The depressing truth about the BBC? They’ll get away with it again - "What is bias in one person’s view is common sense in another’s. Bias, like beauty, is so often in the eye of the beholder. That is why the BBC has been able to slough off so many accusations that it is partisan. When such criticisms arise, the BBC often dismisses them as politically motivated; in effect they counter-accuse their accusers of bias. In this way, even determined attempts to “prove” BBC bias have been thwarted; one of the most meticulous was a project to monitor BBC output for evidence of bias against Brexit. Bankrolled by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the monitors assembled batteries of statistics demonstrating that over a period of decades the BBC showed pronounced bias against the Leave side in the Brexit debate. All to no avail; the BBC rejected all the statistical data and never budged an inch... the liberal-Left Establishment circled the wagons to ensure the BBC’s survival. It’s in moments like these that the true nature of that Establishment becomes clear. Of course the usual suspects – the Guardian and its followers – came charging into the fray, spraying calumnies on likely suspects (step forward Sir Robbie Gibb, the former head of BBC Westminster, Theresa May’s ex-spin doctor, now a BBC governor). But there were also the fellow travellers: people such as Lord Patten of Barnes, chairman of the Tory Party, who came out in florid style pompously denouncing the BBC’s critics on Radio 4’s PM programme. And then, in the pages of The Spectator, ex-Tory MP Matthew Parris, under the headline “Was the BBC’s Trump edit really wrong?” devoted his column to explaining the idea of “truthiness”; how if something feels true, if it conveys a truth without being literally true, it has “truthiness”. It is people like Lord Patten and Parris who give substance to the notion of a “uniparty” – that great rump of bien pensants from across the party-political divide who actually agree on all the important things. One of which is that the BBC must never, ever, be forced to concede that its doctrine of impartiality is moonshine... The BBC tirelessly proclaims itself to be “independent, impartial and truthful”. When this claim is challenged by outsiders it is fiercely resisted, but when, as in the Prescott dossier, it is an inside job, it is even more important that the charge be seen off in double-quick time. Because if the BBC ever were to concede the point that its precious impartiality was mythical, where would that leave it? Mortally wounded is where. That is why the wagons have been circled; that is why the trumpets have been sounded and all the BBC’s champions have sallied forth in answer to the call. Because The Telegraph’s scoop really was a moment of maximum danger for the BBC. But the depressing wonder of it is that they’re getting away with it. As the hearings at the Culture, Media and Sport select committee this week demonstrated, there is no appetite in government to punish the BBC for these egregious lapses. In a typical BBC way, the ritual sacrifice of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness as director-general and head of news respectively is deemed to have been sufficient to expiate the sins of Panorama, and BBC Arabic and the LGBTQ+ correspondents’ coven, without any actual admission that anything very much has gone wrong. I may be thick, but isn’t it weird that these two senior people at the BBC should lose their jobs while the organisation publicly maintains that there has, in fact, been no breach of the impartiality credo? If not, why did they have to go? There is a further deep peculiarity about all this. In a normal institution, one might expect that those with direct responsibility of the wrongdoing would be the ones to suffer. In the case of the Panorama programme Trump: A Second Chance? we know who made the programme (October Films); we know the names of the editor (Karen Wightman), the executive producers (Neil Bradwell and Leo Telling) and producer (Matthew Hill). As far as we know, there has been no sanction on any of them. This is just one more mystery in an episode that has thrown up many puzzling questions. Up to now, despite all the evidence, the BBC has played with a straight bat, a stout forward-defence, resolutely refusing to admit even the possibility that there is systemic bias in the way it sees the world. It’s working. The heat is gradually coming off; other matters – the Budget, Ukraine, et cetera – are replacing it as front-page news, and we have no promise of reforms, no genuine contrition. The circled wagons have held firm and, yet again, the enemy is retreating in disarray. You have to admire the bare-faced effrontery of this even while deploring the dishonesty."
The BBC has just shown it doesn’t grasp civilisation - "There are too many historical gripes to list here, but the biggest problem is that the thesis is so crudely politicised. It is plagued by “anachronism”, the tendency to label and judge by the values of today. Baroness Valerie Amos, former Head of UN Humanitarian Aid tells us: “My experience is if a huge number of people end up on your border, it means something has gone really, really wrong.” Anyone hearing this would immediately identify the agenda – an agenda that looks decidedly last year. “The problem is how governments respond to displaced people,” says Luke Kemp, from The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. “You can choose to take them into your society or you can make them into an enemy.” It feels like blatant editorialising because it is. This stuff just keeps on coming. Apparently, Romans were uneasy about “such a vast influx of people” with “their deep-seated prejudices” about “racial stereotypes that are ubiquitous in ancient culture, just like they are in ours”. Really? Talking about race and identity in the ancient world as if it were directly comparable to our own is probably the greatest pitfall a historian can fall into. My personal favourite assumption was about those alive in 410AD: “You remembered where you were when you heard the news, like 9/11.” We hear a lot about Rome’s “super rich… hoovering up the wealth of the wider empire” as if the rich didn’t exist before the end of the fourth century or any time afterwards until Elon Musk. “The wealthy of late antique Rome are a lot like the billionaire class of today.” Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. It is alleged Rome “failed to solve the challenges of mass migration”. There are a lot of people out there who would agree there has been a failure to solve the challenges of mass migration, though just not in the way the producers of this documentary suggest. History here is not understood in its richness and depth but merely as a mirror to reflect a version of the “now”. It’s as lifeless as the instructions for a flatpack wardrobe. The moralising, clichés and slackness demean the audience and the subject. Another reviewer confused Kenneth Clark, the presenter of the BBC’s 1969 series Civilisation, with the former Tory chancellor Ken Clarke. How apt. Standards have clearly slipped, as this programme illustrates. It more likely heralds the decline and fall of our civilisation than Rome’s."
Minorities feel BBC represents their lives more than white viewers - "Ethnic minorities believe the BBC reflects their lives more than white viewers do, new research has revealed. In its latest annual report on the broadcaster, Ofcom found that 60pc of minority ethnic respondents agreed that the BBC “reflects the lives of people like me”. That’s compared to just 50pc of white people surveyed... In its own recent survey, the corporation found that just 51pc of people believe its output effectively reflects different people and areas across the UK. Meanwhile, almost a quarter think it is ineffective in doing so... the public service broadcaster continues to face varying perceptions across different ethnic and cultural groups. Viewers in poorer households consistently rate the BBC’s impartiality as lower than that of viewers in wealthier areas."
Proof that white people are racist and that they need even more diversity, and that poor people are ignorant and need to be reeducated
Meme - Chris Rose: "Spot the difference. BBC reporting when it comes to:
Ramadan: Check out the moment the West End was lit up to celebrate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan
Christmas: Regent Street to go car-free for 'festive fun' day"
The marketing material for Regent Street mentioned Christmas, so
British Intel on X - "🚨🇬🇧 WATCH: BBC SHUTS DOWN MAN WHO QUESTIONS THEM ON GROOMING GANGS A brave member of the public confronted the BBC head-on - asking why they helped bury the truth about grooming gangs for decades. The response? They immediately shut him down and moved on as fast as possible."
Third of public believes BBC has Left-wing bias - "Some 31 per cent said the BBC was biased in favour of Left-wing views, while 19 per cent believed the corporation to be biased in favour of Right-wing views."
19% of the UK must be crazy left wingers
Clearly a third of the public needs to be re-educated, because they've been consuming too much "far right" media, and this shows the damage that "misinformation" causes
Without a culture shift, the BBC cannot recover - "The first rule for an institution in trouble is to admit there is a problem. The BBC seems incapable of doing so. Despite the resignation of Tim Davie, its director-general, and Deborah Turness, its head of news, the national broadcaster’s failure to confront the issues head-on is a serious mistake. Its response to the crisis has been a mixture of denial, delusion and defensiveness."
Letters: The BBC appears incapable of seeing how badly this latest scandal has damaged its standing - "As I listened to Mark Damazer (the former controller of Radio 4) defend the BBC in the wake of the Trump tape-editing scandal, the problem suddenly became clear to me. The BBC lives in a postmodern post-truth culture, where Nietzsche’s philosophy of perspectivism – that there are no truths, only opinions – holds sway. In relation to the Gaza war, Mr Damazer asserted on the Today programme that the BBC must balance all opinions, including, it seems, those of extremists such as Hamas, glossing over the fact that the BBC was on several occasions reporting what was factually untrue. In the case of the Trump fiasco, the BBC went much further, turning what was true into something false in a way that fitted its own narrative. The corporation really has entered the quicksands."
"The BBC has been leaning to the Left for so long that it genuinely believes it is standing up straight, and that it’s the rest of the world that is tilted. Even when I worked at the BBC in the 1970s there were things you dared not say, and friends who’ve worked there more recently tell me it has only got worse. It matters because Westminster and the BBC together form an impermeable bubble, which affects government policy – whichever party is in power."
Truth only exists when it pushes the left wing agenda
Reform blasts 'biased' BBC: Zia Yusuf makes official complaint after Question Time bosses 'stacked' audience with small boat migrants - as he says it was like getting convicted burglars to debate law and order - "Reform UK has accused the BBC of a 'serious failure of impartiality' after Zia Yusuf lodged a formal complaint alleging that Question Time 'stacked' its audience with small boat migrants. Yusuf, the party's policy chief, said the broadcaster had created a situation he likened to asking 'convicted burglars to debate law and order' after he was quizzed on-air by two men who admitted entering Britain illegally. Nigel Farage called the episode a 'set-up', claiming the BBC had given a national platform to people 'the majority of the country want to keep out'. Posting his complaint letter on X, Yusuf wrote: 'I have lodged a complaint with the BBC, asking why they chose to platform men who had entered the United Kingdom illegally, giving them a national stage to lecture the British public on immigration policy.'... He argues that at a time when 'over 70% of the British public believe immigration levels are too high', the BBC instead centred voices of illegal entrants, creating a dynamic 'totally detached from public opinion.' He continues: 'Should we now expect the BBC to invite tax evaders to comment on the Budget? Would it stack an audience with convicted burglars to discuss law-and-order policy?'... He also disputes a claim made on-air by Labour immigration minister Mike Tapp, who said 50,000 of the 70,000 illegal migrants who had arrived since the change of government had already been deported. Yusuf says the true figure is around 2,700, adding: 'It is troubling that such an evidently misleading claim was neither challenged nor contextualised by the BBC.' He notes this is not the first time he has encountered questionable fact-checking by the broadcaster, recalling a previous episode in which presenter Fiona Bruce 'had to fact check her own 'fact check' at the end of the programme and apologise.' Yusuf concludes that an episode billed as an 'Immigration Special' should have delivered a representative audience and balanced debate but instead offered a platform 'designed to marginalise mainstream opinion while elevating fringe voices.'... 'Over 170,000 people have arrived in this country illegally since 2018, most of that was done by the Tories sadly, and that is more people than arrived on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. 'I have used the word invasion before and people might object to that term but the dictionary definition of the word is an unwanted incursion into a space of land and I don't know what else to describe it as - 170,000 people... Mr Yusuf replied: 'My parents came here legally, they did not come here illegally. 'There is a clear dividing line in British politics. If you want to vote for a party who will prioritise foreign nationals who came here illegally or do you want to vote for a party that is going to prioritise British citizens who work hard, set their alarm clocks in the evening before going to bed, and toil to pay tax. 'Do you know how much money the British taxpayer has had to pay for Universal Credit payment alone for foreign nationals last year? That was £10billion. British taxpayers will be spending half the forecast defence budget on Universal Credit alone for foreign nation.' He later added: 'How on earth it can be deemed appropriate that people who broke into this country illegally should have a seat at the table?'"
‘The BBC’s bias stretches back decades’ - spiked - "Robin Aitken: If you read the early history of the BBC, you’ll see that from the beginning, Asa Briggs, the official BBC historian, documented suspicions on the right about the corporation potentially being a collectivist, socialist project. In the 1920s and 1930s, there were even speeches in the House of Commons criticising the BBC for its perceived bias. But the BBC emerged from the Second World War with its status enhanced because of the noble role it played during the conflict. I find it very moving to read accounts of people in the French Resistance tuning in with their little crystal or shortwave radios to receive news that they trusted, surrounded as they were by Nazi propaganda. The BBC had its golden period during those years, while still being a socially conservative organisation. What happened next mirrors broader societal changes, which I see as generational... Up until the 1960s, the newsrooms at the BBC would deliberately avoid controversy. They would report on it, but they wouldn’t simulate it. By the time I joined in the late 1970s, however, the organisation had begun to actively seek controversy. Another important shift happened in the 1990s under John Birt, who, as deputy director-general under Mike Checkland, oversaw all of the BBC’s journalistic output. Birt abolished the departmental distinction between news and current affairs. This might sound minor, but it made a significant difference. In the radio newsroom, where I worked, news reporters traditionally focussed on the facts: who, what, where, when. But Birt argued that journalism had to go beyond that. It had to explain why. This placed the responsibility on journalists to interpret events, which naturally opens space for personal bias or revealed preferences... The idea of taking a speech by the president of the United States and editing it in a way that distorted its meaning is nothing less than a lie. I was also struck by the trans issue: why does the BBC have a stable of correspondents defined by their sexuality or gender identity? They wouldn’t have a group of correspondents defined by race. They wouldn’t assign all reporting of Jewish affairs to Jewish reporters. So why do this with ‘LGBTQ+’ people? It was shocking to see that such positions existed – although, the BBC’s reporting of trans issues over the previous decade had already suggested its stance was skewed. Prescott’s memo made clear the full extent of the problem. For example, the BBC Arabic service appeared to be staffed largely by people openly sympathetic to Hamas, which is a serious journalistic lapse. In one way, I thought, ‘Here we go again’. Think back to the 1995 Martin Bashir interview with Princess Diana, and the revelations 20 years later about the cover-up and double-dealing to secure that interview. Prescott’s memo was just more examples of journalistic failings that stretch back decades. The BBC higher-ups’ initial response to the Prescott memo struck me as completely incoherent. First, they suggested there had been a right-wing conspiracy – yet, according to their own account, Robbie Gibb (the only one right-winger, and therefore deemed the one responsible) was acting alone. Then there was the bizarre spectacle of the director-general and head of news resigning, claiming accountability, all while the corporation itself continued to insist there was no problem with impartiality. How do those things stack up? They are completely contradictory: the top bosses resign, yet nothing is acknowledged as wrong. It’s ridiculous."
The Bias Meltdown at the BBC - WSJ - "The same program showed footage of the Proud Boys marching to Capitol Hill after it aired the fake clip from Mr. Trump’s speech, creating the impression they had heeded his call to action. But that Proud Boy footage was shot before Mr. Trump started speaking that day. Forget media bias—this is an alternate dimension of reality. The BBC’s coverage of transgender issues came to be controlled by an “LGBTQ desk” within the newsroom that suppressed reporting contrary to liberal orthodoxy. Citing another internal report, Mr. Prescott observes the BBC ran “a surprisingly high number of stories about drag queens” while all but ignoring growing concern about the safety of medical treatments for people experiencing gender dysphoria... BBC Arabic failed to translate many stories that might offer a positive perspective on Israel, and it has been forced to correct two stories per week, on average, since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack. Left-wing media bias is old hat, and complaints about the BBC date at least to Margaret Thatcher’s day. But this is a parable about the perils of public ownership of the means of producing anything, especially news... Progressive journalists found ways to leverage that taxpayer support to advance their own agendas. Conservative Party politicians occasionally threatened to reform the broadcaster. But to date the Beeb has proven resistant to discipline. Mr. Davie is a case in point: A Conservative Party member earlier in his life, the BBC board hired him in 2020 in part to reassure the Tory administration that was in power at the time. Mr. Davie was captured by the leftwing BBC culture."
The cope is going to be that editing the Proud Boys footage in was justified, because they all answer to Trump anyway
Splicing and dicing the BBC’s reputation: Questions about bias at the BBC are missing the point - "The BBC’s edit was a blatant distortion. (A reminder of the edit is below.) But the BBC did not address this mistake for what it was: a misreporting of what was actually said (at best, unreliable – at worst, deceptively misleading). Instead, they decided to indulge in yet another of their seemingly endless internal debates over bias and impartiality. By trying to hold the line on “bias”, they completely lost sight of objective truth. The BBC drives itself down this road over and over again.".. I know that I have made a comparable error on many occasions when I have been planning an article. The urge is to develop the piece and leave the sources to last. But if I find that a quote I had intended to cite doesn’t actually exist in the form that I remember it, I have to change what I have written. The BBC didn’t. They diced and spliced what Trump actually said in order to manufacture what they needed him to have said for their story. And then they became so single-minded in the defence of their impartiality that I believe they became so biased about what they had done that they couldn’t see it for what it was."
