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Inaccurate news and the BBC: its response to our complaint
Readers may remember a report last month by Aston University that received wide publicity in the usual Remainer/Rejoiner media, including the Financial Times, the Guardian and the BBC. The report claimed that Brexit had severely damaged Britain’s trade. We exposed its multiple errors in an article by Catherine McBride. We also submitted the following complaint to the BBC, pointing out that it had clearly not checked the accuracy of the report. Where was BBC Verify? In due course we received a reply, also posted below, in which the BBC said, in a nutshell, that it had not considered it necessary to check accuracy. We admit that this is not a great surprise, given the nature of BBC coverage of EU-related matters over many years.
Our complaint to the BBC:
“Earlier this month BBC TV News featured a report by the Aston University business school. The same item appeared on the BBC News website on 17 September: ‘Brexit red tape on British businesses has caused goods trade between the UK and EU to slump and the problem is getting worse, a study has warned.’ The account of the Aston report by Faisal Islam and Mitchell Labiak was seriously flawed in two ways. First, it did not reflect the whole argument of the report, giving a misleading impression. Second, and even more seriously, the BBC failed to identify many fundamental errors which invalidate the BBC headline claim that ‘Brexit deal impact in UK is worsening’. The BBC reported the Aston claims uncritically: e.g. ‘Between 2021 and 2023, the study calculated that UK goods exports to the EU were down 27% and imported goods were 32% lower than where they would have been had Brexit not happened’ – an absurd statement wholly undermined by official trade figures. Where was BBC Verify?. To take one of many errors, the report claimed (as reported by the BBC) that ‘The variety of trade export goods has also dropped, the study found, with 1,645 fewer types of British products exported to every EU country.’ In fact, apparent changes were overwhelmingly due to changes in classification, not changes in actual trade. Blunders of this kind should have been identified. The deficient report is still on the News website. This is a matter of significant political and public concern, widely reported, and the Aston report should have been the object of searching examination by the country’s principal news provider. Otherwise, the BBC might properly be suspected of biased reporting. A correction should be provided as soon as possible, and with a similar level of prominence. The Aston report is “Unbound: UK Trade post-Brexit”. Analysis by Catherine McBride https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/the-lie-that-travelled-around-the-world/”
The BBC reply is given below. Its defence is that it was merely reporting what the Aston report said. In other words, it did not check for accuracy. The Corporation is proud of having a special section, ‘BBC Verify’, dedicated to ‘examining the facts and claims behind a story to try to determine whether or not it is true.’ But not in this case, despite the prominence of the story. Note the BBC’s selective use of language in its reporting: ‘the study calculated’, ‘the study found’. Not ‘the study claimed’, ‘the study argued’. Perhaps anti-Brexit claims, however implausible, are given a free pass:
The BBC reply:
“We were reporting on Aston Business School’s assessment of the worsening impact on trade due to Brexit red tape. I appreciate that you may have concerns about the researchers’ methodology but if so that is something which you could take up directly with the researchers. We felt their findings were newsworthy and would be of interest to our readers but we attributed the findings to the researchers throughout to make clear that it was the researchers making these claims, not the BBC. I have also checked the headline on the article – we did not say that the impact of the Brexit deal was worsening. We said that economists were warning that it was. We then used several case studies of business people to explain the impact Brexit had had on them. We spoke to one of the report’s authors Jun Du about some individual examples of impact. We said there was some positive news: the report’s authors say a small number of sectors have proven resilient, especially in terms of exports to bigger EU economies. We also included the government view. I am satisfied that we correctly summarised the key findings and gave some real-life examples which would have resonated with our readers. You complained that our article ‘did not reflect the whole argument of the report’ – in a short website news article we have to be selective in how we cover it – this was after all a 93-page research paper. We are sorry if you did not appreciate how we chose to cover this issue but I hope that the explanation I have given will provide some reassurance as to why we handled the story in the way we did, in line with our Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, impartiality, fairness and decency which underpin all BBC reporting.”
Interestingly, the Editorial Guidelines say this: “Where appropriate to the output and wherever possible, we should: gather material using first-hand sources; check facts and statistics, identifying important caveats and limitations; validate the authenticity of documentary evidence and digital material; corroborate claims and allegations made by contributors; weigh, interpret and contextualise claims, including statistical claims.
Readers will judge whether the BBC followed its own guidelines in this case.
By the way, we did, as the BBC suggested, approach the researchers at Aston directly, pointing out the errors in their report, inviting them to comment and promising to publish their reply to our criticisms. We received no response.
