25/09/2014 Scotland 2014

Don't shoot the messenger - or maybe you should.

Can you finish this 'popular' hashtag, hashtag BBC...

The dust is settling on the referendum -

we ask how the Scottish, British, Traditional and new media acquitted

Did you protest outside this building about the way the BBC

Tonight we're putting Scotland's media under the microscope

and asking if we were up to the challenge?

It's the third most-watched sporting spectacle on Earth.

150 private jets have landed at Edinburgh, but can women get

The referendum results came out a week ago tonight.

Weary campaigners from both sides of the divide have now had some time

The media, in all its guises, is coming in for praise and criticism,

as it informed, guided and sometimes tried to influence our votes.

Fiona Walker has been looking to see if the medium is still the message.

For a 2 years, headlines, photographs,, press releases,

debates, they have been about the most important political decisions

that many people in Scotland will ever have taken, but did the media

get it right? Professor Neal Blaine is a yes vote and his job is to

scrutinise media coverage. Most of the news, broadcast and press coming

from London, was sympathetic, really, to the maintenance of the

union and either sceptical or depending where you look, if you

look at the Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph, very hostile to the idea

of independence. A no vote and journalist, Alex Maskey says that

the media stands for freedom of expression, so with the exception of

broadcasters, you have to take what you get. The Reds no requirement on

the newspaper industry to be fair and balanced on their coverage of

any political party. The free press is free to behave appallingly, and

that is, if you like, one of the prices of the free press in a

democratic society. Many newspapers came out, others did not declare

either way, only one can out in support of yes, and this man is the

editor. There is not enough diversity, I do not know why that is

the case. I do not think there was a conspiracy among editors to do that,

I think editors took the decision that they felt was right and I think

that is perfectly proper that they should do that, I do not criticise

them for that, I just think the fact they all came to the same decision

says so much about the diversity of the media in Scotland that isn't

good. This rapper did not feel that his life was represented on

mainstream media so he started out on YouTube and blogging. You say yes

campaigner. We see a liberal class to a different lens from the

majority of people that are watching the news, so what it shows us is

that inequality is becoming manifested in our attitudes to life,

so perhaps it is not just biased, but it is that we are developing

different value systems, almost like there are two societies in parallel

that do not talk to each other any more. The BBC became the centre of

media bias accusations, with protesters outside the BBC

headquarters in Glasgow saying that it was prounion. There is now a

petition running online with more than 80,000 signatures. So, did the

BBC lose sight of its vital selling point, impartiality? Personally, I

think some of the views that had been set up for general election

campaigns had been imposed on the referendum and I do not think they

worked. I think BBC Scotland were getting to a situation where it was

being used, and towards the last weeks of the campaign, when the

London-based media woke up to what was going on, I do not know why it

took them so long, but it took them a long time. And when they came up

here, I think we saw a lot of the same mistakes that were made at the

beginning of the campaign being made again. First son who did not fight

what they were looking for in traditional media, the gap was

filled by emerging online sources and social media. -- for some. The

debate online was frenzied. Over five weeks in August and September

there were more than 10 million interactions on Facebook around the

referendum. The yes campaign had the lead with 76,000 more likes than the

better together campaign. The key yes Twitter figures also had more

followers. More and more people as we got towards the 18th of September

were going online because they felt, and it is perhaps criticism of the

mainstream media, they felt they did not have enough information. I think

if we are looking to the future, we would expect that this would

probably be a boost to online media. Social media redress the balance in

terms of giving a voice to the average punter who is perhaps maybe

not the most newsletter at. It is important, social media, because it

can rally the troops and help with converts but it also runs the risk

of being an echo chamber where you will just hear what she wants to

hear. Did the media influence the result of the referendum and two

will people trust to report their politics in the future? -- who will

people trust? I'm joined now from London by Ric

Bailey who is the BBC's Editorial In Edinburgh we have John McLellan,

the Director of the Scottish Newspaper Society

and former Editor of the Scotsman and here in the studio, I'm joined

by Mike Small the editor of Thank you for joining us, Rick in

London, it has been reported that the BBC had more than 5000

complaints about its handling of the independence referendum, the vast

majority was that the corporation was biased in favour of the union,

our Twitter feed tonight has been alive with comments, was the BBC

fair and impartial during the referendum? Impartiality and

fairness are critical to the BBC, it is why we are there and why we are

trusted by the audience. It is not surprisingly that we are held to

account by the audience. In a referendum, it becomes very binary,

very polarised, then nearer that you get to the end, the more intense and

passionate it becomes. The space for impartiality is very difficult to

find, so we knew it would be a big challenge from the start. We did a

loss to try and make sure we got it right. Of course the would-be

critics. We try to respond to that, we're not arrogant enough to say we

got everything right in the huge coverage we had to do. But on the

whole, we are the place where people go to the impartial trust and

information and that was our goal and I think and I know that we do

want people to believe that passionate yes and no supporters,

that across the range of our coverage, we did that. Mike small

here in the studio, some snort of derision, what did you think of the

BBC coverage? Do not believe me, because I am cyber, I am out of the

picture, but listen to the words of Paul Mason, the former economic

editor for your flagship programme who said, the BBC coverage was at

propaganda strength, that he hadn't seen since Iraq. These are

extraordinary comments and our complacency is also extraordinary

about what is a pivotal moment in British history. Brick, pick that

up, that point from a former BBC correspondent? He is a former

correspondent, but look at the reality, of course you can mobile

eyes a lot of opinion, but we did a huge out of opinions, but we did a

few demented coverage. We did the work on Radio 1, we had all over

Scotland we did drama, current affairs, documentaries. I am not

complacent, I do not say everything we did is perfect, we did a huge

amount and we try to listen carefully to make sure we get it

right. We did lots of training with people in Scotland and across the UK

to get them ready for this. The prime goal and this was impartiality

and of course, if you are embedded and feel passionately on one side or

the other, it is very difficult to understand that. Part of our job is

to scrutinise and it is free difficult when your own side is

being scrutinised in the conditions of a referendum where it is so

polarised, to accept that there is an impartial voice, but I believe

the BBC was impartial throughout this, including the UK wide covered

coverage from outside Scotland. Alex Salmond, he said to Channel four

News, that there was a huge difference public service

broadcaster and being a state broadcaster and he said I'm not

certain the BBC understands that difference. Is there a public

perception problem that people have with the BBC about being a state

broadcaster and a public service broadcaster? I do not think that is

the argument at all. We always come under in intense pressure because

the politicians do that the audience trust us above all other media. I

know you can laugh, but it is true. It is true. John McClelland, you

have heard this debate sitting there patiently, we heard earlier,

research by Doctor David Patrick, he suggested a fair degree of the press

showed no constitutional bias, but when they did, it was in favour of

the union. Many papers, if you are a daily Telegraph reader, they are

preaching to the converted. You know that when you buy the Telegraph, the

daily express... But I was particularly heartened by his

findings that the indigenous press were fair and balanced and his study

has got to this so far and I expect that the second six months of this

study will bring that out also. Of course, looking at the press, in

some ways, how relevant are you? There is the declining popularity of

the printed press, but in some ways you were crucial to the social media

debate when one of your respected columnists from a newspaper might be

beaten treated and republished in social media. Yes, it is very easy

to look at the influence of the press only through the prism of

print copy sales, but the reality is, that hundreds of thousands of

people are accessing the work of journalists on traditional newspaper

companies and websites and the digital come indications. These are

very much part of the future of our business. -- website and the digital

communications. I see absolutely no conflict between what newspapers are

doing digitally and the addition to the world of come indications from

online newspapers, the more the merrier, as far as I am concerned.

The more the merrier, in some ways you are reflecting each other,

Bristol a role for the traditional printed press, people like you can

focus people on what is being said. -- there is still a role for the

traditional printed press. Tomorrow, we are launching a boycott to retail

energy the one to give up on their commitment to the licence fee to the

BBC or their commitment to the newspapers and pay instead to online

services. That will happen in a huge way and so this kind of complacency

in the wake of this bias is going to be huge. I guarantee you that. We

saw some tweet this week and some articles saying that there has been

a research and is of new media, is this what you're trying to create,

an alternative vision of media in Scotland? Yes, some people call it

the fifth estate where people are unable citizens, empowered to be

able to translate media and create content and that is what we're

doing. There are podcasts, videos, logs, everything that will

transferred the media landscape in Scotland. Rick, it must be

interesting to you to listen to what is happening, what would devolving

broadcasting to Scotland mean? Would it mean that it was perhaps a little

bit closer to the people of Scotland, we hear about this

research and of new media, but if broadcasting was devolved, would

that perhaps help to address some of these concerns? I do not think we

are near a position to be talking about that, yet, to be honest. We

are one week from the campaign, we are assessing how it went, we looked

at the idea of complacency, that is completely untrue. We take

complaints very seriously, we set up a hotline for the two campaigns to

make sure that if there was something they were unhappy with

that they thought was going wrong, we had the ability to do something

about it really quickly and it is interesting that to read the 16

weeks of the campaign, between them, they used that less, and we had to

change less than one complaint per week. That is because people are

switching off from your service. That is not true. That feeling of

protest, there was that march on BBC Scotland here at Pacific key on that

Sunday, a huge presence here from the yes campaign, does that concern

you about the public perception of the BBC in Scotland?

All referendums become very polarised and very passionate. I am

not surprised that people feel very strongly and not surprised that the

BBC gets the criticism. If you go back to the referendum in 1975 on

the common market, the BBC gets it in the neck. It does not mean we get

it right all the time, it means we have to scrutinise what we do. It

means we are not popular. I want to put a point to you. We are hearing

from Alex Massie that perhaps you are an Echo chamber. Apps people

just want to hear from their own side. Do you think that is the case?

From someone who writes for the Spectator, the idea of an echo

chamber is laughable. Social media exists now. When Nick Robinson went

on and told people that Alex Salmond had not answered a question, 100,000

people had already viewed him answering that question. There is

total transparency and that is what the BBC cannot cope with so it is a

dying media. John McLellan, we were hearing from Richard Walker about

the lack of diversity of opinion in the printing press. It was just the

Sunday Herald who came out for Yes. Is that concerning? Is it strange

that only one newspaper came out in that way? The editors will come to

their conclusion individually. You would have to collectively ask

editors. They came to their views on their own. Some came out for No,

others expressed no preference. As you say, the Sunday Herald came out

for Yes. It is a free and diverse press and there are new means of

communication. I think in large part the newspapers reflected the

opinions of their reach ships. You can argue whether that is right or

wrong but certainly in the case of the sun and the record, it is clear

that there is a 50-50 split. Both those papers did their utmost to

plough a very straight furrow between the two. The Sunday Herald

is popular in academia in Glasgow. It reflected the views of those

people. In that newspapers reflect rather than lead the opinions of

their readerships, it is no surprise that most editors came out the way

they did. Just briefly, when you look at the architecture of the

media and the referendum campaign, the BBC, new media and newspapers,

in the future, if papers are struggling, how might that change

things? Papers are not struggling for audiences. They are wrestling

with different economic models that newspapers are reaching more people

than they have ever done. This kind of talk, it seems to me there is an

attempt to fulfil the prophecy here. Newspaper audiences are as

vibrant as they have ever been, if not more so. The work of the

journalists working for mainstream Scottish newspapers is reaching more

people than ever. Their work should not be denigrated, just because some

commentators focused only on a very out of date measurement of what we

do. Mike, John is talking about the professional journalists who

disseminate that information, who can be trusted to give an impartial

view. Is that the problem with social media, that you are preaching

to the converted, it is perhaps that echo chamber, it is not giving the

two sides of the coin? No, it we are about opening voices to the

excluded. Some have reached the dizzy heights of Number Ten will

stop no one is preaching to you. The tabloid press has changed us in the

last 30 years. It is nonsensical to conflate those issues. The only

newspaper out of 37 daily newspapers, the only one that has

111% increase in sales... There are not 37 daily newspapers in Scotland.

The only one to back independence has had a 111% increase in sales. Is

that true or false? True. So there is a commercial interest which is

failing in the mainstream media. That is why new media is coming

forward to fill that gap. OK, gentlemen, we have to leave it

there. An interesting discussion. Thank you.

Let's now take a look at some of the stories that are making

CNN reports a Pentagon spokesperson has said fighting Islamic State

would take years, as US led air strikes target a number of oil

refineries in Syria. Al-Jazeera says a Scottish man on

death row in Pakistan for blasphemy charges is in intensive care after

being shot by a prison guard. And the Guardian proclaims forget

the referendum, Scotland says yes to the Ryder Cup which will host 40,000

fans a day in Gleneagles. Let's take a look at some of the

other stories making the news. I'm joined by the journalist

and commentator Anna Burnside and Thank you for joining me. What did

you make of the BBC's coverage of the independence referendum. We are

hearing interesting comments. I can see it is very, very tempting if you

are angry and you have a certain point of view. It is very tempting

to find something big like the BBC and direct a lot of anger against it

and I think that is what happens with the yes campaign. I think the

BBC is an easy target and as someone made the point in an earlier clip,

towards the end of the campaign, when you saw national commentators

coming into the debate, possibly a bit clunky on the fine point of the

issues, there were mistakes made and it upset people. I think it got a

bit nasty. Really interesting to see the discussion between John McLellan

and Mike small, traditional media and new media. Of course, they have

got that very close relationship where a respected commentator like

you could write about it in the Observer. Social media is one of the

best things which has happened in Scotland. Given the not too distant

future, given the massive success in crowd funding, it will be a social

job for a lot of jobless journalists. John McLellan is right

when he talks about the outdated way of measuring the success of

newspapers. The narrative is the sales are declining. However, when

you look at the websites, these have become quite sophisticated. They are

drawing in loads of readers in numbers which journalists and the

traditional form of newspapers could only dream of. There is a place for

both. Let's look at something else making the headlines today. The

Smiths commission, Lord Smith looking at more powers for

devolution. There is a tweet from a SNP councillor, now he has got time

on his hands, SNP should go radical and nominate Alex Salmond.

Do you think Mr Salmond might be interested? I am hoping not. I think

he might be a bad choice for a committee like that. He is far too

strong flavour, he is far too big a figure that kind of commission. It

is more a job for your more senior elder statesman, I think, not

someone who is a week out of the most bruising political campaign of

his life. I think he needs to chill out, as the young people say,

without going to join another big constitutional debate. Nicola

Sturgeon says she will work with the commission. It seems like these

elder statesmen and women are quite good chums. That can be a blessing

or a curse. I think the SNP have got a chance to be quite imaginative and

radical here. I would like to see somebody like Jean Freeman or Leslie

Riddoch, each of whom had fantastic referendums and added to the gaiety

and the jollity of the entire campaign and who must have traipsed

every single yard of the length and breadth of Scotland. Each of them

represented this country well and can be proud of what they did. I

think they can have a major contribution to this. I mentioned

Nicola Sturgeon. She will be looking for a new deputy. Keith Brown says,

delighted to announce my intention to stand as deputy leader of the

SNP. And another tweet from Stuart Hosie, delighted to launch my bid

for the SNP deputy leadership. Interesting, these two men coming

into the race. One is an MP and one is an MSP. I think that is the most

interesting thing about it. It comes, should the debate be centred

in Westminster? Is that the right place to hold the heels over the

fire, or should it be centred in Holyrood? Is that the focus of the

next stage. Kevin briefly, we know who these guys are, do other people?

More so Kevin Brown. He has a very colourful hinterland. -- Keith

Brown. I take an's point that it would be a deputy based in

Westminster because it would be a statement of intent of taking the

fight into the belly of the beast, so to speak. And a final tweet, a

tweak from BBC Scotland's environment correspondent, UK

government to remove householders' right to object to fracking beneath

their homes. Great news for everybody. The

Scottish government very upset. Anyone who sees a Land Rover with

heavy kit approaching their house would be upset about that. It is

horrendous. It is so far beneath your house, it is that an issue? I

have to confess, I did not realise they had the right to object to this

underneath my house. I suppose it depends on what sort of house you

have. You are making the point about the West End and some would say the

West End could do with a bit of fracking here and there. However, I

think also it is not good that the Westminster government, the first

thing you do is take away something. Thank you both very much for joining

me tonight. Thanks for being with us this

evening. Sarah will be back here on Monday

at the usual time of 10.30. Ladies and gentlemen,

we have liftoff. QI is back with a series all about L,

so loosen up your laughing gear, live a little and let us

light up your life.