BBC snubs EU affairs

UK flagship broadcaster the BBC is turning its nose up at EU affairs covering only the bare minimum, a London-based think-tank has claimed.

An extensive report published by the Centre for Policy Studies exposes the BBC’s coverage of the EU as little more than a drop in the ocean in spite of a recent flurry of events splashing across Europe's front pages.

The BBC is slammed not only for the scope but also the quality of its coverage.

As interest across Europe rocketed with the collapsed Brussels summit in 2003 meant to agree an EU constitution, the BBC allocated just three minutes 45 seconds a day to it on its flagship ‘Today Programme’ which totals 17 hours of coverage a week.

“And before everybody turns over and goes back to sleep, what that means is really how the EU can work in a Europe of 25,” the report quotes BBC Europe correspondent Tim Franks as saying of the EU constitution.

While 34 EU stories made it into two or more UK broadsheets in the run-up to the Seville summit in 2002, the BBC failed to follow suit with the ‘Today Programme’ picking up on a mere eight of them.

The UK broadcaster also stands accused of an irreverent tone and banishing EU stories to the margins of its programmes.

One of the EU’s high-points was the 2002 European Summit on Enlargement, but Franks came out with the following:

“It makes you wonder what the collective noun for so many summits is: perhaps a ‘pile of summits’ or a ‘depression of summits’?...just in case you thought European politics couldn’t get more dreary or narrow-minded, here’s Woody Allen in El Pais to cheer us all up.”

Even as the temperature rose in Europe in 2000-2 with the euro hitting the headlines, BBC coverage saw a 56 per cent decline with news features being cut from 1 minute to 20 seconds.

Thomas Harvey of the Fellowship of European Broadcasters said the “BBC doesn’t do a bad job. It gives as much Europe as people want to see.”

“Europe on the whole is a boring subject. You don’t want to cover more than you have to,” he added.

“Europe doesn’t speak the English language and 70 per cent of Britons still think Europe is foreign. Europe will never be as relevant to the UK as is the USA.”

The report concludes with a call for an EU editor post at the BBC and a daily “EU election” slot on its major news programme.

The BBC’s reputation is currently in a flat-spin since losing a head-to-head battle with the UK government over the former weapons inspector Dr David Kelly – a source who committed suicide when exposed by the BBC.

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