Recently, a rather odious Conservative MP, Jonathan Sayeed, now expelled from the party, has been mentioned several times on BBC News Online, with headlines such as Sayeed to stand down as Tory MP and Tour row MP loses Tory party whip. BBC News Online’s coverage of old Seedy has been fulsome and detailed, leaving no doubt that Sayeed was, to use their term, a Tory.
Compare and contrast this with the sparse coverage of Chris Pond MP, quietly mentioned in passing on BBC News Online’s UK and Politics index pages (no picture or feature box or prominent billing for him), leading to their story MP cautioned for criminal damage.
Nowhere in the headline or even in the story is it mentioned that Chris Pond is a Labour MP. Nor is it mentioned in the headline that Pond is a government minister, no less, at the Department of Work and Pensions.
To see what the BBC omitted from their coverage you have to locate the original report in The Mail on Sunday, Minister arrested for attack on young mother, where we find that, apparently unnoticed by the BBC:
Neighbours in the modern mews development where the incident took place said yesterday that they had at first understood from the police that Mr Pond would be prosecuted. But, after the decision was referred to both the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General, the MP escaped with a police caution.
The fact that such senior Government law officers were consulted raises questions over whether the decision not to prosecute was made in order to save Mr Pond’s Ministerial career which would almost certainly have been ended by an ensuing court case.
Another interesting snippet unmentioned by the BBC is the fact that “Mr Pond, 52, has repeatedly spoken out on the need to crack down on ‘nightmare neighbours'”. Indeed.
As with much BBC bias, either of these stories, Sayeed or Pond, taken in isolation, would be fine. It is when you put them together and compare the detailed coverage of ‘Tory’ Sayeed with the bland coverage of ‘MP’ Pond that the BBC’s ‘angle’ becomes apparent. If Pond were a Conservative Minister in a Conservative government in the run up to a general election you could bet that the BBC, along with much of Fleet Street, would be much more interested in his story, leading bulletins with it and generally baying for his head. Lucky for Pond that he’s not a ‘Tory’.
Update: More in Today’s Times: Parking row MP escapes court action.
Very informative and useful, I have a much better fix on the BBC now, and I better understand how to report such a violation should I be sufficiently eagle-eyed to pick one out. Thanks, Mike