Consultation Response - Media 12 - Cardiff University PDF 2 MB

four nations. Although the number of news items making comparisons
between the policies and records of devolved nations remains low, by 2009
this number had doubled on BBC outlets while falling slightly on other
channels. We also found 14 examples of the use of substantive comparisons,
all of which were on the BBC.
So, for example, BBC coverage of proposals to delay the introduction of a
formal curriculum (and adopt a play-based approach) in English primary
schools often took the opportunity to compare England’s approach with
Wales, who already have a play-based curriculum until the age of seven. By
contrast, ITV and Channel 4 referenced but did not compare the different
policies in Wales (or Northern Ireland, which is like Wales in this respect)
while Sky News failed to mention that the proposal only applied to schools in
England.
Consistent with these findings, the use of politicians from Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland – as a proportion of the politicians interviewed – doubled on
BBC outlets between 2007 and 2009, while falling slightly on other channels.
The most likely source of misleading or confusing coverage of devolved issues
(such as health, education or policing) involved reporting stories that only
apply to England (or England and Wales) as if they apply to the UK as a
whole. Since this had been identified as a problem in the 2007 study, the
2009 study employed new measures to explore this in more detail. Although
we found, once again, that BBC news outlets demonstrated a greater
sensitivity than other broadcasters, the failure to make it clear when stories
apply only to England (or England and Wales) remains a concern.
While six out of ten BBC news items about devolved issues in England (or
England and Wales) made it clear that the story only applied to England (or
England and Wales), four out of ten did not. Although this compares well with
other news outlets – where only 36% made it clear when a story only applied
to England (or England and Wales) – it suggests that there is still work to be
done.
So, for example, a story about a review of police cautions was covered across
a range of news outlets – sometimes in detail – but only BBC online news
mentioned that Scotland did not have the cautions system, and that this was
therefore a devolved news story that did not apply UK-wide. All the other
news reports we looked at (on both the BBC and elsewhere) implicitly
assumed that the context for this story was the UK as a whole.
Part of the difficulty here is that well-established news sources across a range
of English institutions – as well as political parties in Westminster – often
announce initiatives or proposals without specifying that they only apply to
England (or England and Wales). It is left to the reporter, in other words, to
contextualise the story.
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