, reports Owen Gibson in today’s Media Guardian:
Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, used a rare public speech last night to accuse the BBC of “a kind of cultural Marxism” that is harming political debate and failing to represent the views of millions of licence fee payers. He said the BBC’s tendency towards institutionally biased left-leaning views, part of what he dubbed “the subsidariat” of newspapers and broadcasters that do not turn in a profit, was a factor in feeding political apathy.
Delivering the Hugh Cudlipp lecture, Dacre said the BBC was not only expansionist, but guilty of subscribing to a singular world view. “BBC journalism is reflected through a left-wing prism that affects everything – the choice of stories, the way they are angled, the choice of the interviews, the interviewees and, most pertinently, the way those interviewees are treated,” he said.
Dacre said while he approved of some of what the BBC did, he believed it was out of step with large swaths of public opinion.
Couldn’t agree more with that. Do read the rest.
Courtesy of Rottypup and the Grauniad, here’s the full speech. You can also listen to Dacre on Radio 4’s Toady programme this morning.
Hat tip to commenter SiN.
Ho ho! People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Paul! Take a look at all those surveys that show that voters hold your chums in the press in far greater contempt than they do the BBC.
In fact over two-thirds of those surveyed trust the Beeb. I bet you’d barely get a tenth of the population believing anything the rotten Hate Mail has to say.
If the editor of the hilariously out-of-touch Daily Mail is attacking it, the BBC is doing something right.
Ben,
Obviously if your were forced to pay for the Daily Mail every time you wanted to buy a newspaper you’d probably be a little annoyed.
BTW The Daily Mails readership is holding up more than the BBCs market share.
I don’t trust the Beeb or their bagmen, Capita (aka TV Licensing). They are bullies. Horrible people.
TVL’s tactics are a disgrace.
Never really took much interest in the Daily Mail before – but the missus buys it, so it lies around the house.
Its interesting that the stance of the BBC has gone so left wing in recent years that it is starting to be noticed and commented on in public.
I wonder who’ll be next to comment – do you think Dave Cameron will give it a go?
ben,
just because you dont like the mail,
(i’m not a much of a fan either)
dosent mean paul dacre is wrong in his assessment of the bbc,many people find the bbc’s liberal bias and agenda
hard to stomach,me included.
you obviously find the daily mail as offensive as i find the bbc,you are not required by law however to pay for something you find revolting,i on the other hand am.
I would like to read the whole speech by Paul Dacre. Does anyone know if there is a link. Thanks
Daily Mail editor makes a “BBC is left wing” speech. That’s not news – it is entirely to be expected.
The Daily Mail can hardly lay claim to unbiased reporting. And as Ben says I think you will find most people trust the BBC more than they trust the Mail.
Here you go, Hazel [pdf]:
Click to access CudlippDacre.pdf
Lurker
True, the Mail is a right of centre newspaper. It’s unashamedly so and everyone knows it.
So what?
The question is, is Paul Dacre correct to suggest that the BBC’s left wing world view is out of touch with that of many license-fee payers?
I think it is.
And if I don’t want to read the Mail, I don’t pay for it.
If I wish to watch TV, I HAVE to pay for the corrosive BBC.
Ben
You’re perfectly entitled to your view of the Mail and the BBC.
Except that if you don’t like the Mail you don’t have to pay for it. I have to pay for the BBC and I resent this very much indeed.
If proof is needed that Paul Dacre is right in what he says, just look at the latest topic on the ‘Have your say’ boards – yet ANOTHER go at Tesco (Yes, I know the subject is broadly speaking all supermarkets, but look whose bag is pictured). It seems that every quarter when Tesco, a free-market company, announces their latest results, the Beeb have a go at them. I am furious that Tesco management have not made a formal complaint to the governors about this constant series of attacks.
Ben
Are you at work at the office at the moment being paid by the taxpayer?
Bet you are.
Paul Dacre is the lowest of the low. I spit on him!
Here we go label someone a Daily Mail reader and end the argument there. No debate, no counter argument just “Daily Mail reader” – need I say more?
Mr Dacre isn’t all bad.
I liked this bit of his speech:
let me say that I would die in a
ditch defending the BBC as a great civilising force. I, for one, would pay the licence fee just for Radio 4.
Funny how B-BBC never seems to alert us to passages like that.
And do you, JR, agree with the rest of the speech, or is that the only cherry you are going to pick today?
Mr Reith:
I’m on your side, in a way. If Mr Dacre places any value at all on the biased, middle-class, elitist s**t that comes out of R4, he has clearly lost the plot. I imagine then that anything else he has to say is not to be trusted either.
Nuff said.
……..
with the exception of In Our Time, and the odd play!
From Dacre’s speech
Then consider this: the BBC employs more journalists and their support staff, – 3,500
– and spends more on them – £½ billion – than do all the national daily newspapers put
together.
And the BBC is going on about Tesco having 1/3 of the supermarket (private, free market) sector 🙂
and yet they seem unable to cover more than one story in a day, if their feeble excuse for how they report racist murders is anything to go by.
The key sentence from Mr. Dacre’s speech is this: “What really disturbs me is that the BBC is, in every corpuscle of its corporate body, against the values of conservatism with a small ‘c’…”
This goes beyond party politics or even simple disagreements between citizens. This is about the very values the ‘corporation’ holds.
But what is this ‘corporation’? This “BBC”? What are its ‘values’? Does it have a command and control structure that tells producers how to think and how to make decisions.
No.
The real corrosion within the BBC is ‘group think’. Over the years like-minded people have surrounded themselves with like-minded people. And let’s face it: who needs to make ‘decisions’ when the facts are obvious. There’s a checklist of ‘correct’ BBC attitudes which any young ambitious producer or researcher had better sign up to or else… (Blair = bad; Brown = good; Israel = bad; military = bad; war = bad; Green Peace = good; socialism = good; free market = bad etc etc). You learn this stuff pretty early if you want to get on, to be part of the team, to be a proud member of the greatest broadcasting in the world and anyone who doesn’t think like “we” do is a fool and a dupe and “not one of us”.
Warning young Beeboids: if your husband (or wife) is in the army, don’t mention it around the newroom; if you vote Tory, keep mum; and if you happen to like the USA – BE VERY VERY VERY QUIET!!!!! USA = Ultimate evil!
Every story comes ‘ready-to-wear’ like a shabby suit bought in jumble sale stacked with yesterday’s platitudes. That’s the real danger: and its all so ingrained that no-one in the Beeb can even see it. I bet there are young Turks reading this right now who are full of glee: what does this chap know? What a loser! Just another right wing nut! Long ago I knew there was no dialogue to be had with closed minds so I’m silent.
At dinner parties I sit on my hands in the interests of good manners. I keep my head down in the interests of politeness. But you never know, dear Beeboid, I may be sitting next to You this weekend as you snear at your listeners and laugh at the people who pay your (inflated) wages.
In short, do BBC folks represent me (or Mr Dacre)? Absolutely not – and the sad part is that they are proud NOT to! So I’ll just pay my licence fee and go to the back of the class – or would you like me out in the corridor?
Paul Dacre refers to the BBC’s “group think”, which is an accurate description of the Corporation’s collective mentality.
A disillusioned BBC person once explained to me that, just as the members of religious cults “help to keep each other crazy”, so in the BBC they “help to keep each other left”.
John Bosworth
The odd thing is that almost all of what you seem to dislike about the BBC exists chiefly in your own imagination.
First let’s take the cultural homogeneity that you (wrongly)ascribe to the BBC.
When I first started in journalism there were distinct tribal identities associated with each paper. FT people all seemed to have been at Balliol. The FT women quite literally wore blue stockings. There was a universally accepted notion of ‘a Times man’. Telegraph folk were tweedier. Guardian writers tended to the louche. Of course there were exceptions, but you never needed to ask which paper they wrote for….you sensed it through subtle signals of dress, manner and bearing.
Even in those days the BBC was much more varied. There was no single ‘BBC type’. Radio people were different from TV people. Drama producers might well have been called Tristram; but foreign correspondents and news reporters never were. The DG was a toff. His deputy had a strong regional accent.
Today’s BBC is more diverse still. There’s a fairly representative proportion of blacks, Asians, gays etc. But also there are many people with backgrounds in the armed services, the civil service, business and commerce. In News a high proportion will have worked for at least one other media company such as Sky, ITN or the Times, Telegraph, FT or Independent. (I leave out the Guardian because I have only ever encountered 2 BBC news staff who had previously worked for the Guardian. One was La Toynbee; the other is – contrary to the stereotype -rather right-wing). Today people are certainly not ‘like-minded’.
The people I see in editorial meetings certainly don’t indulge in group think. There are vigorous arguments where people defend their positions tenaciously and challenge others fiercely.
This has always been the case. Go back a decade or so and imagine the Today programme meeting where Rod Liddle, Tim Luckhurst, Jonathan Freedland and Michael Gove would have been working together. They don’t agree about much today. They wouldn’t have agreed about much then. If anything, more today than then.
Editorially, there is an active suspicion of the platitudinous or ‘ready to wear’ approach you mention. A huge premium is put on freshness, new angles on an old theme, getting different and varied voices and perspectives on air. Also on getting it right first time. Being fair and impartial.
Contrast that with the Daily Mail: same attitudes on every page. Day in. Day out. And real pressure to conform.
A premium on polemics. Twisting the facts to suit the ‘line’.
As for the BBC’s values: they are no secret. They’re here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/purpose/
correction: make that 3 ex-Guardianistas. I forgot Naughtie!
What a relief it is to have John Reith telling us what an eclectic organisation the Beeb is. It wasn’t when they turned my talented sister down for a job. In fact it seemed pretty nepotistic and still does. And mono-cultural. But I guess John Reith is too busy to read the news or the runes.
JR, you’re missing out those that go from the BBC to the Guardian, for instance, Mrs. Andrew Marr, a.k.a. Jackie Ashley, and of course Polly Toynbee, who went back to the Guardian after a stint of ‘impartiality’, allegedly, at the BBC.
P.S. Have you had any thoughts yet on the two posts that I asked you to have a look at, the Misbah/Molly one and the Golly row stealth edit? Or are there insufficient cherries to pick there? 🙂
So, on top of being poplated exclusively by BNP members this site must also consist entirely of Daily Mail readers! It’s so obvious now…
So, when do the trials start? You know, the ones where we’re all charged with being climate change deniers and sentenced to death.
A trifle silly, I know, but I’m in a silly mood today. It’s interesting to note that, while Reith did come up with something of a cogent argument, he failed to follow it up by completely failiing to address teh central point of Dacre’s speech: that the BBC is institutionally leftists. Doesn’t matter how “culturally diverse” the corporation is if everyone there adopts the same way of thinking.
JR
Better make it four.
Liz Horgan was at the Grauniad and is now back there at board level.
Probably slipped your mind – after all she was only MD of BBC radio.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1675764,00.html
More to follow
JR
And number five is ………….
Francis Cairncross
Longtime Grauniad hack and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s “Analysis”
More to follow
JR
Can I claim number six for Charlie Brooker (Guardian weekend “Screenburn”
and BBC 4 “Screenwipe”) ??
John Reith
“Today’s BBC is more diverse still. There’s a fairly representative proportion of blacks, Asians, gays etc. But also there are many people with backgrounds in the armed services, the civil service, business and commerce.
……
The people I see in editorial meetings certainly don’t indulge in group think. There are vigorous arguments where people defend their positions tenaciously and challenge others fiercely.”
So how come BBC news, current affairs and opinion are so persistently presented from a left-leaning, internationalist, anti-US, anti-Israel world view – viz the many examples exposed on this site?
Could it be that Andrew Marr had it right when he said
“The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias”,
(Andrew Marr, the Daily Mail, Oct 21st, 2006.)
And John, at least Andrew Marr has the eyes to see the bias. Your own cultural bias is so reflexive that it’s beyond your discernment.
John Reith | 23.01.07 – 9:00 pm
The people I see in editorial meetings certainly don’t indulge in group think. There are vigorous arguments where people defend their positions tenaciously and challenge others fiercely.
There could well be “vigorous arguments where people defend their positions tenaciously and challenge others fiercely” but what is important is the range of the ideas discussed. I believe, and Michael Vestey and Jeff Randall attest to this, that the arguments would be something like: should we support the russian communists or the chinese communists; should we support fidel castro a little bit or a lot.
Let us look at the product of all this “impartial” discussion by examining the politics of people invited onto beeb programmes. For example, Janet Daley and polly toynbee might well be considered people of equal gravitas from opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Since 1988 JD has appeared on tv and radio (inc. Moral Maze) 101 times; pt has appeared 617 times in the same period.
Nuff said.
JR: “A huge premium is put on freshness, new angles on an old theme, getting different and varied voices and perspectives on air. Also on getting it right first time. Being fair and impartial.”
I must be missing something then as I don’t see many different perspectives being aired on global warming, smoking bans, hunting bans, multiculturalism, I.D. cards etc, etc.
JR can I claim 6 1/2 for Robin Lustig who presents “The World Tonight” on Radio 4 and was news editor at the Observer for several years.
OK maybe the Obs wasn’t part of the Grauniad group then – hence the 1/2.
More seriously -I’ve looked at the profiles of dozens of beeboids over the last hour or so and the thing that struck me most was,contrary to your “diversity” claim, the incredibly high proportion who joined as BBC trainees and stuck there.
This would be unthinkable anywhere I’ve worked in the private sector nowadays and maybe gives a clue to the “groupthink” attitude.
Needless to say I didn’t find a single individual who’d come from the Mail, Telegraph or Spectator – can you name any?
Dacre hits the nail-on-the-head about the shite at the BBC. Trouble is, he was from a right-wing paper and therefore, will get the “well what do you expect from him?” attitude. In the same way that Toynbee, slagging of the Tories, would be brushed off in the same way. And for those, politically ignorant, people who still rely on BBC news for there current affairs, how the hell are they going to read Dacre’s point of view? and perhaps think “hmm, he’s got a point” The BBC aren’t exactly going to lead their Headlines with “BBC bunch of Left-wing bastards” or their competitors in the commercial market for that matter as they have a very cosy relationship with the Beeb. Someone like Andrew Neal would get taken more seriously, but, he is conveniently on the Beeb payroll as their token non-Guardian reader. The point I would disagree with Dacre on is the idea that commercial broadcasters don’t like having a subsidised competitor. This would be true of any other industry. But broadcasting is a three way relationship between the Broadcaster, and two different customers: the Viewer (who pays nothing except attention) and the Advertiser. Attracting advertising money is what is shafting commercial broadcasters and a privatised Beeb that was competing for advertising money, against them, could finish them off as the BBC have the more middle-class and higher socio-economic groups as there viewer and listenership and advertisers would love to reach them instead of the chav that love ITV and Channel Five. Sky, in theory, hate the license fee because it probably impacts peoples willingness or ability to pay for subscriptions. But the BBC is also a very good breeding ground for various types of talent behind and in front of the camera, The commercial channels can entice them away for a few more bob, and don’t have to bother developing the talent in the first place. They are reliant in the Beeb and that is how it has been designed.
John Reith, in his spiried defence of the open mindedness of Today’s BBC, tells us that “there’s a fairly representative of blacks, Asians, gays etc.” in the corporation. The question is not how they (or he) defines them but what they (whoever they are) think. I suspect the BBC has comfortably replaced white “Tristans” with black, Asian and Gay ones. “Tristans” come in all colours and creeds. The belief system of Beeboids is similar to what was once said about Katherine Hepburn, “she spans the gamut from A to B.” You may not hear real discussion – and I mean REAL discussion – because it is not worth anyone’s while to really object. A view too far off the “A to B” agenda doesn’t bring discussion – one is simply ignored into oblivion.
Believe me, JR, I wrote my screed more in sorrow than in anger. It’s no skin off my nose. The BBC is no longer responsible for my wages, pension or self-regard. I do not write out of malice but from a lingering affection (God knows why?) for a once great institution. Please do no simply spew out more White City Corporate Affairs propaganda. BBC folk take every criticism as hostile. Perhaps I am trying to save you from yourselves – and your short sightedness.
IF there are ex Armed Forces personnel in the Beeb then they are not in positions where they can ensure the BBC reporting of Armed Forces matters is accurate and unbiased….time and again they get basic simple facts such as ranks, equipment or jobs wrong. I’m sure pounce is available for a retainer as an honorary defence correspondent to make sure they get their facts right!