BBC wanting

I totally agree with Alistair McEwen (Letters, 29 October) on the BBC TV output being Anglocentric (though not on radio, where the news and current affairs content is fine). Would the answer not be in a Scottish Six, which seems to have been kicked into very long grass?

In my view, media affairs should be an item for devo-max in due course.

For example, in Australia, Queensland has its own TV news programme, which gives international, Australian and provincial news all together.

This saves the duplication, which currently exists in BBC Reporting Scotland, as with the Grangemouth Ineos story last week, which we got twice – different reporters, but same shots and commentary.

Ronnie Crichton

Cockburn Crescent

Balerno

What a very sad image is conjured in the mind by reading Alistair McEwen’s letter. It is an image of someone assiduously counting and logging the number of times the word “England” is mentioned in any BBC broadcast.

Then, the cry of triumph on finding some, any, “proof” to back up the pre-determined idea that the BBC, presumably as well as the UK government, spends all of its time and energy trying in some way to belittle and do down Scotland.

Mr McEwan’s claims of bias are preposterous and have no foundation other than in assuring fevered nationalist minds that what they have always imagined to be true, is true.

The real truth is, the BBC is regarded across the planet as being possibly the best and fairest broadcaster there is.

During the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, for example, it is on record that both sides would listen and watch attentively the BBC reports, regarding them as the fairest and by far the best.

The BBC, for all its faults, is scrupulously fair.

Should those wishing to separate Scotland and break up the UK ever succeed, what will those who think in the manner of Mr McEwen then do in their search for bogeymen?

Alexander McKay

New Cut Rigg

Edinburgh