complaint about complaints

Inspired, as usual, by the excellent Medialens. Their latest alert picks up the beauties of the complaints process at the BBC

Submitted through the complaints form first, then forwarded to the Editorial Complaints Unit

I am writing to complain about the inadequacy of your complaints procedure with respect to 3 specific complaints I have submitted over the past few weeks. We are told that your aim is to respond within 10 working days. If the complaints procedure is to have any sense and to provide any form of accountability, 10 days should surely be an upper limit: news moves fast, issues pass quickly from public attention,and impressions are mostly formed as a result of the way a story is presented first time round. Bias needs correcting immediately, not after a month or more, with constant prodding by the complainant. Yet as you will see from the specific issues outlines below, 3 weeks or more was closer to reality.

More importantly, any response needs to deal with the specific issues identified by the complainant, and not just enter the concerns within an audience log. I have found that the first response to a complaint is almost always a standard response which does not pick up on the points raised (I could offer further examples from complaints submitted over a longer period). A second response, requesting that the points be addressed directly, is rarely forthcoming without a significant amount of persistence and effort from the complainant. Yet your website suggests that people 'unhappy' with a response to a complaint should '... contact the department which replied, explain why and request a further response to your complaint.' I have done this, and have received no further correspondence. This too is typical, in my experience.

I would like to request from the ECU:

1. A response to the adequacy of your procedures, given the points raised above and the way the following 3 complaints have been dealt with. I have limited it to these 3 but would like to emphasise that the BBC's response in other (numerous) cases has been almost identical.

2. That the ECU address specifically the issues raised by complaints 1 and 3 and provide me with a satisfactory response to the issues raised. Of course - a 'satisfactory response', even if forthcoming, will be unlikely to undo the immediate damage done by extremely biased reporting on so important an issue.

The essence of the 3 complaints is outlined below. The detailed correspondence is attached [see hyperlinks].

1. On the 1st June I sent a detailed complaint about coverage of the Gaza flotilla. I outlined several specific areas where I felt the coverage had been biased. On the 19th June, I received a generic reply which did not address any of the points I had raised. I sent a further request for these points to be addressed to Stefan Curran but have so far received no response. A 'response' which does not deal with the complaint is not a response at all, in my view.

2. On the 4th June I sent a complaint concerning an interview on the Today programme (Sarah Montague interviewing Sarah Colbourne). I have received no response1.

3. On the 7th June I sent a complaint about the BBC online page covering the blockade. I received a response on the 29th June saying that certain changes had been made, in accordance with my request. The changes have still not been made, and I have received no response to my query asking when they will be incorporated into the text.

Thank you for your attention

...

• 1. Within 2 hours of submitting this complaint about complaints, I received a 'response' to the Sarah Montague interview