English monarchy would be fine if there were counterbalancing output about Scottish, Welsh and Irish history aired throughout the network. There is not. Thus, while we in Scotland, Wales and Ireland are deluged by English history and cultural values, English viewers are denied significant educative exposure to ours. Then when a rare quality series about the Neolithic wonders uncovered in Orkney is aired on the network, there is a cringingly embarrassing and seemingly deliberate omission of the word Scotland throughout the entire run. Certainly Scotland and England as political entities did not exist in Neolithic times, but surely it is only reasonable to acknowledge that the Scotland of today is the country in which the featured world-class archaeology exists.
Then there is the bias against the European Union. That only seven per cent of UK citizens can name their MEPs is surely due in part to the neglect of the BBC, with one exception, in covering and explaining in any depth the politics and development of the EU. The exception is the excellent Gaelic programme Eorpa, which, of course, is not broadcast in England. The ultimate irony is that while the BBC feeds us endless coverage of events in the United States of America, a union of which we are not part, we are deprived of instructive information about the European Union of which we are part.
Roy Pedersen,
Lochlann,
8 Drummond Road, Inverness.
MATHS was never my strong point, but even I can work out that if one-third of Scots think that the BBC is biased, then two-thirds believe that it isn't.
It would be interesting to find out what a similar survey in the south-west or north of England, Wales or Northern Ireland might show. Perhaps that the bias is always towards London as against any other part of the UK.
Morag Thomson,
36 Roselea Drive, Milngavie.
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