The Better Together Broadcasting Corporation

I’ve had enough of the BBC! They’ve been biased against independence forever (which is perhaps to be expected given the first ‘B’ in its name stands for ‘British’), but in the past week they have gone from being biased to being a campaign organisation that should be called The Better Together Broadcasting Corporation.

Wings over Scotland found a perfect example today: Here’s a question by the BBC’s Nick Robinson and a very complete answer by Alex Salmond (the footage is from a news conference for foreign media, so it’s apparently foreign correspondents that are laughing and applauding in the background):

However, in the 6 o’clock news this exchange had been reduced to the following:

In other words, Salmond’s answer is being summarised as ‘Salmond didn’t answer’. That’s simply a lie.

There’s also a helpful list of examples of BBC Scotland being manipulative during the referendum campaign on Newsnet Scotland. Some of the examples are simply outrageous.

I don’t have an issue with privately owned media having an agenda and campaigning for this, especially when they’re open about it. However, we’re all forced to finance the BBC if we want to watch live TV at all, and people clearly expect objectivity from the state broadcaster, so this is an absolute scandal.

If we vote Yes in a week’s time, the new Scottish public-service broadcaster (the SBS) will have to be created from scratch to avoid any bad habits from being taken over from BBC Scotland.

On the other hand, if we vote No (which is sadly a possibility due to the manipulative and mendacious behaviour by the BBC) the Scottish Government must request and require broadcasting to be devolved as a matter of priority. If that is denied, we must find a way to create a new broadcaster (using crowd-funding, perhaps) that can deliver unbiased news to people in Scotland. This will be much harder than simply voting Yes in a week’s time, however.

If I hadn’t already been planning to vote Yes, the BBC’s outrageous behaviour would have been the final straw. It’s completely clear that Scotland needs to escape the Westminster bubble and its broadcaster. The sooner, the better!