Interesting to watch the coverage of the carry-on in London – the big anti-cuts protest march, the occupation of Fortnum & Mason (one would hope the protesters took tea at some stage) and the general trashing of various perceived symbols of capitalist badness – bank windows, Topshop, the Ritz and so on.
The BBC – both on its news channel and also online – has reported the attendance at the main march as “more than 250,000”. This figure was credited to “The TUC, which organised the event”.
It may well have been 250,000 – but it’s not long since various other mass-protest marches and gatherings saw the BBC use the police estimate as their primary source of educated guesswork. Indeed, taking the police estimate as the first and most reliable source in such matters has been the tradition for a couple of decades, if not longer.
The Stop The War rallies ahead of the Iraq assault in February 2003 were a case in point. At the 2003 London rally, according to the BBC, “Police said it was the UK’s biggest ever demonstration with at least 750,000 taking part, although organisers put the figure closer to two million.”
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Similarly, in Glasgow in 2003, the BBC reported that “Strathclyde Police estimated that 30,000 people took part in the march … However, David Mackenzie of march organisers Scottish Coalition for Justice Not War put the figure at more than 80,000.” Accurate, reliable estimates for large open-air gatherings in complex public spaces such as city centres and parks are notoriously hard to obtain. The lack of tickets and turnstiles means it’s all very amorphous, and those who are trying to control and contain the protest (the police and – usually – the government of the day) traditionally want to downplay the numbers, while organisers and participants want to big them up. As regards the 2003 Glasgow protest, the “low” official figure of 30,000 was widely ridiculed – and, as one who was present that day (and who has attended various other large gatherings – protests, sporting events and stadium-sized gigs), I too found it laughably small. However, the actual numbers at any of these events – whether in 2003, or today in London, or earlier protests when Margaret Thatcher was in power – are by-the-by as regards the point I want to make here. My point is this: rightly or wrongly, the BBC has, over recent years, come to be regarded as having an inbuilt, institutional left-liberal bias, in much the same way that many SNP supporters regard it as having an inbuilt pro-Union bias. Whether that left-liberal bias exists is for others more qualified than me to assess, but it is a widely held notion, both in the blogosphere and in parts of the mainstream media. There is even a website, Biased BBC, set up to research this exact question. So how does the way the corporation choose to report march numbers relate to this? Well, during the Iraq protests, the top-line figures used by the BBC were the “low” ones provided by the police and undoubtedly favoured by the government of the day – which was Labour. Similarly, if memory serves, when any of those protests turned violent round the fringes, there was no particular attempt by the BBC to differentiate between the aggressive minority and the peaceful majority. And today, in London? The BBC opts for top-line “high” figures provided by the unions and undoubtedly favoured by the main opposition party of the day – which happens to be Labour. And the mid-evening anchor on the BBC News channel took great care to differentiate between the aggressive minority and the peaceful majority. Spot the difference? It might just be coincidence – it should be added, for instance, that Sky News, not a outlet reckoned to be left-leaning, has gone for an even higher estimate of today's march numbers: "up to half a million". But if the BBC is keen to avoid accusations of bias, then this particular change in editorial policy – if that is what lies behind the difference between the 2003 and 2011 methods of counting – doesn't seem likely to help when it comes to conveying a sense of impartiality. Oh, and the second observation from today’s news? It’s the 70th birthday of Richard Dawkins – described by the Guardian in its weekend birthdays slot as “ethologist, evolutionary biologist and writer”. And today is also the day when William Hague – “Conservative MP and foreign secretary” – turns 50. There’s evolution for you.Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day
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