“An austere conception of news values continued to govern the selection of material for broadcasting. When news of the quality required was lacking no efforts were made to pad out the bulletins to a standard length. On Good Friday 1930, in the view of the news editors, `there was no news of the normal type or standard for broadcasting, and as a result no news bulletin was given. The announcer simply declared `there is no news tonight”’

(2) From Pixelsurgeon’s flickr stream, echoing an earlier Time Trumpet pastiche, this video.

Where does he go to make the allegation? BBC Radio Four’s Today programme.

The article covering the BBC response seems to have a firmer grasp on the facts than Mr. Kawczynski’s attacks.

I’m not really sure who this episode serves; one presumes that Kawczynski was casually mixing the “BBC is politically correct” meme with the campaign for a Bank Holiday in recognition of Polish servicemen, rather than coming to this conclusion after a rigorous content analysis of the BBC’s output.

In Italy, Clemente Mastella threatens to vote no-confidence in Rai’s board after Michele Santoro’s Annozero gave too much space over to judges defending one of their number, leaving only “poor Scotti” (Luigi Scotti, Mastella’s deputy – and his choice of phrase). Judging that open season on Rai has begun, Storace’s Destra – a partitino if ever there was one – has decided to bring Rai to court for ignoring them.

There are both general and partisan reasons for setting up such a commission. On a partisan level, the BBC’s coverage of Scottish politics seems to be rather dismissive towards the SNP. BBC news editors are unlikely to consciously change coverage in reaction to this news – indeed, they’re more likely to see this as an affront. But, on some level, the establishment of the commission may cause editors to tread more carefully, and think twice about sloppy reporting of poll results.

On a more general level, levels of dissatisfaction with the BBC are higher in Scotland than in most other parts of the country. This satisfaction is probably rooted in the perception that the BBC is full of middle / upper class Southern Englanders who produce programmes for others like them. That is, it’s predominantly a cultural complaint.

That’s why the BBC’s response – which emphasises the new development at Pacific Quay – is rather uninspiring, answering cultural concerns with cost-benefit calculations.

We’ll know more when the full membership and terms of reference of the committee are announced. But the announcement is a lesson that minority governments can still crack the whip hand.

In Italy, the long-awaited AGM to decide the fate of the Treasury’s representative on Rai’s board will now be held on the 8th August. Expect the newspapers to feature much irritated reaction in the lack of any serious August news.

Still on newspapers, the Council of Ministers agreed to changes in the law on press subsidies. The aim, according to Ricardo Levi, is

“affronta nello specifico la situazione per un riordino e ha l’ambizione di dare organizzazione ad una materia che in 60 anni ha avuto solo interventi occasionali: si vuole dare per la prima volta un quadro organizzativo”.

“To get to grips with the situation with the aim of reordering and giving some structure to a subject that, in sixty years, has only had occasional interventions: we now need, for the first time, an organisational framework”.

No-one seems to have wondered whether the press is a fit field for “intervention” , or whether the government should end this scheme altogether. As discussed before, the consequences fit no subsidy justification I’ve heard of.

This is a very basic error. It will fuel the belief amongst the SNP that the BBC is institutionally biased against it. Whether the BBC’s immune system – the complaints process and regular meetings with party officers – will save it is unclear. The BBC has long been perceived badly by Scots A 1991 internal report on public perceptions of BBC bias had this to say:

“A minority focus on government/civil service/Establishment influence. They believe they understand how bias arises and do not feel threatened by it since knowledge is a form of control. Nevertheless, they are certainly not happy for it to exist. Those in our sample exhibiting these attitudes were young pro-government males and ‘radical’ Scots males: both perceived a right-wing bias in television news and current affairs”

This was followed by research conducted by MORI in the run-up to Charter renewal:

 Groups which are more satisfied than average are those who watch the BBC for half or more of their viewing time (83% satisfied), those aged 16-30 (80% satisfied), those living in Wales (81% satisfied) and those living in the South East (80% satisfied). Groups more likely to be dissatisfied with the BBC are those in the North East (17% dissatisfied) and Scotland (16% dissatisfied)

and

The groups least likely to feel the BBC takes account of their views are those living in Scotland (49% of these people) or Northern Ireland (45% of this group), young people of Asian origin (50%) and young black people (46%).