THE BBC and 'EUROPE' ANALYSIS of EU NEWS
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1 THE BBC and ‘EUROPE’ ANALYSIS OF EU NEWS COVERAGE ON FOUR BBC PROGRAMMES 27 October - 21 December 2014 2 CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................... p.4 Summary of the project’s primary findings PROJECT OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................................... p.5 An overview of the methodology used and the four BBC programmes sampled. PART ONE – ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................ p.6 A line-by-line content analysis based on full transcripts of the 163 EU-related items broadcast during the survey period. 1.1 Overview of Findings .............................................................................................................................. p.6 An overview of findings of the eight week survey 1.2 Treatment of the EU and its Processes ............................................................................................... p.9 An analysis of how the four surveyed programmes covered EU processes 1.3 Treatment of Labour ............................................................................................................................. p.10 An analysis of how Labour party policy was explored and how Labour guests were treated during the survey. 1.4 Treatment of the Conservatives ......................................................................................................... p.11 An analysis of how Conservative party policy was explored and the treatment of Conservative guests 1.5 Treatment of UKIP ................................................................................................................................. p.14 An analysis of how UKIP party policy was explored and how UKIP guests were treated during the survey. 1.6 Treatment of Withdrawal ................................................................................................................... p.18 A focus on the discussion of the withdrawal argument during the survey. 1.7 Treatment of Immigration ................................................................................................................... p.18 Analysis of how the central issue of the survey period – immigration – was handled by the four programmes. 1.8 Treatment of EU Issues ......................................................................................................................... p.19 An analysis of the ‘everyday’ EU issues covered by the four programmes during the survey interval PART TWO – MONITORING STATISTICS .................................................................... p.20 Data pertaining only to Radio 4’s Today was analysed separately to allow comparisons with historical data. 2.1 Programmes Monitored ........................................................................................................................ p.20 Details of the four BBC programmes selected for analysis during the Winter 2014 survey period. 2.2 EU Coverage on the Four Surveyed Programmes ......................................................................... p.21 Volumes and proportions of EU-related coverage across each of the four surveyed programmes. 2.3 Comparisons with Earlier Surveys ...................................................................................................... p.22 A direct comparison of EU coverage on the four programmes monitored during the Winter 2014 survey on the with output recorded by News-watch during the 2009 and 2014 Elections to the European Parliament and the 2010 UK General Election 3 2.4 EU Coverage by Week .......................................................................................................................... p.23 An examination of the shape of EU coverage as the survey progressed. 2.5 EU Themes .............................................................................................................................................. p.25 Coverage was analysed to reveal which EU themes appeared most frequently. 2.6 Guest Contributors ............................................................................................................................... p.26 A statistical analysis of the 305 guest speakers who contributed to the four programmes during the survey. 2.7 Withdrawalist Contributors ................................................................................................................ p.28 An overview of the 37 identifiably withdrawalist speakers who contributed to EU coverage during the survey 1.8 Political Representatives from the Five Main Parties ..................................................................... p.30 An examination of all appearances by Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, UKIP and Green speakers. 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY As the BBC’s coverage of the general election gathers pace, the latest News-watch survey shows that reporting of European Union affairs by the Corporation continues to be deeply inadequate and biased. In March, the House of Commons EU Scrutiny Committee – which had heard evidence from News-watch as well as senior figures from the BBC – strongly attacked the BBC’s EU-related output.1 It said that Charter requirements to provide audiences with balanced and wide-ranging coverage of EU affairs were not being met, and that, especially, eurosceptic perspectives were not being properly reflected. In its latest survey, independent monitoring organisation News-watch monitored four BBC programmes for an eight-week period between Monday 27 October and Saturday 21 December 2014. The programmes were: The World at One and PM on BBC Radio 4, BBC1’s News at Ten, and BBC2’s Newsnight. This equated to approximately 131 hours of broadcasting. This analysis, based on complete analysis of a range of flagship news programmes makes the following findings: Coverage of the issues surrounding withdrawal was both minimal and inadequate. The vast bulk of news about Conservative handling of EU affairs was through the lens of party splits, which, it was emphasised by BBC correspondents, had been raging since Maastricht. There was disproportionate effort to cover these divisions, exaggeration of the scale of the problem and a corresponding failure to scrutinise policies; rows took precedence over informing audiences about the bread and butter issues of EU membership. There was relatively little analysis of Labour policies towards the EU. Party members were afforded regular platforms to attack Conservative and Ukip policies, but their own controversial approach towards limitation of immigration or the potential threat posed by Ukip was seldom featured or analysed. Members of the party who are strongly eurosceptic occasionally were asked for comment, but their quotes were too brief to give a true indication of the debate within the party about EU membership The main theme of coverage of Ukip continued to be (as has been noted in earlier News-watch reports) that both individually and as a party, it was inept, confused and potentially both venal and racist. There was a heavy focus on its shortcomings, but very little coverage or analysis of key issues such as withdrawal and the limitations of the EU. And the main editorial reaction to Ukip’s victory at Rochester was to ask Conservative MP Phillip Davies if he would not defect to Ukip. Another problem was that, while it was frequently said that the EU opposed reform of matters such as the Free Movement of Peoples Directive – and platforms were often given to EU figures to say that – there was no editorial effort to scrutinise why such policies could not be changed or reformed. 1 http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/european-scrutiny- committee/news/scrutiny-reform-follow-up-and-legacy-report/ 5 PROJECT OVERVIEW: News-watch monitored four BBC programmes for an eight-week period between Monday 27 October and Saturday 21 December 2014. The programmes were Radio 4’s The World at One and PM, BBC1’s News at Ten, and BBC2’s Newsnight. This equated to approximately 131 hours of broadcasting. All individual editions of the four selected programmes were monitored and analysed in their entirety, and every item of relevance to the European Union were fully transcribed. 163 individual programme transcripts with a combined length of 120,000 words were analysed on a line-by-line basis, and data from the survey was compiled into a bespoke database to facilitate statistical analysis. The News-watch methodology deploys a range of robust analytical tools, based on firmly established academic principles and involving both quantitative and qualitative components. This allows for weaknesses in individual broadcast reports to be examined in detail, and also for longitudinal trends and imbalances to be identified. This section of the report focuses primarily on content analysis of the four programmes, showing patterns in coverage and how these compare, both within the sample itself and historically, and in particular comparisons to coverage on the programmes during the last News-watch survey undertaken during the period of the 2014 European Parliamentary Elections in Spring 2014. 6 PART ONE: ANALYSIS 1.1 OVERVIEW OF FINDINGS ‘As the nation's public service broadcaster the BBC has very particular obligations under its Charter and Framework Agreement, both to be impartial and also to educate