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Media Distortion: Case Studies
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Most people don't expect distortion
when the BBC quotes figures from official studies. Yet such
distortion appears with surprising frequency. Here are two
recent examples – misrepresentation of a National
Audit Office (NAO) report on the UK welfare system, and
misreporting of official Home Office figures for violent crime.
In both cases we complained (and to their credit, the BBC
did finally act on our complaints – although in the second
case their action left a lot to be desired):
BBC misrepresents National Audit Office report
This is about the BBC exaggerating the problem of
"benefits fraud". Presented with a report primarily
about administrative complexity/error in the welfare system,
the BBC turned it into a story about fraud (a BBC Radio
4 presenter used the term "scroungers").
The story: The National Audit
Office (NAO) published a report in November 2005, titled:
Dealing
with the complexity of the benefits system. It
found an over-complex system, but no direct link between complexity
and fraud.
BBC Online's headline was: "Benefit
system is 'open to fraud'". BBC Radio 4 (Today
news, 18/11/05) announced that
"nearly £3 billion is lost due to fraud and error".
But the NAO report doesn't include the phrase "open to
fraud", and the "£3 billion" figure seems
to be a figment of a BBC reporter's imagination.
The NAO report is clear:
"In 2004-05, the Department
[for Work and Pensions] estimated that [fraud] amounted to
around £900 million. There is no evidence to establish
to what extent this was due to the complex system."
[p10]
We complained about
this. The Director of BBC News responded to us as follows:
Thank
you for your email about our coverage on Friday of the NAO
report. The home editor of our news website had some sympathy
with your concerns and [has] modified the focus of the online
report to emphasise the complexity of the [benefits] system
rather than the issue of fraud. [Helen
Boaden, BBC Director of News, in email to us, 21/11/05]
As a result of our complaint, the BBC changed their report
as follows –
Original headline: "Benefit
system is 'open to fraud'"
Amended headline: "UK
benefits system 'too complex'"
Incidentally, it's worth comparing the cost of benefits fraud
(£0.9 billion at the time of the NAO report) to other
things:
• Corporate tax avoidance: £85 billion
(Guardian, 12/4/02)
• Business fraud: £14 billion (BBC
Radio 4, 'Today', 23/8/01)
• Government fraud in Whitehall: £5 billion
(BBC Radio 4 News, 1996)
References:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4447948.stm
> (Amended BBC report)
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/05-06/0506592.pdf
>
(NAO report, pdf)
BBC's treatment of our complaint
on crime coverage
Elsewhere on Media Hell
we've detailed our complaint about a fundamental error made
by BBC1 Ten O'Clock News in reporting the official
violent crime figures. The BBC upheld our complaint (after
a long investigation), but they then misreported our complaint.
We'd complained about an incorrect (and scaremongering) claim
that violent crime had "significantly" increased
(when statistics showed otherwise). Following their investigation,
the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) ruled that
BBC1 news had "breached editorial guidelines"
on "truth and accuracy", and that there
was "no basis" for claiming a significant
rise in violent crime. But the opening to the published summary
of their ruling was worded (incorrectly) as follows:
"A listener complained
that the introduction to a report about measures about gang
culture in the Ten O'Clock News (BBC One, 20 October
2005) made the erroneous claim that violent crime had increased
significantly."
Our complaint had nothing to do with an item
on "gang culture" (which was a completely separate
item that followed the report on crime figures). We pointed
this out, and the Head of ECU, Fraser Steel, replied that
he agreed the wording was in error to the extent that it shouldn't
have included the words "about measures" (which
he subsequently removed), but disagreed on the "gang
culture" point. See if you can make any sense of what
he wrote:
"...it would be
wrong to give readers the impression that [our ruling] also
related to the report which followed [on gang culture]. I
included the information that the report was "about gang
culture" to guard against that impression, by making
clear that the topic of the report was entirely distinct from
the theme of your complaint." (Letter
from Head of ECU to us, 10/3/2006)
We couldn't make any sense of this. We'd complained
about an error in a headline report about official crime
figures – not about the separate report on gang culture
which followed it. It seemed to us that the BBC was playing
down the seriousness of the error, so we wrote back as follows:
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Dear Mr Steel,
BBC1 Ten O’Clock News, 20/10/05
Thanks for your letter of 10 March.
Forgive me for pursuing this, but I find it important.
In your letter, you state: "We are agreed that
the finding relates to the introduction". I’ve
never accepted that Fiona Bruce’s report on the
latest official crime statistics can legitimately be
described as an "introduction" to the entirely
separate report on "gang culture".
The report of the official crime figures
served as a stand-alone report – the following
piece added nothing whatsoever concerning the crime
figures. The only “introduction” to it (a
few brief words) was made by Fiona Bruce after
she had concluded reporting the crime figures.
Your current wording is as follows:
“A listener complained that the introduction
to a report about gang culture...”
Can I ask why you aren’t more
direct (and accurate)? For example: “A listener
complained that the report of the official crime figures...”
It seems clear to me that there are
two separate reports, and that your finding is incorrectly
identifying which report I complained about. Not only
is this misleading, it potentially gives the impression
that the BBC is trying to play down the importance of
the original error. I don’t believe this is intentional
on your part, but it must be admitted that a fundamental
error in reporting the official crime figures would
seem more serious (to most people) than an error in
an “introduction to a report on gang culture”...
[Letter sent
by Media Hell to Fraser Steel, Head of BBC's
Editorial Complaints Unit, on 11/3/2006]
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The Head of ECU responded by letter (16/3/2006),
declining to change the wording of their ruling. (He said
the existing wording was justified in terms of "broadcasting
terminology" which labels the report on crime figures
as a "news peg" for the separate report on gang
culture).
For more details, see:
BBC's
ruling on our complaint >
Our original complaint to the BBC,
and further details >
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