Story in Sunday Herald on BBC making up poll results
The BBC suffered another credibility blow after admitting that it made up a Newsnight survey suggesting that most of Britain and Scotland's leading businesses were not in favour of independence.
Presenter Jeremy Paxman had told SNP leader Alex Salmond that 'not one' of 50 firms, made up of 25 in Britain and 25 north of the border, supported the party's independence policy on a TV special shown before the Holyrood elections in May.
The Sunday Herald has discovered the BBC has since apologised after a viewer complained the 'straw poll' was mis-represented by Paxman because only a handful of companies replied to the survey.
Details of the latest mistake emerged only days after a number of corporation staff were told to 'step back' from their duties over their involvement in a fake phone-in scandal affecting six programmes, including BBC Scotland's Children In Need Appeal.
The BBC's head of editorial complaints, Fraser Steel, responding to the complaint by viewer Chris Hegarty conceded that only seven of the 50 firms approached for their views on independence had replied.
He added that contrary to Paxman's claims, a majority had declined to express a view 'one way or the other, two had declared 'neutrality' and one leading business said 'it didn't care.' Steel added that as a result of the mistake, the programme's editor and 'senior management' were spoken to about 'the importance of clarity and transparency' when reporting the outcome of so-called 'snapshots' and straw polls.
Details of the latest deception to affect the BBC emerged after the corporation's director general, Mark Thompson, announced that phone contests were suspended on Thursday after a review found staff or their friends had been allowed to 'win' competititions.
It followed the corporation's apology earlier this month to The Queen after the producers of a documentary, RDF Media, edited footage to make it appear she had walked out of a photoshoot with the photographer Annie Leibovitz.
In June, Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark also apologised to Salmond for the 'abrupt' way she ended their interview about Prime Minister Tony Blair's signing of a 'memorandum of understanding' with Libya after 100 viewers complained about her behaviour.
The Sunday Herald has obtained correspondence between Hegarty and Steel after the exchange between Paxman and Salmond on the Newsnight special 'Act of Disunion,' which was shown on January 16.
Paxman told Salmond: "We spoke to the 25 largest companies in Britain and the 25 largest companies in Scotland and not one of them favoured independence."
Hegarty wrote to the BBC complaining the survey was 'not transparent' because 'the precise wording' of the question Newsnight staff asked was not made public. However, the BBC argued that Paxman's description was a 'fair representation' of the survey as a snapshot of business opinion rather than a scientifically conducted poll.
The BBC's Steel replied to Hegarty that Simon Enright, the Newsnight assistant editor in charge of the item, had defended the methods used to obtain the results and said Jeremy Paxman had not represented this as a fully fledged poll or survey and rejected part of the complaint.
But Steel admitted the BBC had been wrong to suggest all the companies did not favour independence when so few had replied. He added: "I do think however, that there is more cause for concern in relation to the results of this straw poll and how those results were reflected in the question framed by Jeremy Paxman.
"The Newsnight team, having now reviewed the material gathered concede that they got this wrong, and that the inference drawn from the results in the question - that the biggest companies were unanimously ranged against independence - was not a valid one.
"I hope you will accept my apologies, on behalf of the BBC, for the mistake."
An SNP spokesman said: "It was quite wrong that Newsnight's approach to this serious issue misrepresented the views of Scottish businesses, and so it was right for them to apologise for their misjudgement. If we are to have a serious debate about the future of Scotland, broadcasters must report the facts."
A BBC spokeswoman added: "A complaint was received on this and looked into by the Editorial Complaints Unit. All the complaints are published on the ECU website and our policy is not to comment on any findings."
Hegarty declined to comment.
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So they ask 50 firms for their opinion, 43 of them don't reply, whilst the other 7 care not a jot. From that the BBC makes out that none of them are supporting independence. The BBC has just a good grasp on lying and spin as the ruling Labour government.
Some previous bits I have done on the BBC: BBC make stuff up again,
BBC employee attemptes to walk on water,
Terrorists working at the BBC,
BBC paid for through a poll tax.
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