From Lunar House to Broadcasting House: My secondment to the BBC
Earlier this year, I stepped into the big and busy BBC newsroom, moving on secondment from the Home Office. Over the next few months, I worked as BBC Verify’s consultant statistician, fact-checking claims in heated election debates, ‘filing copy’ on interesting stories, and advising journalists about statistical best practice and presentation.
Part of my role was to look ahead for newsworthy statistical releases to keep the editorial teams ahead of the curve. I ran code that scraped the GOV.UK and ONS release calendars each week. I’d then assess the list of releases and flag any interesting ones to the different teams (e.g. Business, Society, Health, Education, Climate). When a journalist wanted to run a story, I’d ‘file copy’ on the release, writing and sending a summary to them as soon as it was published. I’d then work closely with the journalist, to help build the story.
I was also on hand to support with survey and questionnaire design and, most notably, advised on a questionnaire that was distributed to postmasters about the Horizon system, to inform an iPlayer documentary.
There were many adrenaline-fueled moments. One afternoon, a producer contacted me about a story that was set to air on the News at Six and Ten that night. They had misunderstood the data and were planning to include an incorrect stats line. I had to be firm, making it clear that the line couldn’t be aired as it was, but I worked with them over email and phone calls to quickly agree on an accurate alternative.
I really enjoyed the diversity of requests; one minute I could be working on a piece on faulty cavity wall insulation, and the next I might be looking into maternity statistics. It was rewarding to see some of my work on school suspensions, teacher vacancies and student debt published.
Seeing my work from a user’s perspective
At the Home Office, I’ve worked on the high-profile Immigration systems statistics quarterly release for the past couple of years, and we regularly see it making news headlines. But being in the mind of a key user – working at pace to translate the statistics to the wider public – made me truly appreciate the impact of the publication.
Without a doubt, the most exciting experience was going down to the basement to the state-of the-art ‘Studio B’ for the first time with Mark Easton, to watch BBC News at One being filmed and aired live. There, Mark spoke about the migration figures that had been released that day. Whilst the release and any coverage were overshadowed by the small matter of the general election announcement the evening prior, it was fascinating to see how the BBC prepares in the run up to, and around, our quarterly migration release.
I’ve learnt a lot about how our data is used by the BBC and I’ll be looking to apply this learning to my work going forward. Having succinct summaries and easy-to-navigate data in a statistical release sounds blindingly obvious, but these can be make or break factors when there’s only a few minutes to digest data and circulate the story within the world of news.
The BBC know our data inside out. They have a rather impressive ‘migration cookbook’ – a wealth of R code that can pull from our datasets to create charts. This really demonstrated the benefit of Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAP), something we are working to implement more across our work.
The election period
Being based at New Broadcasting House meant that I got to see first-hand how the BBC covers a significant national event.
The Verify team was well versed in the data on the key election battlegrounds: immigration, the NHS, and the cost of living and the economy.
I worked evening shifts with Verify to fact-check the statistical claims made during the election debates. My role involved getting verbatim quotes and timestamps, sourcing and checking data (particularly for topics like small boat arrivals and visa applications), and performing quality assurance on copies and charts before they were published to the online live page. We would update the live page for any incorrect claims or ambiguous topics as the debates unfolded.
As the debates progressed, we developed a set of pre-prepared statistical ‘explainers’ to publish quickly when relevant topics arose. These explainers aimed to provide clarity and factual accuracy for the public, essential during a time of such intense political debate.
Another unforgettable experience was watching the pros, Clive Myrie, Laura Kuenssberg and Reeta Chakrabarti, in the studio rehearsing the election coverage. They were preparing for all eventualities, practicing interacting with the screens and going to constituencies for declarations, and sorting sound and lighting.
Final reflections
I noticed some similarities in being a statistician in the Civil Service and at the BBC. In both environments, statisticians work with non-analytical colleagues with varying degrees of data skills and confidence. Both organisations must maintain political impartiality, for example, BBC Verify had to ensure that they were fact-checking politicians from different parties to equal extents. Both organisations also produce heavily scrutinised (rightfully so) work, with pressure and public duty to get it right.
The main difference was the speed of decision making in the BBC, especially due to the general election news cycles. The BBC was focused on the top stories and was ruthless in selecting them. In the Civil Service, we carefully consider every caveat to ensure that data is represented as accurately as possible, but in the news, there’s often not the time in the radio bulletin or the space in the online piece to do this. Instead, stats stories will focus on punchy headlines and incorporate examples from people impacted by the statistics to bring the story to life.
My secondment was a once in a lifetime experience (statistically speaking, that is), and it gave me a new perspective on how numbers help shape the news. I’d highly recommend the secondment to any analyst that’s interested!
Nadyne Dunkley
