20140620_FB

Source: BBC Radio 4: Feedback

URL: N/A

Date: 20/06/2014

Event: Ric Bailey: BBC election coverage of Green Party matches voters' support

Attribution: BBC Radio 4

People:

• Ric Bailey: BBC's Chief Political Adviser
• Roger Bolton: Presenter, BBC Radio 4: Feedback
• Anne Chadwick: Resident near Chichester
• Robin Le Mare: Resident, Allithwaite

Roger Bolton: Now, to another issue that has keyboards up and down the land glowing red, as their owners pound them with righteous indignation. "It's a farrago!"

Nigel Farage: The People's Army of UKIP have spoken tonight, and delivered just about the most extraordinary result that has been seen in British politics for 100 years, and I'm proud to have led them to that.

Roger Bolton: Nigel Farage, of course, the leader of UKIP, talking about the recent European elections, in which his party won 27.5% of the vote, and had 24 MEPs elected. UKIP also did well in the local elections, and came a good second to the Conservatives in the Newark by-election. But many listeners - particularly those of a Green disposition - felt that the BBC's coverage had given UKIP undue prominence.

Anne Chadwick: I'm Anne Chadwick from near Chichester. And, pre and post elections, I thought the BBC to be guilty of partisan, anti-democratic coverage in its failure to report adequately - if at all - on political parties other than the main three and UKIP, whereas, for example, the Greens were completely ignored.

Robin Le Mare: I'm Robin Le Mare, ringing from Allithwaite in Cumbria. I became very frustrated at the coverage given to UKIP, to the disadvantage of Green Party. And I began to think: well, this is biased coverage. What happened to unbiased coverage? What happened to balance?

Roger Bolton: Well, in all, the BBC received over 1,400 complaints. from people saying that there had been too much coverage of UKIP, or that the coverage had been biased in their favour. There were also around 170 who felt that coverage was biased against the party. Impartiality in all its political reporting is, of course, a cornerstone of the BBC's public service remit. And the man charged with ensuring that it sticks to it is Ric Bailey, the BBC's Chief Political Adviser. So how does the Corporation decide how much coverage to give to each party?

Ric Bailey: We look in a really systematic and objective way at the levels of electoral support which parties have. We do that in advance of each and every election. We look at past support and we look at current support, insofar as you can measure that. Typically for, say, the European elections, you would look back at the equivalent last election in 2009, and you would take that into account.

But of course, if you only did that, then that doesn't take account of things that may have happened since. So you can also look at subsequent elections and you can also look at the political context. But we do it very carefully. We set out guidelines for our producers to know in advance, and we make sure that they're aware of that. And the coverage during the election period is very much with that in mind.

Roger Bolton: Well, turning to UKIP, the BBC's received certainly, what, 1,400 complaints about that coverage, saying it was biased towards UKIP, and that there was too much of it. How did you decide how much coverage to give UKIP?

Ric Bailey: Well, we set out in those guidelines what sort of support these parties had, in a context of these particular elections. And that's the starting point. So, in England - we do it separately in each nation, but in England, for example, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and UKIP got similar levels of support. Now what you have to remember is that in 2009, UKIP came second - they beat, in terms of share of the vote, both Labour and the Liberal Democrats. And in fact, in 2009 we also gave them the same sort of level of coverage as we did to the other big parties, because in 2004 they had come third. We've been looking at these patterns over a long period. So there's no doubt that in European elections, UKIP perform on the sort of level that the big parties do.

Roger Bolton: And therefore you say they need to have similar amounts of coverage.

Ric Bailey: They have similar amounts of coverage.

Roger Bolton: Let me now ask you about the Green Party. We've had an email from Roger Griffiths, who says: "Why has the BBC given so little coverage to Green Party success, in the recent European and local elections?" He points out: "The Green Party came fourth, beating the LibDems into fifth place. And yet we've heard nothing but coverage of UKIP success and LibDem woes. What about the Green Party?" So, what about the Green Party?

Ric Bailey: Well, the Green Party, first of all, did get quite a lot of coverage - they were on the Today programme and on World at One, and they did have coverage in interviews with their leaders, and so on, So, they were certainly there. But, as I've said, when you're looking at coverage, you're looking at respective levels of support. And there's no doubt that there's a big difference between the levels of support that UKIP could look back on, in terms of a track record in the European elections, and the Green Party.

The Green Party have had two MEPs, over a number of years, and yes, they went up to three MEPs this time. Actually, their share of the vote didn't change, or actually it went down, slightly. So, although they came fourth, it was more because the Liberal Democrats went past them the other way, rather than a big surge in Green support.

Roger Bolton: As you know, some of our listeners do think there's been more coverage of UKIP than there should have been, and so on. And they wonder about: do you audit everything? Does somebody listen to everything the BBC puts out and note down exactly how much time has been given to each party, particularly around the election period?

Ric Bailey: No. Because that would drive somebody mad, doing that. I mean, there's an enormous amount of coverage. There's quite an important principle in the BBC, which is that the editor of each programme is responsible for what they do. So, individual editors have to make sure that what they're doing in their programme is properly impartial. But is there some great scoreboard in the sky where every last second is noted down and added up? I don't think that would be any sort of real measure of impartiality, because a proper measure of impartiality involves good editorial judgement and not just maths.