Consultation Response - Media 12 - Cardiff University PDF 2 MB

New figures obtained by the Conservatives show that 140,000 University applicants in
the UK have failed to get places so far this year. That’s about 30,000 more than at
this time last year. The Tories want the government to create more University places,
but ministers say there are already record numbers of students. (Today, 14 October
2009)
This item failed to mention (at any point) that this is a devolved area of
responsibility. Again, this failure appears to originate from the initial claims.
The same occurred across a range of 12 news items across BBC outlets on 25
November, with reports of a Conservative claim (latterly found to be
incorrect) that two schools run by a foundation with links to Hizb ut-Tahrir
had received £113,000 from a government scheme. The government scheme
in question was the Extended Schools Pathfinder Project, which applies only
in England. The related issue of funding for religious schools, which often
arose as a related topic in the items, is also subject to devolution. The story
was generally covered, however, as a UK-wide story.
In other instances the assumptions about UK-wide applicability did not appear
to come from the source. So, for example, a report into the rise of cases of
Down’s syndrome on BBC News Channel between 5-6pm on 27 October 2009
began:
The number of cases of Down’s syndrome detected in pregnancy has risen by 70% in
the past 20 years. Researchers at the University of London say the increase is due to
improved screening, and more older women becoming pregnant. The percentage of
women choosing to terminate pregnancy after a positive Down’s syndrome test has
not changed. (BBC News Channel, 27 October 2009)
In the introduction, as in the rest of the news item, no mention was made of
the fact that the report and statistics quoted relate to a project measuring
cases of Down’s syndrome only in England and Wales 15 , or that health is a
devolved policy area.
Overall, and in keeping with our other findings, the proportion of instances of
potentially misleading or confusing reporting was much higher on ITV,
Channel 4 and Sky than the BBC. On the BBC, we found 156 such instances
across 448 items (there may, of course, be more than one instance within an
item) relevant to devolution (around one instance for every three news
items). This compared to 42 instances across 57 news items on other outlets.
Finally, an area of analysis we expanded for the 2009 study was the nature of
comparisons between devolved powers, shown in Table 4.4 below.
15 “This research is based on the National Down’s Syndrome Cytogenetic Register – a unique
resource held at Queen Mary, University of London which has recorded almost all Down’s
syndrome pregnancies and births in England and Wales since 1989”
(http://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/items/smd/20193)
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