Reporting Scotland first thing this morning acting like a public service broadcaster paid for by its viewers. I’d say it’s a first after a long time not telling us that nurse or rail strikes were England-only.

On Wednesday 31 May, as the strikes were announced, they didn’t tell us and I did this:

I doubt they follow TuS or would be affected by it, so what’s going on?

On February 2023, on the much more serious matter of not informing the elderly and vulnerable that health strikes would not affect Scots, I wrote to BBC Complaints with:

Since the beginning of December 2022, there have been numerous strikes by nurses, ambulance staff and other key health service workers which the BBC UK broadcasts have carefully reported, early and repeatedly, fulfilling their duty as a public service broadcaster, to alert the public, especially the older and more vulnerable who rely on TV news. The elderly and vulnerable in Scotland may have seen and been confused and worried by these reports because BBC Scotland has never reminded them that, on all of those days, all health services in Scotland were operating normally. This failure of your charter will have caused confusion, will have caused those at risk to hesitate in calling for help and may have resulted in avoidable deaths. What reason could you possibly have for this neglect other than to avoid having to cast the Scottish Government in a positive light? 

On March 10, they replied:

“Thank you for being in touch about the programme and its reporting of industrial action by NHS workers.

You do not give any examples from anywhere in the BBC’s output of what you are complaining about. The BBC’s Editorial Complaints Procedure (part of our Complaints Framework and Procedures) asks you to provide the name or title of the broadcast or published item, and the date and time of production, amongst other matters, when you submit your complaint. These details are very important if we are effectively to investigate any complaint and a failure to provide them may mean that the BBC is unable to look into the matter.

That said, I have looked at our output and it is clear that when the Network News refers to industrial action in England, it says it is in England (or Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland or any combination of these, where appropriate). Reporting Scotland carries stories about industrial action in Scotland and says that the events are happening here. If the respective network and Scottish bulletins clearly delineate what and where they are talking about, I struggle to understand what more you might think should be said.

As you acknowledge, the network bulletins clearly reported which areas of the various services have been affected by strike action. I don’t believe that the audience in Scotland watching those bulletins would have been confused about which parts of the UK were impacted by strikes, and generally I would expect Reporting Scotland to cover things which are happening in Scotland, not things which aren’t. I do not believe our telling people what is relevant to them and what is not relevant to them will cause confusion, make people hesitate in calling for help or even die, but I thank you for asking us to reflect on the matter.

A fluke today?