Yes, I can. First, it would be worth putting a couple of points about Professor Robertson’s report on the record. We read the report with some interest, but we have serious concerns with it that pertain in particular to elements of its methodology and factual accuracy, its findings and its conclusions. We believe that the report displays fundamental errors in all those areas and for that reason we question its validity. We have detailed our concerns in our report, which we understand has been distributed to committee members.
When Professor Robertson’s report was first published on a website, it was not sent to us for comment. We were alerted to it by concerned members of the public, but even from a cursory examination we could see that there were errors in it. We contacted the author, and copied in the university given that the report had been published with the university’s logo appended. It was to my mind entirely proper that we did so, and the content and tone of our communication was also entirely proper.
We asked whether we might see the raw data, as we did not recognise the evidence that was presented in the report as an accurate reflection of our broadcast output, but the request was rejected by the report’s author. The report makes it clear that its evidence base was a series of transcripts of broadcast output. We are not, unfortunately, in a position to say how accurate those transcripts were, but, given the number of factual errors in the report, it is at least fair to ask the question.
We are aware that the version of the report that has been presented to the committee differs from the version that the author originally published in January, and that one or two of the errors that we pointed out have been corrected. However, the vast majority of the errors remain.
The original version claims that the weekly bulletins are the focus, but we pointed out that the report’s figures were therefore out by more than 200 hours. I see that the latest version of the report now claims that all the weekend bulletins were considered, and the figures have been revised down by around 100 hours, from 730 hours to approximately 640 hours. It seems that the author is unclear about what or how much news the report covers, which is the basis on which the entire report is predicated.
The report makes a number of allegations about our news coverage, as it does about the coverage by STV. We completely reject those allegations, as we reject the questioning of our journalists’ professionalism and of what they have brought to air.
The evidence that the report presents does not support its contentions, and the conclusions are based largely on flawed analysis and occasionally on intuitive guesswork. The report is not, as it claims to be, a piece of analysis that is based on empirical research, but rather a highly subjective and selective assessment of our news coverage.
It is important for the committee to note that the BBC is governed by the requirements of our editorial guidelines and by the Office of Communications’ broadcasting code. It is against those criteria that our impartiality is judged and we are entirely confident that not one of the examples in the report would have fallen foul of them.
We take full cognisance of sound analytical broadcasting research, such as the report, “From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel: safeguarding impartiality in the 21st century”, which was published in 2007, and Professor King’s report, which was published the following year.
Our issues are not with Professor Robertson, but simply with the report as it is published on the University of the West of Scotland’s website. We welcome all contributions to the debate, but we feel that it is important that we make it clear where there are errors of fact.