Another day, another claim of BBC bias.
Saturday’s anti far-right march in London drew huge crowds and high-profile supporters from across the country.
I didn’t attend, but I know a few people that did. I’ve seen enough protests over the years to know it was an impressive response to concerns about the far right’s growth, which I share.
The BBC was one of few media outlets to cover it through the day, in broadcast and online.
But that didn’t stop Green Party leader Zack Polanski accusing the BBC of ‘blatant bias’ for not covering it more prominently.
Polanski has made a strong start as Green Party leader. He’s a great communicator and could lead his party to impressive results in May’s local and devolved elections.
He may have wanted the protest to lead the news, as many others on my social feeds clearly did.
But biased? Noone really knows for certain whether this protest was covered more or less than others have been, although it got a decent show at a time when there’s lots of other news happening. But we need some perspective here, for reasons which I set out below.
Protesting too much?
Firstly, I’m unsure why anyone expects this protest to lead the news when there are much bigger stories to cover, which in some ways affect us all.
The BBC covers international news in a manner that few other broadcasters match – check its recent output here.
Secondly, protest marches happen often. I’m fully behind the cause of this one. The turnout was impressive. But the fact that it’s happening doesn’t mean it should lead the news, however much you support it. Newsrooms weighing this against other huge stories happening at the same time just won’t see protest in the same way.
And the BBC covered it more than most other media did. Some say the story is buried on the BBC website. But a protest doesn’t have a long shelf life. The way they’re covered – if at all – is pretty standard, whatever the cause. People turn up in their thousands, or hundreds of thousands (depending on who you listen to). They protest. Some dance. Some placards are imaginative, others offensive. And then the protesters go home. That’s it.
Finally, I worry that the constant drip of claims of bias against the BBC leaves it vulnerable to those who want to defund it or do it serious harm.
This includes people like Donald Trump, below celebrating recent resignations at the BBC following the Panorama slip up.
Or media outlets like GB News and The Telegraph – both virulently partisan and anti-BBC. They batter it while showing little interest in applying the same standards of objectivity and accuracy to themselves.
Supporting the BBC
I know the BBC isn’t perfect. Sometimes it’s unfuriating. But to those who think it’s biased for not giving yesterday’s protest more of a show, I’d make the following points.
Globally, the BBC matters. In countries where the media is bent to the will of bad actors, its reporting is seen as a source of truth amidst the noise and bluster.
Closter to home, it supports regional economies by investing in cities and towns across the country, employing thousands of people and working with local businesses. Places would be poorer without them in it.
When it makes mistakes, it holds itself to a standard that other media wouldn’t dream of. Compare its response to scandals and editorial failures with the tabloid media’s drawn-out crawl through the phone-hacking scandal.
And I can say, as someone who’s worked with the BBC across the country for decades, that its journalists genuinely care about getting to the truth of the stories they cover. They don’t always get it right. And, harsh as it is, they won’t always be interested in your story. But that doesn’t make them biased.
Our media is in a tough spot. News is a messy business, and we live in troubling times. But I believe we get the media we deserve, so I’d like to thank BBC news journalists for what they do. More than ever, we need journalism that’s trusted, truthful and brave.
Beyond that, we all have a responsibility to take a breath before we call bias or fake news. We’ve seen elsewhere where that leads.