and is almost certainly a less biased news source than a commercially funded enterprise would be.
www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/bbc-bias-and-scots-referendum-new-report/
The simple numerical preponderance of anti-independence statements over pro-independence statements by a ratio of c3:2 on Reporting Scotland and on STV, is also clear. One obvious explanation lies in the editorial decision to allow all three anti-independence parties to respond to each SNP statement creating an unavoidable predominance of statements from the former even when these were kept short. Anti-independence statements were heavily concentrated on economic affairs such as alleged increased unemployment or closures after independence, such as:
- On 29/10/12 in Reporting Scotland, an extensive piece on Trident and on Scotland’s defence forces after independence offers some space for SNP response but is driven by a weight of one-sided and unchallenged evidence and commentary – unnamed economic advisers are allowed to suggest 6500 jobs lost if Trident goes and an overall cost of £20bn while the report finishes ominously with ‘Whitehall could play hardball’.
- On 11/12/12, in Reporting Scotland, the programme opens with ‘Row over independence could lead to higher electricity bills’ then runs through a series of negative sound bites interspersed with SNP protest – ‘questions mount over independence’, ‘UK government claims cost could rise’, ‘Could Scots customers have to pay more?’, ‘Labour spokesman – danger’ before allowing the evidence of Scottish over-production, renewables and a captive market in England to cast serious doubt on the motivation for the initial headline ‘scare’.
This began a mini-series of reports that day on alleged failings in the Scottish NHS by Reporting Scotland reporters and by Labour spokespersons. No balancing cases were reported of a flow in the other direction although such did appear in the popular press (‘Now English asthma patients are denied life-changing drug offered to Scots’, Daily Mail, 9/11/12). The use of single cases to suggest wider concerns is of course problematic.
Comparing Reporting Scotland with STV News, the former seems less balanced and fair to the Yes campaign if only in the tendency to give pro-independence statements a greater frequency of opening and closing debates. Overall, however, both feature a preponderance of anti-independence statements, a majority of anti-independence evidence and a heavy personalisation of the debate around the character of Alex Salmond with the latter often portrayed as selfish and undemocratic. However, if we characterise viewers as likely to watch both BBC 1 and Reporting Scotland or both STV and ITV News, in succession, the two experiences diverge further than is apparent in comparing one programme with another. The BBC1, Reporting Scotland alerts are commonly short and punchy with an attack, typically a Westminster scare story, on the Yes campaign, mostly left unanswered and unchallenged.