BBC hectoring backfires

 According to the Times today (Wednesday June 15, 2022) 

Bias concerns mean that only 55% trust BBC

 

The reporter claims that 'The BBC's reporting on Brexit and its perceived liberal bias has meant that trust...has dropped by more than a quarter.'

 

The brief report quotes a  recent 'study' by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the University of Oxford involving 93,432 people. It found that 55% trust BBC News.However, this is down from 62% last year and 75% in 2018,and makes the BBC the 'second least trusted public service media brands in the market analysed' -- Australia's ABC, Canada's CBC and Denmark's DR all performed better'

 

The continued drop from 2018 suggests it is the hysterical campaign against Johnson rather than Brexit that puts people off -- although the two are usually combined, of course. It would be nice to compare figures for C4 News and the Guardian.

 

There are strong vested interests here,of course, in that the Times enterprises runs rival broadcasting operations

 

There are no references to the actual study. The actual Reuters site is massive and I could not find any material that specifically cited  this data. The material on trust in news is large and complex and shows the flimsiness of the notion of trust, and, from what I can see, does not compare Denmark at all, so it can't be the material cited here. I have covid at the moment, so I lack the stamina to pursue it further, I fear.

Shame -- it would have been a nice confirmation of what I believe!

 

Just on that, BBC Newsnight has made a real effort lately to win back some ground. They have sacked the editor (E Wren) who has gone to C4News (!),  E Maitlis (gone to some commercial radio outfit for lots of money,apparently, and now runs a column on cultural highlights for the Guardian (!)) ,and E Barnett (still on Woman's Hour). As a result,  there is almost no calling out on Newsnight,occasional K Wark and C Thingy lapses excepted, and people are allowed to give answers to questions pretty well unheckled. Quite unlike the disgraceful scenes persisting on C4 News, where M Frei 'interviewed' a US politician via satellite link and shouted down every answer, making them incomprehensible.