BBC bias? The Prescott memo falls well short of the standards of impartiality it demands

The BBC has long weathered accusations of bias. So why did the latest scandal lead to the resignations of the BBC’s director general and head of news? Many have pointed to the BBC board’s internal divisions over how to respond to a memo – leaked to The Daily Telegraph – alleging the BBC had “systemic problems” with its impartiality. A longtime critic of the BBC, the paper prominently reported on its claims.

But there has been limited scrutiny of the document at the centre of the chaos itself, and the man who put it together: Michael Prescott. Prescott was appointed as an external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, but left earlier this year.

Having repeatedly complained to the BBC board about the broadcaster’s coverage on a range of issues, Prescott grew frustrated that the news division failed to take them seriously. In the memo, he wrote: “What motivated me to prepare this note is despair at inaction by the BBC Executive when issues come to light.”

The memo highlighted the broadcaster’s supposedly imbalanced coverage of the 2024 US election, which was viewed as favouring Democratic over Republican issues and voices. In the reporting of racial diversity and immigration, the memo claimed to identify sloppy journalism and selection bias that underplayed stories about illegal immigration. In coverage of biological sex and gender, Prescott argued the “trans issue” was largely covered from one side that celebrated “the trans experience”.

He also found “simplistic and distorted narratives about British colonial racism [and] slave-trading” that lacked expert voices. And on the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, Prescott concluded that BBC Arabic favoured pro-Hamas perspectives.

How did Prescott conduct this review?

The memo included occasional references to studies (not publicly available to read) produced by David Grossman. Grossman, a former BBC journalist, prepared the reports in his role as a senior editorial adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee.

There was no information in the memo about how Grossman was appointed to this role. Nor was there transparency about how the specific topics raised were selected for analysis. As journalist David Aaronovitch has pointed out, the Prescott memo does not include “a single word … about the BBC’s political, business, education, health, royalty, home affairs, climate change or crime coverage, or even Ukraine”.

Leaving aside its narrow focus, on the issues Prescott did interrogate, there were no research questions or objectives, method, sample, time frame or, crucially, analytical framework for examining output. While the memo is not a peer-reviewed research paper, to allege “systemic issues”, you need to adopt a more systematic approach to analysing news output across a broad range of issues over time.

As someone who has researched the impartiality of journalism over two decades, I believe these are all essential to transparently conveying how and why you arrived at the conclusions.

When the BBC has typically commissioned studies, including thematic reviews of news and current affairs output, the focus was justified alongside methodological details.

For example, in a 2024 review of migration coverage, the author – migration researcher Madeleine Sumption – carried out interviews with external experts and BBC journalists and executives, focus group research, samples of BBC content and complaints from audiences. From the outset, she acknowledged the limitations of the study by prominently stating: “The judgements in this report are necessarily subjective.”

Despite Prescott’s report being filled with anecdotal evidence, it included no such disclaimers. The memo featured a response from the BBC about the partial selection of stories: “Cherry-picking a handful of examples or highlighting genuine mistakes in thousands of hours of output on TV and radio does not constitute analysis and is not a true representation of BBC content.”

This was dismissed by Prescott as “defensiveness”. Prescott wrote in the introduction that his “views on the BBC’s treatment of the subjects covered … do not come with any political agenda”.

Researching impartiality robustly

At Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture, my colleagues and I have researched the impartiality and accuracy of journalism over many years. We have, for example, examined the reporting of the four nations of the UK and devolved politics, coverage of election campaigns, the use of statistics, role of fact checking and the allocation of airtime to parties.

Our studies have been robustly designed and transparently explained to ensure they accurately convey how they were conducted and the conclusions drawn.

Take, for instance, our studies of the four nations. These examined the extent to which England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were covered over a set period in UK-wide news. They also looked at how accurately the policy responsibilities of the UK government was reported compared to the decisions by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland executives.

Above all, we found England was often represented as a stand-in for the UK, with a focus on London-centric politics. We also found a lack of clarity about the nations being responsible for governing in areas such as health and education.

We constructively worked with broadcasters and regulators, helping to raise awareness of stories that could be reported more effectively to promote better understanding of politics and public affairs across the UK.

More recently, we systematically tracked how broadcasters allocated airtime to the UK’s major parties. Our research showed the evening TV news bulletins focused more on Reform UK than the Liberal Democrats. Other recent studies demonstrated how the UK’s main political panel shows, such as Question Time, selected panels made up of largely Labour and Conservative guests.

Our studies have systematically tracked patterns of coverage over long periods of time, assessing the accuracy and impartiality of broadcasters through an analytical framework. Broadly speaking, we have not found evidence of any systemic bias as alleged in the Prescott memo. Nor have we alleged flagrant breaches of broadcast impartiality.

We have, however, identified blind spots where more context, background and explanation would help audiences understand often complex political and social issues.

The Prescott memo that sparked the BBC’s current crisis has not been transparent or robust in design or approach. The analysis itself falls well short of the standards of impartiality it demands.

Stephen Cushion has received funding from the BBC Trust, Ofcom, AHRC, BA and ESRC.