Questions must be asked regarding the motives of those in charge at Pacific Quay.
News related to the Glasgow North-East by-election in the last few weeks has noted that David Kerr, the SNP candidate for the Westminster seat, is a member of the sinister Opus Dei. Kerr, who has already caused controversy with elitist remarks regarding one of Glasgow's universities and a camp impression of Reformer John Knox with childish comments about Rangers, is a former BBC Newsnight Scotland editor, and was previously the assistant editor of Reporting Scotland before becoming a reporter for BBC Scotland.
That someone with such sinister links is able to worm his way in to an influential position within the Scottish media should be of grave concern to the Scottish public. Moreover, one would hope that our parliament will remain free of an individual with such condescending and elitist views toward people he is aiming to represent.
Leaving politics aside, BBC Scotland news over the last few years, including during David Kerr's time at Reporting Scotland, has managed to increasingly alienate Rangers fans on several occasions: labelling a Rangers player a "cunt" on their official website; tagging an image of Nell McAndrew, who modelled a new Rangers kit, as "huncunt1"; point-blank refusal to ever mention the IRA-fest at a Letterkenny hotel attended by Celtic officials, even when the video footage was mentioned in every other major news outlet; taking a lead in a one-sided, anti-Rangers campaign continued under the thin veil of an anti-sectarianism initiative; and using our money to pay for reporters to attend a Celtic supporters' provofest in Benidorm, and then lying about it to hide the failure of the event.
Opinion of the BBC amongst the many thousands of Rangers supporters in Scotland has never been lower. Our national broadcaster, we are told, has strict guidelines to which they must adhere yet this is a corporation that is continually failing the Scottish public on both quality and impartiality in its reporting.
David Murray, when questioned about his lack of action defending Rangers and the support, has stated that if we don't like what's being written then we don't have to buy the 'papers. This is, of course, true when we're talking about the ever-decreasing quality of the Glasgow Herald and Radio Clyde, for example. We can refuse to buy the paper or switch off the radio and starve them of money generated by advertisements. However, with the BBC we have no option but to pay the license fee which funds the current output from Pacific Quay and the standards demonstrated at present are totally unacceptable.
An incident in Banknock in Stirlingshire in August highlighted once again the depths to which BBC Scotland will stoop in their news reporting. Thugs dressed in Celtic attire attacked an ambulance on the afternoon of Sunday 9 August, with the appeal issued by the Central Scotland Police website stating:
"Police are keen to trace four men seen in the area at the time.
"The man who crossed the road and force the ambulance to stop is described as 5’7 – 5’8, late 20s-early 30s.
"A second man was described as wearing a light blue jumper, balding with dark hair at the side, wearing a Celtic top beneath a jersey, jeans and believed to be in his early 30s.
"A third man had blond hair and was wearing a Celtic top with jeans.
"The fourth man was described as 5’8”, brown hair, a tattoo on the back of his neck, and was wearing a green coloured jumper and jeans."
BBC Scotland did report the incident but there are no prizes on offer for correctly guessing the information they left out of the report. The cut down version is still available on their website.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/8192502.stm
A local Stirling 'paper and other news outlets managed to include the descriptions of the thugs and the question must be asked: why did BBC Scotland intentionally remove vital information from a police statement for their website report?
David Kerr and his sinister leanings may have departed the BBC but lack of standards demonstrated numerous times over the last few years remain. And YOU are funding it.