Member's statement: BBC Bias
Member's statement by Mr Paul Frew on .
- MLA
- Mr Paul Frew
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 10 November 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- BBC Bias
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5224881
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Information is the currency of democracy. I am the first politician to stand up for freedom of the press and investigative journalism. However, the priority now for the BBC must be to restore its relationship with the truth and with the people who are forced to pay for that shabby and unethical service. The Trump speech is not the first time that the BBC has mischaracterised a politician's words, and it is not the first time that the BBC has reported false or fake news that represented a lack of editorial impartiality. On 23 July 2021, 'Good Morning Ulster' reported that the Mater Hospital was filled with young people on ventilators. That was false. It was untrue. 'The Nolan Show' repeated the story and ran with it. It was lazy journalism, because the BBC had not practised due diligence in checking the story and getting further sources to back up it up, and it was designed to feed into a narrative with which the BBC was obliging the Government and the Executive of the day in deploying fear, which caused great anxiety throughout our people and particularly our young people. The Executive's motives were to coerce young people to take a medicine that could cause them adverse side effects. A complaint went in, and it was upheld in April 2022, but the damage was done. Then we had the 'Talkback' programme that sensationalised me in my assisting people who had been harmed by medicine. It then took a public conversation that I had on Twitter with another account about vaccine injuries and reported fatalities and injuries on the yellow card scheme. On 16 January 2023, the 'Talkback' programme ran a story entitled 'Public health experts combat new wave of misinformation'. The BBC took a small section of that conversation out of context, changing its meaning, even though, earlier in the conversation, I had clarified the very point that it was reporting. It chose to ignore that in order to take a small section of the conversation and run a narrative that has both mischaracterised my words and misrepresented my opinion on the topic. That then was reported repeatedly by other media outlets. The false pretext was represented as fact. That mischaracterisation or misrepresentation was echoed only last week. I am calling for an investigation — a thorough review of BBC practices, not only in BBC News but in BBC News Northern Ireland, and into the current affairs programmes on Radio Ulster, so that we can get to the truth of these matters and ensure that the BBC once more becomes impartial, fair and accurate.
434 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.14 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.98).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.05 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.09 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.03 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.09 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.20 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.44 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.14 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.98 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.02 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.96 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.02 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.01 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:43 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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