"The BBC Maintains The Highest Editorial Standards..." Except When It Doesn't

One of the myths propagated by BBC stooges is that the BBC (especially its news and current affairs capacity) represents a sort of Platonic elite of broadcasting.  The BBC itself plays up to the notion and enjoys repeating at every opportunity, like a boring uncle at a wedding, the prideful and epithetic appellation: 'public service broadcaster'.  Their insistence in this regard has become sufficiently irritating that some of us have unkindly started to question whether it's actually true - a lesson for us all, perhaps, in the dangers of over-stating one's case.

There are regular slips.  Earlier this month, the BBC reported on the Scottish Government's annual public accounting statistics (known as Government Expenditure and Revenue Statistics - or 'GERS' for short), in a way that suggested the SNP administration is over-spending.  This was grossly inaccurate.  The BBC had conflated UK-wide spending outside the devolved government's competence with spending by the Scottish Government itself.

The Scottish Government’s entire budget = just over half of the total amount of taxes raised in Scotland (£60Bn in 2017/18). The deficit figures are after UK Govt spend on pensions, welfare and cost of UK national debt service, Trident nukes (not wanted here) et al are added in!

— Paul Wheelhouse MSP 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (@PaulWheelhouse) August 22, 2018

Protests and demands for an apology followed.  Initially, the BBC denied there was any inaccuracy, but eventually there came an apology.

Of course, even the BBC's worst enemies would not demand that it should provide accurate news each and every time, and we do not make such an unreasonable demand.  The BBC is a human organisation and mistakes will creep in, even when the highest standards are maintained; and, if the incident we mention here had been merely a routine embarrassment to the BBC of the sort that any sizeable media concern inevitably has to endure now and then, we would not think to bring it up.  All that's needed is a correction and, if appropriate, an apology.  Big deal.

Yet it seems that the BBC have reported on the GERS inaccurately in one of the past two successive years as well:

Hi Paul. They lie in their headlines the same way every year. Here are Jackie Bird's opening lines from GERS day reporting Scotland in 2016 and 2017. I complained, they conceded they were wrong yet they persist. It is very deliberate and completely dishonest. pic.twitter.com/FZMPZyRzJu

— Tam Jardine (@Tam__Jardine) August 22, 2018

The 2017 one was about public spending as a whole, not Scottish Government. So two out of three. There is a huge proportion of total spending that continues to be outwith SG control - we cannot cut spend on Trident, say, or use full welfare powers to help inclusive growth.

— Paul Wheelhouse MSP 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (@PaulWheelhouse) August 22, 2018

We find this from back in 2016:

"The corporation’s Editorial Complaints Unit [ECU] has upheld a complaint relating to an item that aired on August 24th 2016.

"The item related to the GERS [Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland] report which purports to show the financial status of Scotland. 

"According to the complainant, Reporting Scotland anchor Jackie Bird misled viewers when she read out the introduction to the item.  Viewers heard the presenter say: “The Scottish Government is spending nearly fifteen billion pounds more than it’s bringing in in tax.

"The statement, according to the complainant, was misleading as it implied ‘Expenditure’ in GERS is by the Scottish Government, and that the Scottish Government brings in all the ‘Revenue’ in GERS.  Official documents showed that £40,536M of ‘Expenditure’ was by the Scottish Government and £28,045M was by the UK Government."

It looks like a pattern.  Anybody who thinks the BBC does not have a partial agenda is naive.

Paul Wheelhouse adds:

I am often frustrated by ignorant coverage but have often shrugged it off - this goes into seriously fake news territory & given how important this issue is, this sort of disgraceful misrepresentation is totally unacceptable from a very well resourced public service broadcaster.

— Paul Wheelhouse MSP 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (@PaulWheelhouse) August 22, 2018

We are not supporters of Scottish Independence or the SNP and its anti-white Leftist agenda, but that is not the point.  The BBC's reporting here is, on any interpretation, plainly inaccurate.  It implies that the Scottish Government cannot manage itself financially based on both Scottish devolved spending and UK-wide spending. This isn't the 1940s.  The BBC has no right to act like some sort of propaganda department, whether it may be aiding the Left or, as here, fulfilling some sort of UK government agenda.

Here's the BBC's on-air apology for the inaccurate 2018 story:

pic.twitter.com/ih89T5Copf

— Iain #FBPE #FBSI 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (@jimmytabuk) August 23, 2018

In the Herald:

"THE BBC has apologised on-air for bungling its coverage of Scotland’s finances after an SNP minister branded it “disgraceful” and “fake news”. 

"The corporation interrupted its 1pm TV news bulletin to admit it confused the finances of the Scottish Government with those of the public sector as a whole.
"It followed a report on Wednesday about the annual Government Expenditure & Revenue Scotland (GERS) statistics. 

"These showed the Scottish deficit in 2017/18 - the difference between all public spending and Scottish tax income - was £13.5bn or 7.9 per cent of GDP. 

"However the BBC report said the Scottish Government spent £13.5bn more than its income, which would be illegal. 

"GERS public spending covers both devolved and reserved matters."

The BBC's ideals are in rags.  We are not arguing against ideals in society.  Asking people to be generally honest is an ideal and also attainable and desirable.  A soldier is expected to be loyal to his country, and this again is both attainable and desirable.  Perhaps a difference between the soldier and the journalist is that, whereas for the soldier loyalty is an essential part of his duties - which cannot be performed correctly if he is disloyal - for the journalist, impartiality is not the essence of his trade, and unless he is simply a bare fact reporter, some partiality and bias must always creep in.  Thus, media and journalistic impartiality is not just a laudable ideal, it is almost-always a Quixotic aspiration - impracticable and unattainable.

The danger with the BBC is that people continue to believe the deceit that it can be impartial.  Some people even think that it is.  This is actually unfair on the BBC and its journalists.  BBC bias campaigners are setting the BBC on a fool's errand.  Those who do so because they actually believe in the BBC's own corporate ideology would be better-off realising that it is a myth, even a lie, and settling on a case for abolition and closure.  But we suspect most protest bias not because they are opposed to bias as such, but because they want the BBC to be biased towards them.  The SNP politicians and activists mentioned above are an example.  They are not guided by principle or by opposition to the outrage that is the BBC.  Their concern is purely parti pris in nature, and so while we do not hesitate to highlight the injustice done to them, we ultimately put them in the same category as the BBC and condemn them.  Theirs is a selfish and dishonest agenda, but highlights again how the BBC's Quixotic values and mission serve as a fig-leaf for vested interests of all sorts.