Despite reports in our local newspaper, Scotland hasn’t yet become independent.
One of those who wish that we were independent is Mike Russell MSP. I’ve met Mr Russell once or twice and think that he’s one of the good guys: he doesn’t believe that everything should be done by the state, an opinion that’s far from universal in Scotland.
Earlier in the year Mike took part in a BBC programme about the Union. He wasn’t entirely happy with Britain’s “national” broadcaster:
Yet even so, the whole thing was undoubtedly skewed in favour of the status quo. The choice of non-speaking guests depended heavily on the Scottish establishment who are far from representative of Scottish opinion.
But Mike doesn’t come down too hard on the Beeb:
Those problems can be put down to ignorance , and moreover an ignorance that is excusable , even if one would expect that by now the BBC would be aware of such pitfalls and take steps to overcome them (for example by drafting in to any London based production in Scotland some Scottish broadcasting advisers.)
So, if the bias isn’t deliberate, what is really going on here? Here’s Mike’s answer:
Knowing many journalists and broadcasters as I do, however, I think that it is an institutional bias that is at fault. The BBC as a corporate body is part of the British establishment and its thinking is based on the continuation of that establishment as it is. The organisaton simply cannot envisage the validity of other choices, and consequently its actions are dictated by that intellectual blind spot.
Precisely. And that’s exactly why the state shouldn’t be involved in broadcasting any more than it should be running newspapers.
So will all be hunky-dory when Scotland is independent and that Icelandic building really is an embassy? Not necessarily. Here’s Mike again:
I have also made it clear that my own experience as a programme maker left me in no doubt that the BBC was – at one stage – the best and most creative broadcasting institution in the world. Taking its programme making values and enshrining them in a newly energised Scottish Broadcasting Company, which could access the best of British and world output but present it and add to it from our perspective has long been a cherished policy aim of the SNP and remains so
Now I agree entirely that the Scottish license fee payer gets a raw deal from the BBC. Scottish broadcasting output is way below our contribution to the “national” kitty. But that’s par for the course in centralised Britain. The question is, though, should we expect a Scottish state broadcaster to be any different? Indeed, a broadcaster with only 5 million home customers might well be even more in thrall to its own local establishment than is the Beeb. And an independent social democratic Scotland certainly would have its own establishment that wouldn’t be representative of Scottishopinion.
Mike writes this:
And the real jewel in the crown – the guaranteed impartial, honest and high quality broadcasting service on which we should rely, and for which we are each as citizens prepared to pay – becomes tarnished , brittle and then broken.
But the BBC’s not “impartial”, is it? There is no guarantee. Why should we expect a Scottish state broadcaster to be any different? I’m certainly not “prepared” to pay for one voluntarily. If Mike really wants Scotland to be an example to other countries why doesn’t he campaign for a totally free market in broadcasting? Let’s have a hundred Scottish Broadcasting Companies.
A David Holdsworth, was on BBC News 24 yesterday in a state of denial about news coverage in Buckinghamshire. We saw an interview with a police inspector who lamented the fact that they could not get any Television coverage of two recent murders, which would have helped them with their enquiries, as the public would have seen images of the people murdered. It wasnt covered by the BBC, the criticism being, because it was something that happened away from the “centre”.
Mr Holdsworth, just couldn’t understand how two murders in Buckinghamshire just happened without even appearing on the radar of his NEWS(sic) organisation.
And what title does this beeboid, David Holdsworth have?
“Acting Controller English Regions
Note not England, but the EU terminology so beloved of John Prescott too, “English regions”.
The BBC thinks less of England than it does Scotland. I don’t hear them refer to “Scottish regions”?
David Holdsworth (BBC Acting Controller English Regions)actually apologised on BBC News 24, when confronted with the fact that his News team had missed two (sic) recent murders in Buckinghamshire
“We are sorry about that!”
A Resigning issue? Competency? Of course not David works for the BBC. As a news organisation they need controllers like him, who appear to be at the very cutting edge of news gathering , lol.
And WE pay his wages!!! You couldn’t make it up!
We don’t WANT A BBC clone up here in Scotland – we’d end up with more stupid Gaelic crap which merely repeats what we see in the English versions a week later or earlier anyway (eg sending people to do reports on Estonia etc in Gaelic and pretending to do a totally different story when it was done the week before in English by a BBC clone…) We are missing the final part of Rome tomorrow night for some stupid Scottish sports programme and have to wait until 2320hrs on Monday night! Yeah right ! Sick of the stupid wee things they report up here as frontpage news for example a seagull nicking Doritos from a shop! And BBC Scotland waste hundreds sending staff and a camera to report this tosh! Aaargh! Thank Gawd for Freeview!
John, they don’t refer to “Scottish regions” because Scotland is a BBC region (as are Northern Ireland and Wales). England, being ten times as populous as Scotland (although not all that much bigger in area), was divided into regions by the BBC long before the EU and Prescott ever thought of it.
I’ve always felt we got the rough end of that deal, because while England has BBC local radio, we get Radio Scotland. I’m sure the inhabitants of Orkney are as uninterested in Glasgow events as would those a similar distance away in Stoke be.
I completely agree with David F that the last thing we need is another state endorsed broadcaster. Not least because, as Dave T says, if there’s one thing that could possibly be worse than the Beeb, it’s BBC Scotland given its head. Russell is talking rubbish: there are few more prominent boosters of the seperatist cause – intentionally or not, I’m never quite sure, but it’s irrelevant – than the Queen Margaret Drive mob. Of course, if the last election results are anything to go by, he’s hardly “representative of Scottish opinion” himself…