Friday 23 August 2013

BBC bias against the Catholic Church?

Is there institutional bias against the Catholic Church at the BBC?

One of our members, the Prayer Crusader under the Patronage of St Gerard, has issued several complaints to the BBC over the disproportionate level of reporting on child abuse in the Catholic Church. His research flagged up the astonishing result that 45% of BBC child abuse reports were directed at the Catholic Church and yet only 0.1% of child abuse cases were committed by Catholic priests. He then contacted the BBC Trust with the results of his research and issued several complaints all of which appear to have been fobbed off. See the correspondence below which the Prayer Crusader has given us permission to blog. It is a very interesting exercise to see how they work to try and deflect criticism. Apart from removing the name of our member the text is unedited.

Dear [ ]

BBC News

Thank you for writing to the BBC Trust about your complaint that the BBC is institutionally biased against the Catholic Church. I am very sorry that you are unhappy with the BBC’s reporting on some issues connected with the Church and I’m sorry too that you feel the BBC has not given you a proper response to your complaints.
            I think you already have a good idea of how the complaints system works, but if you want to find out more – and in particular about how the BBC Trust fits in – this is the Web link
The Trust is the last stage of the complaints process and everyone who works within the Trust Unit is outside the day-to-day operations of the BBC. We review the complaints that come to us to assess whether they should be put before the BBC’s Trustees for them to reach a final decision. I have read the correspondence that has already passed between you and the BBC.
            I should explain that the Trust does not take every appeal that comes to it. In deciding which ones should be considered by the Trustees, we look at the merits of the complaint and only ones that stand a reasonable chance of success are passed to Trustees. The Trust acts in the interests of all licence fee payers and it would not be proportionate to spend a good deal of time and money on cases that raise relatively minor issues and do not stand a realistic prospect of success. The link that I have given above gives more information about this.
            I am sorry to send a disappointing response, but I do not believe your appeal should be put in front of Trustees. The BBC’s journalists and programme-makers are expected to work to a high standard; those standards are set out in the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines1 which underpin all BBC output. I have looked at your appeal in relation to those Guidelines. This means I have assessed if the points you have
1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/guidelines/ - private

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raised can be judged against the standards set down in the Guidelines. I have attached a summary of your appeal as well as the reasons behind my decision with this letter.
            If you disagree with my decision and would like the Trustees to review it, please reply with your reasons by 28 August 2013 to the Complaints Advisor, at the above address or trust. editorial@bbc.co.uk   Please send your reasons by this deadline in one document if possible.
Correspondence that is received after this date may not be considered as part of your request for a review of the decision. If, exceptionally, you need more time please write giving your reasons as soon as possible.
            If you do ask the Trustees to review this decision, I will place that letter as well as your original letter of appeal and this letter before Trustees. Your previous correspondence will also be available to them. They will look at that request in their 12 September 2013 meeting. Their decision is likely to be finalised at their October meeting and will be given to you shortly afterwards.
            If the Trustees agree that your case has no reasonable prospect of success then it will close. If the Trustees disagree with my decision, then your case will be given to an Independent Editorial Adviser to investigate and we will contact you with an updated time line.

Yours sincerely
Natalie Rose
Senior Editorial Strategy Adviser

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Annex
BBC News
The Trust’s Editorial Appeals procedure states that: The Trust will only consider an appeal if it raises “ a matter of substance”. 2 This will ordinarily mean that in the opinion of the Trust there is a reasonable prospect that the appeal will be upheld as amounting to a breach of the Editorial Guidelines. In deciding whether an appeal raises a matter of substance, the Trust may consider (in fairness to the interests of all licence fee payers in general) whether it is appropriate, proportionate and cost-effective to consider the appeal. 3 Background. The complainant first raised his concerns on 18 March 2013 that in his view the BBC seemed

“to be waging some kind of war against the Catholic Church”.

He said that this was evident from

“continuous coverage of child sex abuse scandals, and references to such scandals in other news reports which concern the Church, such as the recent Papal election” .
            He also believed that bias was evident from searches he had undertaken on the BBC news website using the phrases ‘sex abuse’ and ‘catholic sex abuse’ because of the high number of results this turned up. He compared the figures with similar searches he had conducted regarding Social Services and Care homes in which no specific results were returned.
            He concluded from his research that the BBC was unbalanced in its reporting and he believed that this could lead to hate crime and the ‘urban myth’ that all priests are paedophiles and not to be trusted.
            He received responses to his complaints from Audience Services at stage 1 and from the Head of Editorial Compliance and Accountability, BBC News, at stage 2.
Points made by BBC News in relation to this appeal at stages 1 and 2 were:
· The period during which the complainant made his online searches one of the most newsworthy periods in terms of the Catholic Church for some time. The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI raised legitimate issues of how much the abuse scandal had led to his decision, and the election of Pope Francis led to discussion of how he might tackle the issue. It was therefore not surprising
2 Under the Charter and Agreement, the Trust has a role as final arbiter in appropriate cases, and must provide a right of appeal in cases that raise a matter of substance.
3 For example, if an appeal raises a relatively minor issue that would be complicated, time-consuming or expensive to resolve, the Trust may decide that the appeal does not raise a matter of substance, and decline to consider it.

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that there were a large number of results for the term “sex abuse” during that time. More recently there would have been far fewer results relating to the Catholic Church from entering that search term as other sex abuse news stories unrelated to the Catholic Church have been more prominent; some of these were related to the Church of England and illustrated how the BBC did not single out the Catholic Church when reporting on this kind of story.
· It was not for BBC News to take a stance and distort news values with a view to shaping public perceptions. It was a fact that there have been institutional failings in relation to the protection of children – and BBC News could not shy away from examining them, either in relation to the Catholic Church or in relation to the culture and practices within the BBC itself which would have to be reported on in due course following the outcome of the Dame Janet Smith Review.

Appeal
The complainant escalated his complaint to the BBC Trust, saying that he felt the response he received at Stage 2 was inadequate. He said he wished to appeal for the following reasons:
· Another documentary on the sex abuse in the Catholic Church has recently been screened on the 10 June: "Silence in the House of God: Mea Maxima Culpa".
· There have been no new cases of sexual abuse by priests, yet the BBC continue to vilify the Church, leading to lay people and religious being targeted in 'hate crime'.
· The BBC failings should have been a wake-up call to the fact that historic sex abuse has occurred in virtually every public institution and is not a 'Catholic' problem. He was concerned that the Scapegoating of Catholicism by the BBC has actually intensified since the Savile episode.
· No justifiable explanation exists for the fact that 45% of search results for sex abuse related to the Catholic Church at the time when he initially made the complaint. Changes could have been made to the filter since that time or efforts made to alter content in the light of the complaint which have led to fewer results in subsequent searches.
· The search on the website was to gauge the amount of coverage being given to the sex abuse in the Church by the BBC News in general because the complainant felt that it was excessive and disproportionate from listening to the radio and television. The results proved that beyond argument.

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· He was also concerned that other stories concerning the Church were being used as an opportunity to flag up the sex abuse scandals and discredit the Church. The papal election and the gay marriage debate are examples of issues that were ostensibly unconnected to paedophilia, yet news reporters frequently mentioned the so called 'sex abuse crisis'. Pope Benedict made very clear that his resignation was due to medical issues, yet even this was skewed by news reporters to suggest that there may have been other reasons.
· The case of the Stephen Nolan show is a prime example of how the BBC obsesses over the sex abuse scandal. Somebody even phoned in that night to express their utter disgust at the way the Cardinal was treated by the aggressive questioning by a trained Barrister which was completely off topic.
The complainant said that he was
“not seeking to deny that scandals have taken place, but merely to emphasize that lessons have been learned as with all organizations in recent years”, and he could “not see the public benefit of consistently dwelling on these incidents”. He said he would like “ a firm commitment from the BBC that in the future they will be more responsible in the weight of coverage they give to these matters, and do so in a proportionate way .”
Decision of the Senior Editorial Strategy Adviser
            The Senior Editorial Strategy Adviser (the Adviser) carefully reviewed the correspondence that had already passed between the BBC and the complainant. She decided that the complainant’s appeal did not have a reasonable prospect of success and it should not, therefore be put before Trustees.
The Adviser noted that the Royal Charter and the accompanying Agreement between the Secretary of State and the BBC drew a distinction between the role of the BBC Trust and that of the BBC Executive Board, led by the Director-General.
            “The direction of the BBC’s editorial and creative output” is specifically defined in the Charter (paragraph 38, (1) (b) as a duty that is the responsibility of the Executive Board, and one in which the Trust does not get involved unless, for example, it relates to a breach of the BBC’s editorial standards.
The Adviser considered that the decisions made by BBC News when reporting on child sex abuse cases were editorial ones, over which the Trust had no remit to get involved unless issues were raised that suggested a breach of the Editorial Guidelines. The Adviser considered whether the appeal engaged the Guidelines on Impartiality which state:
            News in whatever form must be treated with due impartiality, giving due weight to events, opinion and main strands of argument. The approach and

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tone of news stories must always reflect our editorial values, including our commitment to impartiality.
The Adviser noted that the complainant stated in his appeal that the results of his
website search proved “beyond argument” that
“the coverage being given to the sex abuse in the Church by the BBC News in general” was
“excessive and disproportionate”.
            However, she considered that the complainant had received reasonable explanations from BBC News as to why his searches returned the results that they did. She noted the response of the Head of Editorial Compliance and Accountability, BBC News on this point: “Your primary evidence for this alleged bias is that the result of a search for “sex abuse” on the BBC News website threw up 45 references to the Catholic Church out of 100 stories. As has been explained, at different times the same search will show a differ ent result because what is in the news is constantly changing. Thus at present the search reveals only seven stories in the first 100 which refer to the Catholic Church. Recently, there have been a number of high profile cases involving child sex abuse which have received prominent coverage, including the Oxford “paedophile ring” trial; the trial of Mark Bridger for the murder of April Jones and subsequent calls for search engines to block online porn sites; and arrests of people as a result of Operation Yewtree as well as news of police investigations relating to Jimmy Savile”. The Adviser noted the point made by the complainant in his appeal that: “Changes could have been made to the filter since that time or efforts made to alter content in the light o f the complaint which have led to fewer results in subsequent searches.” However, she did not consider it likely that the Trustees would be of the view that any evidence had been presented in support of this allegation. The Adviser noted the complainant’s other main point of appeal: “I was also concerned that other stories concerning the Church were being used as an opportunity to flag up the sex abuse scandals and discredit the Church. The papal election and the gay marriage debate are examples of issues that were ostensibly unconnected to paedophilia, yet news reporters frequently mentioned the so called 'sex abuse crisis'. Pope Benedict made very clear that his resignation was due to medical issues, yet even this was skewed by news reporters to suggest that there may have been other reasons.” She felt on that point too that the complainant had received reasoned and reasonable responses at stages 1 and 2 about the newsworthiness of those issues

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and their continuing relevance to the victims of abuse. She noted that on 23 April 2013 the Assistant Editor, Editorial Standards, BBC News stated:
“ The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI raised legitimate issues of how much
the abuse scandal had led to his decision; the election of Pope Francis led to discussion of how he might tackle this issue. So it is only natural that during such a period of upheaval within the Church, there should be mentions of sex abuse. ” The Adviser also noted that the Head of Editorial Compliance and Accountability stated in her stage 2 response on 2 June 2013: “….when you did your search it was natural that a number of the stories related to the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI and the election of Pope Francis I for the reasons he gave. But that was just one aspect of our broad ranging coverage of the change of Pope. There was much analysis of the achievements of the past and the challenges ahead and profiles of the men as well as straightforward reporting of events as they unfolded.” The Adviser considered the complainant’s concerns about. The Stephen Nolan Show, on Radio 5 Live, which the complainant believed was “ a prime example of how the BBC obsesses over the sex abuse scandal”. He said that the questioning of the cardinal had been “completely off topic.”

            The Adviser noted the response of the Head of Editorial Compliance and Accountability, BBC News on 2 June 2013 with regard to this interview, which she believed the Trustees would be likely to agree with: “I think that if an interviewee says something newsworthy it would be very strange for a news broadcaster not to flag up what has been said. It was the Cardinal who volunteered his opinion.”
The Adviser noted that in his appeal to the Trust, the complainant referred to the documentary
“Silence in the House of God: Mea Maxima Culpa” which was broadcast on 10 June 2013. This programme was screened after the complainant had received a stage 2 response on his original complaint and the Adviser noted that it could not therefore be considered in relation to this appeal.
The Adviser considered the point made by the complainant in his appeal: “There have been no new cases of sexual abuse by priests, yet the BBC continue to vilify the Church, leading to lay people and religious being targeted in 'hate crime’”.
            The Adviser strongly acknowledged that it was abhorrent that anyone would be targeted in this way, but she did not believe that the Trustees would be of the view that any evidence had been presented that the BBC’s reporting of sexual abuse within the Church had led to such occurrences. Nor did she consider that the

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Trustees would be likely to find that any evidence had been submitted to suggest that
“the Scapegoating of Catholicism by the BBC has actually intensified since the Savile episode.”
The Adviser did not consider that she had seen any evidence that the Guidelines on Impartiality had been engaged. Therefore, the issue of which stories should be covered was a matter of editorial and creative freedom and it was not appropriate for the appeal to be considered by Trustees on this point. It followed from this that she did not consider the appeal had a reasonable prospect of success and it should not be put before Trustees.


Editor’s note: Quite a few Catholics have contacted CUT regarding the increased level of hatred and verbal abuse experienced by them in the last few years. This hatred and abuse increases after TV programmes particularly documentaries by the BBC on child abuse by priests. We believe that British Catholics should not be subject to this type of hatred simply because of our faith. We believe that the BBC are not exercising proportionality in the reporting of child abuse cases.
            Furthermore the BBC flags up these abuse cases whenever the Church is in the news for any reason like the papal election, therefore countering any good publicity the Church may get. Of course Catholics in general are ashamed by the abuse cases but it should be understood that proportionately there are no more cases within the Catholic priesthood than any other section of society possibly less. With regards to this I asked the BBC how many documentaries they have made on child abuse in the Church of England given that there are quite a few. I did not get a straight reply to my question just an email with a number of web links to minor news reports. It appears the BBC will not treat all sections of society in the same manner. It is because of incidents like this that our strategy of not watching TV and therefore not paying the licence fee continues to be our main philosophy. 

8 comments:

  1. The Prayer Crusader under the patronage of St Cecilia says:

    I know nothing about BBC TV since I haven't watched it in years and these days I barely listen to the news headlines on Radio 4 since they drip with the BBC's own agenda.

    Nevertheless it has been noticeable these past several weeks how often the BBC manages to drag a rehashed story about the historic situation at the Benedictines' Fort Augustus school into its bulletins or, even more insidiously, attach a reference to it to a story about something else.

    All the BBC reporting I have heard refers to 'sex and physical abuse' which unpacked means corporal punishment. The period covered appears to be mainly 1960-65 when corporal punishment was common in both state and private schools at all levels. I myself was caned at Rutlish Grammar School, London Borough of Merton, in the same 60-65 period - it happened and you got on with life. Perhaps I should now pretend to 'lietime mental scarring' and claim lots of lovely compensation.

    The other thing I note via Google is that the BBC often includes in its stories the phrase, 'Many said they had nothing but good memories', i.e. of the school, before immediately passing on to juicy claims of abuse from a small number of ex-pupils without ever mentioning the 'good memories' again.

    You see the same strategy in the BBC's reporting of the situation in Egypt. A news report will state in passing that churches have been burnt down and then never mention the situation of Christians in Egypt again, prefering to concentrate on the 'sufferings' (God help us) of the Muslim Brotherhood.

    The Fort Augustus 'investigation' using a kernel of genuine abuse allegations was launched by BBC Scotland, broken as an 'exclusive' by the BBC and touted on every opportunity since by the BBC. In other words it has every mark of a BBC hatchet job.

    The real name for the BBC is the Islamo-Marxist Broadcasting Party - although strangely for socialists they pay themselves most awfully well.

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    1. I always remember my time in a Catholic school in the 1960s as one the happiest times in my life. I attended a convent as a junior day boy this was in stark contrast to the state school I attended as a teenager - horrible place. The Catholic convent was a cultured religious place the nuns were strict but kindly at the same time. The only time I had the cane was for playing football at the back of choir practice, I think I deserved it. It seemed to hurt the nun who gave me the one stroke of cane more than me. As she was also my teacher I always used to try and see her on my trips back home until she died about 10 years ago, Requiescat in Pace to this dear soul.

      Yes the BBC just can’t lay off the Catholic Church especially in Scotland at the moment. BBC Scotland is full of neo-protestants – we have an example of them on the BBC Radio 5 live Breakfast show, Nicky Campbell who can’t seem to mention the Catholic Church in any context without throwing in the face of any Catholics who are foolish enough to go on his programme, the few but sad cases of child abuse in the Catholic Church. He is also a fanatical homophile.

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  2. It is up to us all to bring this to the attention of our political representatives, if they ignore us do they want to lose a sizeable number of Catholic votes especially in a marginal seat. Also in Scotland there is an independence referendum and with a large Catholic vote that needs to be heeded. It is no good complaining we must make it a political issue. I shall be sending a copy of this to my MP lets hope the rest of you do and also to post their reply. We can demand action from the minister of culture to on this issue.
    RIGBY

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    1. Good idea, if you’ve got a half decent MP that is, mine I’m afraid is not too sympathetic to anything Catholic. He made that plain to me when I phone him and tried to lobby him before the ‘Gay’ marriage vote. Even though as I pointed out to him he is a Catholic! He has recently declared himself bisexual and when he announced this to his local Conservative party officials he received much applause, odd world we live in. I think he attends Anglican services these days.

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  3. Many thanks to all of you who bring this to our attention. I was astonished when I discovered from your website, Stefano Mazzeo, that 0.1% of convicted paedophiles were Catholic priests. I tell this to everyone I can.
    My MP is Elizabeth Truss. I emailed her 8 times asking her to vote against Gay marriage - she didn't. Her answer to bringing down the cost of child care was to allow one carer to be in charge of 6 two year olds (which doesn't suggest that she has ever met one). And now I understand she is promoting showing pornography to school children - presumably because it is so available to them that they need guidance when watching it.
    Shall I vote UKIP? If not - for whom should I vote?

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    1. Yes we at CUT are truly shocked by the lack of proportionality regarding news output at the BBC, we knew something was wrong but we never believed it was this bad. For as our member the Prayer Crusader under the patronage of St Gerard has discovered 45% of all BBC reporting of Child Abuse is directed at the Catholic Church and yet only 0.1% of Child Abuse involves the Catholic Church. By this astonishing statistic we can see laid bare the sheer anti-Catholic bias and bigotry that lies at the heart of the BBC and many other media outlets. This is why we do not pay the licence fee or watch their evil output. When it comes to voting I will always vote on the candidate whose beliefs are likely to vote against the culture of death and perversion. So find out what each candidate believes first.

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  4. I was recently having a break at work when the subject of abuse by Catholic priests came up. The man referred to Catholics in a derisory way as 'Roman Candles' and said 'all of the priests' were into 'kiddie fiddling'. I asked him why he made that statement. The answer he gave was "there is always something on the TV about it". I made the point to him that TV coverage is disproportionate and biased and gave him the statistics, but he didn't seem like he was listening. Perhaps he thought I was 'biased' because I was not talking out of a screen.

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    1. You experience is typical when the Catholic Church is mentioned in the work place, and we have had many similar reports sent to CUT. This is precisely the kind of reaction the BBC wish to provoke among its ignorant Protestant and neo-Protestant viewers. But your colleague is right in one respect it is always on the TV and as we have mentioned above 45% of child abuse reporting on the BBC is directed at the Catholic Church and yet the Catholic Church is only responsible of 0.1% of actual cases. They are actually far more cases during the same period being covered, that is the last 50 years, at the BBC than in the Catholic Church. This is why we encourage Catholics to give up the TV and stop paying the licence fee, it’s the only kind of reasoning the BBC will understand, deprive them of funds.

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