A BBC Trust review of the corporation’s coverage of the Arab Spring, written by former UN director of communications and Middle East expert Edward Mortimer, found that BBC broadcast outlets almost never pointed audiences at the BBC News website: “no cross reference was made to BBC online in over 97% of BBC news items”.
The omission mattered because the same review questioned whether the BBC had adequately explained the background and context of the uprisings. “For these more sophisticated analyses, with ifs and buts and subordinate clauses, one probably needs to look to radio — and to the website,” Mortimer wrote, adding that the website “almost invariably provides greater depth of background information, with a wealth of question-and-answer features, analysis from correspondents and other aggregated material”.”
The counts were stark. Television news referred to the website in 35 of 985 Arab Spring items; radio in nine of 916, though the report conceded that links are harder to give on radio. Stephen Mitchell, then deputy director and head of multimedia programmes at BBC News, acknowledged the problem: viewers and listeners were sometimes made aware of web content and often were not, and it annoyed him. “The website is not ‘new media’. It’s the third leg on the stool” — a point he still had to repeat to colleagues.
By 2012 the BBC’s digital news services were 15 years old and fully part of the organisation, which made the reminder itself the finding. Audiences were already mixing sources across the day rather than relying on the breakfast show or the evening bulletin.