ANOTHER election, another set of wildly exaggerated and unfounded claims about BBC bias, state propaganda, pro-government partiality, anti-government partiality, and the like (Letters, November 25). In support of his argument that purports to prove pro-Conservative bias in our political reporting, Owen Kelly points to “evidence” that the BBC is unfair and unbalanced in its news reporting. I’m afraid the only fake news to be found in the claims is that being fabricated by your correspondent.
He claims the BBC “doctored” footage of the Prime Minister on Question Time. Untrue. What the BBC did, in editing a piece for broadcast on a lunchtime news bulletin, was to shorten it for timing reasons. It wasn’t “doctored” and it wasn’t altered in any other way. Inadvertently, in shortening it, the full audience response to Boris Johnson’s answer was removed. Was it intended to mislead, as your correspondent suggests? Of course not.
He goes on to suggest we altered footage of the PM at the Cenotaph to show him in a better light. Again, totally untrue. Nothing more than a simple production error resulted in footage of Remembrance Sunday 2016, which was among archive restored very early that morning to preview the service, being used in error in early morning news reports.
He tells us Laura Kuenssberg is “Government-friendly” (whatever that is supposed to mean) and he suggests that scrutiny of the Scottish Government and honest, relevant questioning, by Gary Robertson, of a Scottish Government minister is, in his eyes, a ‘witch hunt”. He is, of course, entitled to look at life through whatever prism he chooses but I’m sorry to have to inform him that honest, impartial scrutiny of those in power, in Holyrood and in Westminster, is what we will continue to do. Without fear or favour.
Ian Small, Head of Public Policy & Corporate Affairs BBC Scotland, Glasgow G51.
ALISON Rowat ought not to be surprised by there having seemed to be so many Scots in the Question Time Leaders Special audience (“The big question: Why were there so many Scots in audience?”,The Herald, November 23). I have been in one or two BBC debate audiences in the last five years and any screening to get a diverse range of political views is minimal, verging on the non-existent. The BBC variously claims that audiences are “self-selecting” ( whatever that means ) or that screening and scanning of audience sympathies is carefully balanced. The reality is that the BBC lets in anyone who turns up. At the last event I attended in an audience at a school venue in south-west Scotland, we had been told to bring along ID but in fact no BBC staff even looked at our identity.
I am more much worried by the lack of balance on panel membership up on stage for BBC debate programmes . Each week on BBC Radio 4 Any Questions, for instance , there appears to be a solitary Brexiter pitched against three Remoaners, and the producers seem to see nothing remiss in this imbalance, week in week out.
Gus Logan, North Berwick.
Wait for it
A WORD to your golf correspondent, Nick Rodger; we do not wait on our next young hopeful unless we are attending to his needs in the restaurant of the swanky hotel referred to in today’s article (“MacIntyre still on the money to be Scotland’s golfing likely lad”, Herald Sport, November 26). We wait for him.
David Miller, Milngavie.
Comic cuts
THE obituary by David Pollock (November 20) lacked any reference to Niall Toibin’s brilliant comedic stand-up routines highlighting the varying accents and linguistic features existing across the island of Ireland. Readily available on You Tube, they are well worth a watch.
Duncan Macintyre, Greenock.
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