BBCWatch BBC: Keep Your Value Judgements Out Of Your Reporting The BBC, our state-controlled disseminator of news, is showing its lack of balance and integrity again. Getting itself in a lather over the British National Party’s (BNP) victory in a Halifax local election, various BBC radio stations treated us to the usual so-called reporting – extreme-right, racist, outrageous, disgrace to Halifax….. The local labour MP, Alice Mahon, was also livid, and bubbling over with bile. However, apart from being appalled, Mahon had no specific ciriticism of the BNP. Radio 5 Live, Britain’s most popular phone-in show for the unemployed and unemployable, treated us to more of this on Friday morning. Amongst all the hype and bluster, until around midday I heard not one mention of what the BNP actually stands for, or what it planned in particular for the voters of Halifax. It may well be that the BBC is right, and that the BNP is a despicable organisation, but any cub reporter knows that you must not use guilt by inference or guilt by implication. A reporter has a duty to explain and source, even BBC ones. If reporters must use strong language to describe organisations like the BNP, they must quickly justify this with a little background. One local issue which apparently has been exciting Halifax voters is a recent decision by Councillors to award themselves a 43% pay rise and a 18% hike in Council Taxes for 2003-4, according to the BNP's web site. The local BNP candidate apparently also was against Prime Minister Tony Blair’s stance on Iraq, just like Mahon. Later 5 Live got around to finding out the BNP candidate’s manifesto, and interviewing some people who voted BNP. Despite the appalled tone of the BBC reporter, nothing particularly extreme emerged from all this. Exasperation with the government’s appalling muddle over illegal immigrants was the common denominator. If the BBC insists on using labels to describe outfits like the BNP, can I suggest some more to aid its listeners and viewers – v The Labour party, a group of former Marxists and chippy college teachers who still believe in socialism, a devalued creed that was wrong about every major issue in the 20th century, v The Liberal Democrats, a wet group of spineless handwringers who can’t wait to sell the country out to Brussels, v Oh and the Tories, believers in less tax and smaller government, who’s great leader Margaret Thatcher saved the nation from socialism in the 1980s…… Neil Winton, January 23, 2003 Top