THE man whose determination eventually saw Ofcom agree that a BBC Radio 4 interview with Baroness Ruth Davidson breached the broadcaster’s impartiality guidelines has eviscerated the complaints process which took nearly 18 months to reach a decision.
And John Parker told The National the finding was brilliant news, adding: “I’m very relieved. The World at One item was quite simply an appalling piece of journalism which – by being so completely one sided – failed to explain the issues to its listeners.
“And such imbalance coming so close to the Scottish elections was a flagrant violation of the BBC’s own editorial guidelines. It’s a great relief to me that Ofcom recognises this.
“Thank you so much for all the help and support you’ve given me over the last 18 or so months. I really don’t know if I’d have persisted without it.”
Video editor Parker went through the entire BBC complaints process after listening to the BBC Radio 4 World at One (WATO) interview on February 24 last year.
Davidson was given 12 minutes at the top of the programme to set forth her views on the anticipated appearance by Alex Salmond before a Scottish Parliament committee investigating Holyrood’s handling of harassment allegations against him – and of which he was later cleared.
She said it raised questions about whether Scotland’s democratic institutions were corrupt, but presenter Sarah Montague did not challenge her remarks.
Parker said the BBC said in a rebuttal of his first complaint: “Our aim is simply to provide enough information for listeners to make up their own minds.”
However, he said all that was provided were Davidson’s insinuations and the conspiracy theories of Alex Salmond, with nothing from the Scottish Government.
“Is that a basis for listeners to make up their minds?” he asked. “If they are anti-SNP they might conclude there has been some skulduggery in Holyrood, otherwise it was hard to conclude anything from the broadcast. Except perhaps that the BBC train had come off the editorial rails.”
He then complained that the broadcaster had brought nobody on to challenge Davidson’s remarks, and said: “I imagine anyone with even a passing knowledge of Scottish politics and Sarah Smith’s reputation for partiality would gag at the response I got – ‘our Scotland Editor, Sarah Smith, was on afterwards, so that she could put Ruth Davidson’s interview in the correct context, and give more information regarding the SNP view on this”.
“She didn’t even mention the SNP, let alone represent its view.”
His third rebuttal came from the executive complaints unit in response to the same point. The ECU said: “Listeners understand such politicians are expressing a point of view rather than stating incontrovertible facts and will judge what they say accordingly.”
Parker retorted: “You heard it here first. It’s OK for the BBC to air a politician spouting any amount of tendentious misinformation unchallenged, because the listener will filter out fact from bias?
“The ECU then went on to say, if the presenter did omit to challenge Ruth Davidson, it doesn’t matter because – ‘it was implicit from what Ms Davidson said that the Government and other institutions would disagree with her and dismiss her concerns’.
“This is truly revolutionary new interpretation of editorial balance. According to the ECU, The BBC is free to air unchallenged any contentious allegations, however untruthful, because the audience will assume the target of the allegations disagrees.”
Parker said what really mattered was that people such as the editor of WATO should no longer feel they can get away with anything as “appalling” as the February 24 broadcast.
“Just imagine if the BBC had broadcast allegations of corruption against the Tory government without representing its view,” he said. “I hope this signals to BBC editors that they cannot get away with misrepresenting Scottish politics either.”
After chasing the regulator for more than a year, Ofcom eventually emailed Parker with their findings, to which he responded: “I was appalled by the low standard of journalism in the broadcast when I first heard it, and my subsequent investigation convinced me that it’s lack of balance broke the BBC’s own guidelines on impartiality … I’m very relieved to have been vindicated.”
