The role of the BBC in emergencies

Rather than celebrate the success of the vaccine rollout in terms of saving the lives of the elderly, the information was used by the health team of the BBC News website to imply an increased risk to young adults.

Should the BBC treat a pandemic like a world war in which they contribute to the national effort by conforming to the state’s narrative? Or do we expect a dose of adversarial scrutinisation, like with other major episodes such as the Iraq war or Brexit?

Given the enormity of the BBC’s output, any one occasion of alleged bias may be isolated and unrepresentative, but the following example indicates that when addressing the corona crisis, at least occasionally, news values have been troublingly transformed, as the national broadcaster elects to present information in a certain way.

On the 5th of August the BBC News website featured the following headline: “Covid: Fifth of England hospital admissions aged 18-34”.

Comments made by the new NHS England Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard were featured heavily. She said that young adults were “really unwell” and that it was “so important” that vaccine offers were accepted.

The BBC article compared the 1 in 5 being admitted to hospital in the young adult age category with the much lower 5.5% during the winter surge.

The article stated, drawing upon Amanda Pritchard’s remarks, “the level of young adults being admitted to hospital was four times higher than the peak last winter”.

It would have been reasonable to have read the piece and formed the impression that Covid now poses a greater hospitalisation risk to younger adults.

In fact, what has happened is that the virus now poses a much lower risk to older adults and therefore their share of the hospitalisations has significantly decreased. The higher proportion of younger adults in hospital is an incidental double effect of the thing that has altered. This was mentioned much lower down in the article, but the headline, quotes from Amanda Pritchard, and the main thrust of the piece did not reflect this.

Surely the important news is the thing that has changed, not the irrelevant statistical off-shoot of that change. Younger adults are not facing more serious outcomes than in the winter surge. The “four times higher” statement may be interesting for statisticians, but it did not mean the reality for younger people was any different.

Rather than celebrate the success of the vaccine rollout in terms of saving the lives of the elderly, the information was used by the health team of the BBC News website to imply an increased risk to young adults and to amplify the calls of NHS Senior Management for more of the British youth to get vaccinated.

Whatever your view of the merits of that cause, the BBC seemed keen to write the piece in such a way that could worry youngsters into a making an affirmative decision in response to their offer of a vaccine, rather than to highlight the much lower overall hospitalisation levels that we now have (news of which may encourage vaccination anyway).

With much more Covid media coverage to come and other non-pandemic developments categorised as emergencies in the pipeline for the next few decades, a disinterested BBC could provide an important counterbalance to state propaganda that leaves us all better informed and educated. Let us hope that they see themselves in that role as well.