Further bias revealed from the BBC?

Today the BBC announced their debate schedule for the forthcoming general election, and seem to have left the Green Party unrepresented, after the Green’s complaints last week.

Following the BBC’s coverage of the local election last week the Green Party sent a letter to the broadcaster complaining about “disproportionate coverage” when compared to UKIP. In the letter, the party claimed that “with the exception of a few items, most of the BBC’s coverage failed to report the Green Party’s results, while giving disproportionate coverage to UKIP.”

According to the broadcaster`s guidelines, they should be allowed proportionate coverage to all parties but seemed to put a far higher emphasis on UKIP’s massive loss of seats than the 40 extra seats the Green Party was able to pick up.

The BBC’s own guidelines state that: “To achieve due impartiality, each bulletin, programme or programme strand, as well as online and social media channels, must ensure that the parties are covered proportionately over an appropriate period and overall across the Election Period. Determining appropriate levels of coverage should take into account levels of past and current electoral support. Electoral support in the previous equivalent election is the starting point for making those judgements. However, other factors should be taken into account where appropriate, including evidence of variation in levels of support in more recent elections, changed political circumstances (e.g. new parties or party splits) as well as other evidence of current support. The number of candidates a party is standing may also be a factor” With both UKIP and the Green Party having one MP each, they should hold the same level of coverage, regardless of results in this current election.

With that controversy still fresh in their minds, BBC should be looking carefully at their election coverage, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Today they have announced their debate and interview schedule and all of the main parties are represented in a single seven party debate planned for May 31st. That, however, is where the Green Party’s air time comes to an end.

The BBC has announced several other TV debates, with Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn in a special question time and SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon and Lib Dem Leader Tim Farron in another. Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood and UKIP leader Paul Nuttall will also be appearing in special Election Questions programmes. On the week of May 22nd, they will also be doing nightly one-to-one radio interviews with six of the party leaders, leaving no mention of the Green Party.

The BBC is yet to comment on their prior “disproportionate coverage” but appears to run the risk of drawing more attention to the problem with this latest lack of representation.