THE BBC has had a good week. Stuart Cosgrove described the Marr interview with Boris as “bumbling genuflection” – compare and contrast with the aggressive interview with Nicola Sturgeon a few weeks ago when he selectively picked a statistic that showed Scotland in the worst light.
The Newsnight journalist accepts that the graphs used to show Covid-19 hospitalisation figures “could cause confusion”. Any 10-year-old could tell you that you cannot compare graphs using different x and y axis. But it was no surprise that the graph made Scotland look worse than England. This is either a very poor understanding of graph comparison or deliberate misrepresentation.
READ MORE: Newsnight journalist accepts Covid-19 hospitalisation graph could cause 'confusion'
The BBC news lumps UK deaths together and does not attempt to show that the deaths in England are two-and-half times higher than in Scotland and although very stretched hospitals in Scotland are coping and still have capacity even taking in patients from the Borders. Anyone watching the news would presume the picture is the same for the whole country when it is clearly not.
This is our unbiased broadcaster at its very best or worst. You decide.
Winifred McCartney
Paisley
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