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By Jason Michael
BBC Scotland – AKA “BBC Scotlandshire” – has a new director and she is committed to repairing the badly damaged reputation of her institution in Scotland. Yet the stink of the BBC here is so bad maybe this MacKinnon needs committed to an institution.
Christmas was a sad time in the media. In the ninetieth minute of play the curse of 2016 claimed Liz Smith, George Michael, Carrie Fisher, and her mum Debbie Reynolds. As if all this wasn’t bad enough Richard Hammond declared that from hence forth ice cream is too gay for real men. In this season of good will some hope for the future was offered by BBC Scotland’s new director Donalda MacKinnon, who, in an interview with The National, conceded that there is “a significant number still in Scotland whose trust [the BBC] lost” during the 2014 independence referendum. While that is perhaps the understatement of the year, MacKinnon – who refuses to accept that the coverage was biased – said that she has made it her mission to restore trust in the BBC in Scotland.
Following the research of Professor John Robertson at the University of the West of Scotland and Dr. David Patrick at the University of the Free State, South Africa, it is beyond all reasonable doubt that establishment media bias had a massive part to play in the defeat of Scotland’s Yes campaign. The BBC, as its name – the British Broadcasting Corporation – suggests, led the way in Scotland in covering the referendum in such a way that it manipulated public opinion in favour of the unionist Better Together campaign. All sense of balance and impartiality were thrown out the window with even the silliest of unionist arguments taking precedence over every pro-independence position, with soundbites being routinely employed to misrepresent the cases made by Yes campaigners, and with the National in SNP being deliberately replaced by “National-ist.”
BBC Scotland’s anti-Scottish shenanigans became so predictable that Yessers all over Scotland could accurately read the news verbatim half an hour before it came on air. It was so obvious in fact that the parody blog BBC Scotlandshire was inadvertently delivering the BBC’s hilarious coverage of the referendum weeks ahead of the BBC Scotland news desk. For MacKinnon now to maintain the line that she is proud of her institution’s fair and balanced reporting simply beggars belief. “A really important institution for Scotland and for Scottish audiences” it certainly is not, but it is encouraging to read that Donalda wants to turn its well-deserved reputation as a North Korea style state propaganda outlet around. Right now we are being served better by Bamzooki on CBBC.
Her professed intensions aside, we can’t afford to believe a single word that she is saying. The best indicator for future performance will always be the track record, and the BBC’s is just about as dirty as it gets – outside North Korea. The BBC, together with the likes of The Scotsman, The Daily Record, and the infamous Telegraph, were in cahoots with the unionist parties in the original Project Fear in a sickening attempt to misinform and bully the people of Scotland. These “fair and impartial” bodies have had their day, but now their goose has been cooked. All that they have taught us, and what MacKinnon reminds us, is that we in Scotland need our own media – news and reporting that really addresses the needs and concerns of the people of Scotland.
Media Bias in the Scottish Independence Referendum
Author: Jason Michael (@Jeggit)
Random Public Journal 
I would say it is dirtier then North Korea.
“The best indicator for future performance will always be the track record, and the BBC’s is just about as dirty as it gets – outside North Korea.”
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