The BBC has admitted that parts of a controversial Culture Show report by comedian and political activist Mark Thomas on filesharing were inaccurate, but denied a complaint by UK Music chief executive Feargal Sharkey that it was "biased and prejudicial".
Thomas's Culture Show report, which aired on the BBC2 show in February this year, examined the digital economy bill which was then going through parliament and its attempt to crack down on illegal downloading.
The comedian, who opposed that part of the bill – which has since become law – said on the show that it enabled film and music industry bodies to cut off people's internet access on the "bare minimum of evidence".
Sharkey, who spoke in favour of the bill on The Culture Show, said in his complaint to the BBC that Thomas's report was "not only grossly misleading and inaccurate, but also misinformed the audience in a bias [sic] and prejudicial manner, thereby contravening the BBC's editorial guidelines relating to accuracy and impartiality". His complaint was part upheld with regard to accuracy and not upheld with regard to impartiality.
Sharkey, who had demanded an on-air retraction and apology, took his complaint to the BBC's highest arbiter, the BBC Trust's editorial standards committee, after his initial concerns were largely rejected by the corporation's management.
The trust committee, in its ruling today, said Thomas's report was an "authored" piece and was "not to be taken as if it were a report by a BBC presenter or reporter".
But it admitted it "might have been better for the introduction to have more clearly indicated that the report was authored".
The ESC said the "section of the report on the likely effects of the new bill had given the audience an inaccurate description of how the process of disconnection would work", adding that in "attempting to paraphrase the legal complexities of the bill the report had not been sufficiently precise and had been inaccurate".
"Use of the word 'criminalise' in the introduction to the report was inaccurate but that this aspect of the complaint had been satisfactorily dealt with by the programme at the earliest opportunity," the committee added.
The report had also "not retained a respect for factual accuracy ... with regard to the implication given that the secretary of state had unfettered discretion to amend the law on copyright without parliamentary scrutiny".
Critics of Thomas's report claimed he had given much more time to opponents of the bill – 8 minutes and 20 seconds out of a total of 10 minutes, according to Sharkey – than its supporters.
But the BBC Trust committee ruled that the programme had not breached BBC guidelines on impartiality.
"While Mark Thomas had expressed strong personal opinions in his links to camera, this was permitted by the guidelines on authored programmes. All the main views, including those that contradicted Mark Thomas's, were reflected," the committee said.
"Bias on a controversial subject had been avoided and ... impartiality had been achieved in a way that was adequate and appropriate to the output," the ESC added.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oc ... aring-show
