Trust: BBC news is too London-centric
- Published: 11 June 2008 17:28
- Last Updated: 12 June 2008 10:20
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The BBC's news coverage is too "London-centric" and its reporting on the nations and regions lacks "clarity, precision and balance", the BBC Trust has found.
In a report on the BBC's impartiality in news and current affairs, published on Wednesday, the governing body said the BBC was "not meeting properly its core purpose to inform democracy." It added that although 61% of the UK population rated the BBC's coverage of the nations and regions higher than any other news organisation's, the corporation was still falling short "of the BBC's own high standards".
In a sample of 136 BBC news reports on health and education, not one mentioned the situation outside England, while nearly a fifth of reports on devolution were "vague and confusing", the study found. It also noted that no edition of Panorama in 2007 dealt with devolution or devolved policies, even though it was a hot topic at the time.
BBC management accepted the findings and is due to present the Trust with an action plan next month. However, the BBC Trust indicated it is not pushing for a radical restructure. "The solution relies more on journalistic practice than major structural change," said Richard Tait, BBC Trustee and chair of the BBC's editorial standards committee.
Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, said part of the blame lay with ministers who only issue national figures but argued that "a good journalist should get underneath that and be questioning and exploring."
