BBC TRUST REVIEW OF BBC NETWORK NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS COVERAGE OF THE FOUR NATIONS OF THE UK PROGRESS REPORT FROM BBC MANAGEMENT September 2009 BACKGROUND In June 2008, the BBC Trust published an impartiality report on the BBC’s network news coverage of the devolved UK, and the extent to which it was successfully reflecting the constitutional changes begun 10 years earlier. Included in the report was an independent assessment, commissioned by the Trust from Professor Anthony King of Essex University. In July 2008, BBC Management submitted to the Trust a proposed strategy for responding to the issues and concerns that had been identified in the report. The management strategy was accepted, and published, by the Trust. It proposed a significant number of specific actions, and also undertook to report back to the Trust, after 6 months and again after 12 months, on the progress that had been made in putting those proposals into action. A report was duly submitted and approved in January 2009. This further progress report, completed in July 2009, evaluates the situation one year on from the publication of the Trust’s original report. Like its predecessor, this report offers an assessment of the improvements in the range, richness and clarity of BBC coverage of the UK’s nations and regions, including external responses where available. ASSESSMENT OF BBC NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS COVERAGE OF THE UK NATIONS A number of operational changes and significant initiatives have come to fruition since the January 2009 interim report, which taken together will result in sustained and long-term improvements in the quality of BBC coverage in this area. The changes extend across different parts of the editorial chain, including planning, newsgathering, output/services and training. They include the following: • All senior editors in BBC News have attended a two-hour workshop, examining the findings and implications of the Trust’s report and looking in detail at the practical ways in which they should be responding. An abridged version of the workshop has been discussed with all editorial staff. • The College of Journalism has produced an entirely new and vastly expanded Reporting the UK online module, containing films, guides, online glossaries, guides to terminology and titles and interactive exercises. • All senior network editors are taking part in a programme of placements, involving visits to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English Regions. These are intended to help improve their understanding of the devolution story from different perspectives, meet politicians and officials from the devolved bodies, and cultivate contacts with BBC colleagues and others. • Subject specialists from across the UK in health, science and the environment, education and social policy and home affairs have been brought together in a series of day-long workshops designed to help them establish better sharing of information and ideas. In addition, the merger of BBC News with the English Regions has had the effect of creating much stronger ties and much closer co-operation between London and the BBC presence in the rest of England. This will contribute significantly to our continuing efforts to report the whole of the UK better, and in particular will assist us in our efforts to base more of our reporting outside London. Similarly, there has been improved coordination between the BBC’s network and nations teams with greater sharing of intelligence, correspondents and resources. The nations’ political editors, for example, have contributed regularly to UK-wide news output and the newly-appointed Scotland Business Editor has begun to feature more prominently in network coverage of the financial crisis. These operational changes and initiatives are all designed to feed through into improved performance on television and radio in particular, and allow us to demonstrate that we have sustained and built substantially on the progress we reported in January 2009. At a micro level, the vast majority of news items across the output now make clear which part or parts of the UK are being referred to. Demanding this clarity was one of the first management actions in response to the report. Our own monitoring shows that although we have occasional lapses, we are considerably ahead of where we were, and are exercising constant vigilance. Applying a broader brush, we can point to a wide range and increasing number of stories from around the UK, and particularly in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which are finding their way on to network news when they would not have done so before; or are the product of increased co-operation between network and nations news teams; and often both. We are also taking more opportunities to reflect the reality of devolution and key political developments in the nations, to a UK-wide audience. The following sections of the report provide a more detailed assessment of progress in relation to the main areas of concern identified by the Trust’s review: (i) the overall range and richness of network news coverage of the nations and regions; (ii) coverage of devolution and significant political developments in the nations; and a broader approach to coverage of the English regions as part of this drive to improve reporting of the whole of the UK; and (iii) the clarity and precision of news reporting Drawing on the rich variety of the UK in network coverage The 10th anniversary of devolution in May 2009, during the campaign for the local and European elections, offered an obvious opportunity to reflect on these matters, and it was fully seized, especially with reference to Scotland and Wales. The delay in establishing the Northern Ireland Assembly meant that ‘10 Years On’ reflections would not have been appropriate, and indeed the political developments there have been documented more closely and on a more regular basis over the last few years, because of the particular circumstances. Some highlights of the 10th anniversary coverage in Wales and Scotland: Special correspondent Allan Little reported for the Ten O’Clock News and The World Tonight from his home county of Dumfries and Galloway, highlighting among other things the way Scottish policy diverges from that in England and elsewhere in fields like university tuition fees and long-term care for the elderly. Wales network correspondent Wyre Davies did companion pieces on both programmes, assessing the effect of policy decisions taken by the Assembly Government over that period. There was extensive coverage elsewhere too, from both countries – on Radio Five Live (including an interview with First Minister Rhodri Morgan) on the morning radio and television programmes (focussing on the big changes in health, education and transport policy) and on the News Channel, where, for example Welsh political editor Betsan Powys was on air, interviewing guests from the four principal parties. A sequence on the Six O’Clock News brought Wyre Davies together with Scotland correspondent Lorna Gordon, for a double-location report dramatising the contrast between policies in the two nations. In June 2009, an entire edition of Panorama was devoted to a study of the effects of devolution over the past ten years, and an examination of the future constitutional position of Scotland. The European elections threw up strong news stories from both Scotland and Wales, which, even against a backdrop of dramatic political events in London, were duly noted and analysed. The Home Editor, Mark Easton, has responded with enthusiasm to the widening of his role to take greater account in his reportage of the realities of devolution. It is a natural fit with the extensive work he has done in the last couple of years in charting the changing face of the UK through social trends and the effects of phenomena such as globalisation, demographics, new technology and climate change. As well as travelling more widely throughout the UK, he writes a blog (Mark Easton's UK) which features a Map of the Week. It has become a place for a series of essays and discussion on the changing character of Britain and the story of the devolved UK. The recession The final paragraph of our progress report in January 2009 read as follows. “We see the economic downturn and its consequences, which are likely to extend far into 2009 and perhaps beyond, as one obvious opportunity to offer a depth and richness of coverage across the whole of the UK, which will represent a benchmark for our future efforts in this area.” The economic downturn has again been the biggest domestic story over the six months since those words were written, overshadowed only in May by the revelations on MPs’ expenses and the subsequent political fallout. Our report in January 2009 demonstrated the way in which we had brought a genuinely UK-wide approach to our multi-award- winning coverage of the recession. We have maintained and extended that approach through early 2009. The BBC’s portfolio of news outlets have again combined effectively to provide a full picture of the impact of events across the UK. In October last year, network news offered a snapshot of the economy across the whole day. Branded The Downturn, it encompassed all the BBC’s UK-wide and nations/regions news outlets. In April 2009, the day the latest GDP figures confirmed the deepening of the recession, we undertook a similar exercise, asking BBC News correspondents across the country to report on the way each region was being affected by the downturn. Several of them wrote pieces for the website (at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8015082.stm), others appeared on the airwaves throughout the day to give localised snapshots of a national crisis. The BBC News Channel coverage featured no fewer than 11 regional correspondents and two Nations correspondents, as it built a UK-wide picture of the effects of the downturn.