Surprise! OFCOM steps into the row over the BBC Bob Marley 'Puff Piece'.

I was pleased and surprised on Tuesday to learn that OFCOM, generally no friend of any of my positions, was investigating the BBC, which I had thought was immune from such outside probes. The BBC is amazingly well-protected against critics, above all by its effectively total exemption from Freedom of Information requests. If you read the FoI exemption, mainly for anything connected with BBC 'journalism' you might get the impression that it wasn’t total, but in practice I have found that it is. If it’s interesting or important, you can’t ask.

 

It turns out that in certain circumstances, OFCOM *can* investigate the BBC.  It cannot look into impartiality questions, which are still reserved for the BBC Trust  – assuming that the ordinary complainer has the persistence and skill to get that far. I’ll believe that the BBC Trust is an independent monitor when it upholds one of my complaints on impartiality. Not before.

 

But it has entertained a complaint against a disgraceful broadcast on the Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme (8.45 a.m. Wednesday 19th November) , which the programme itself accurately described as a ‘Puff Piece’ for a branded  type of marijuana.

 

Here’s a  report on it from the Daily Mail;

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2841901/BBC-branded-irresponsible-Marley-cannabis-company-story-Critics-accuse-corporation-celebrating-drugs-culture-light-hearted-uncritical-report.html

 

 

My own complaint to the BBC, now grinding its way through the complaint system, summed up the matter as follows:

 

The item was an unremitting promotion of cannabis, a drug which is illegal in this country,. Its legality is currently the subject of major public controversy, as there is an active and high-level campaign for its legalisation. Interspersed with music, it was wholly uncritical of claims about the drug such as that it was 'pure' and has 'positive benefits' . The use of this drug is strongly correlated with irreversible mental illness, especially among the young, a grave tragedy for those affected. Its sale and possession are still officially crimes attracting long prison sentences, yet the reporter and the presenters treated the subject with levity. The legality or otherwise of cannabis is a subject of current major controversy (e.g. the recent Home Office report and subsequent resignation of the minister involved) and likely to be an election issue next May. This was a total failure of balance, and seriously irresponsible behaviour.

 

 

A BBC Apparatchik then responded this

 

The report you have complained about featured in the programme’s business slot and concerned a tie up between an American company , Privateer Holdings and the estate of the late Bob Marley , which had licensed the use of his name to create a brand of cannabis products , called Marley Natural. This story featured in quite similar ways in newspapers such as the Telegraph and the Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2839424/This-dreamed-Family-Bob-Marley-launch-global-marijuana-brand-honor-reggae-king-cannabis-industry-braces-hit-10-billion.html.

It was made clear that these products would only be marketed in places where it was legal to do so , including some states in the USA . It was also stated that they would not be sold in the UK where they would be illegal ; a point underlined by the business reporter , Simon Jack at the end of the report when he stated , “ It’s not legal here. Washington and Colorado though have made it legal.”  

 

As you point out, the legality of cannabis is controversial and Today has considered the matter on other occasions , most recently on October 30th when it was discussed by the then Home Office Minister , Norman Baker MP and Michael Ellis MP, who was critical of decriminalising it.

The item in the business slot on November 19th was not intended to be an examination of the social effects of drug use and confined itself to the business aspect of the story.

 

However the editor of the Today programme considers that the tone of the report was not appropriate given that cannabis is a banned substance in the UK , and accepts that more should have been said to counter any possible impression that the drug has purely positive benefits . Simon Jack should perhaps have referred to the debate over the medical consequences of its use . As there was no suggestion that these products could be purchased by people in Britain , we do not think the report can be held to have promoted their usage but we are sorry it did not meet the standards we would expect.

 

 

And I replied to him:

 

Dear Mr  ****

 

Thank you for your letter. I am copying this reply to the Editorial Complaints Unit, as I view your reply as wholly inadequate and wish to pursue it further. I explain my reasons below.

 

I would above all dispute your assertion that the item was a 'report'.  Apart from a  very brief introduction from the presenter and the reporter (whose full name was not even given) , and an equally brief exit,  the item contained no BBC reporting as such. 

 

It was an entirely uncritical and uninformative advertorial feature package containing unchallenged and unexamined statements by a spokesman (Brendan Kennedy) for the company involved and by unintroduced and unnamed children of Bob Marley, who were recorded as praising the 'positive benefits' of 'something that was so pure'. To add to the impression that the item was a commercial, it contained long passages of Bob Marley's music, taking up precious time that could have been used for reporting and questioning. The music also gave the impression of Radio 4 endorsing this item as a piece of entertaining jollity rather than a contentious issue. Perhaps  the most purely commercial segment of the package was this:  'Marley Natural is a brand with deep roots in the life and legacy of our father, Bob Marley. He's smiling!' Such sentiments would not be out of place in an actual paid advertisement.

 

But there is another aspect here - of partiality in controversy. Only someone wholly partial in the argument about cannabis legalisation would have failed to see the difficulties with this item. But even such a person should have noticed that the product's own promoters recognised their actions as political . Look at this from Mr Kennedy:  'It's a natural fit. It’s a brand that will immediately have brand recognition around the world. There aren't a lot of branding opportunities out there like this one. It gives us a strong voice in the cannabis movement and in the cannabis industry from day one'

 

Note the mention of the word 'movement'. Mr Kennedy clearly identifies the promotion as political as well as commercial.

 

The exit from the item was also openly partial in its tone and content. Given that the sale and possession of this drug are criminal offences under British law, and its use is increasingly correlated with severe and irreversible mental illness, the levity of the item, and the levity of the way in which it was presented, were completely unsuitable and indefensible.

 

The reporter says at the end, using a clearly light-hearted and amused tone 'That's what they call a puff piece in more ways than one.'

 

The presenter says in the background something on the lines of :'That's what they call a....joke'(no doubt your superior equipment can reproduce the actual word. I think it is 'terrible'). The tone throughout is joshing and light-hearted, suited to an item on Radio Scunthorpe about (say) a hippopotamus  being shampooed in a zoo, but not to this programme, or to this subject.

 

The reporter then (to the accompaniment of wheezy giggles from the presenter, once again employing unsuitable levity on a subject many people find tragic rather than funny) provides a further product endorsement : '*****(name given) Marijuana brands are available in the territories in which it is legal. It’s not a puff piece in the UK because it's not legal here. Washington and Colorado they have made it legal'.

 

Why is the mention of the availability necessary at all?

 

The presenter 's 'Thank you very much Simon' is also wreathed in smiles, once again a partial action. Those who believe that their children have become permanently mentally ill because of cannabis use will not have found it  amusing.

 

The entire item fails completely to acknowledge that there is anything contentious about the subject at all. A separate broadcast in which the controversy was discussed has no bearing on this. The item is, in and of itself, a breach of the BBC's Charter obligations, both to be impartial on matters of major controversy, and to eschew commercial promotions. Imagine, if you will, your own response to a comparably thoughtless and uncritical piece on the 'Today' programme, on a new brand of cigarettes, endorsed by the children of a famous cigarette smoker, presented amidst giggles and smiles.

 

Your link to Mail Online (not the Daily Mail, which as far as I can find published no such story) has no important bearing on the matter. Mail Online is not financed by a licence fee collected on pain of imprisonment, and is not governed by a Royal Charter. Even so, it managed to include in its report a reflection of the existence of a controversy, which the licence-financed, officially impartial Today programme did not. It noted: ‘However news of the company's launch has not sat well with anti-marijuana campaigners. Kevin Sabet, a professor at the University of Florida, told TODAY*, said it is nothing but a money-making exercise and goes against the anti-establishment views of Marley himself. 'Legalization is not about allowing millions of people some personal freedom,' Sabet said. 'It’s about a allowing a select few people to make millions of dollars.'

 

The Today' referred to here is of course the NBC TV programme, not yours. So, apart from all the rest of my complaint, the BBC's supposedly most prestigious and responsible daily news programme was outdone, in simple professionalism, by Mail Online, which has no obligation to be impartial,  and the commercial NBC.

 

I am glad that, as you say,  'the editor of the Today programme considers that the tone of the report was not appropriate given that cannabis is a banned substance in the UK , and accepts that more should have been said to counter any possible impression that the drug has purely positive benefits.'

 

This clear admission of wrongdoing, though wholly inadequate given the scale of it, It is a useful starting point for the process of apology and rectification which should now take place and which I intend to seek.

 

I would appreciate an acknowledgement that this matter is now being considered by the ECU.

 

Now here’s what OFCOM say:

 

 

‘•         Today BBC Radio 4, 19 Nov 14, 08:15

 

An Ofcom spokesman said :

“Ofcom is investigating whether this news item, about an American company launching a range of cannabis products, condoned, encouraged or glamorised the use of illegal substances”.

 

When I asked on what basis OFCOM could get involved, they replied:  Ofcom is required under the Communications Act 2003 and the Broadcasting Act 1996 to draw up a code for TV and radio, covering standards in programmes, sponsorship, product placement in television programmes, fairness and privacy.

 

This Code is known as the Ofcom Broadcasting Code. A link to the full legislation can be found here:   http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/

 

I shall be interested to see which section OFCOM cites when it comes up with its judgement on this.

The ‘Today’ programme is in my view far too willing to give a platform to drug decriminalisers, and slow to offer a comparable platform to any opponents - apart from dreary government spokesmen who seem to think the existing law is being enforced, which readers here know it isn't being.

I made a relevant complaint to the BBC last year about what I regarded as a similarly frivolous and unbalanced item on the drugs topic, which you may read here

 

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/05/how-impartial-is-that-bbc-monitoring-.html