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October 15, 2009

BBC impartiality is improving says the BBC Trust

By Gary Neale

The BBC Trust has praised the BBC for its improvement of coverage of the UK nations’ news.

Last year the Trust found that the BBC was not covering the current affairs of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in enough detail and said this was hindering the BBC’s impartiality.

BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, said: “The Trust is determined that the BBC should serve all audiences, and licence fee payers themselves tell us they want to know more about what’s going on in the nations and regions of the UK.”

But a progress report says that structural changes to the management of the BBC’s news arm and new training methods had made for significant improvements in the reporting of UK news.

Sir Michael said: “It is encouraging to see that BBC management have acted on this, and made operational changes to ensure network news and current affairs coverage reflects the different politics and policies around the UK more precisely.”

The report also told the BBC that they needed to attribute their stories more accurately, cover local news in greater depth and cover Britain’s diverse communities.

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