(see quote in our sidebar), is interviewed by Vincent Graff, ‘You want me to slag Murdoch off’, in the MediaGuardian:
Now, a couple of years after leaving the BBC newsroom for a return to newspapers – although he still presents the 5 Live show – does Randall think much has changed? It will not surprise many of his former colleagues that he views the corporation with much the same contempt as when he joined it.
“I think there’s a streak of hypocrisy at the BBC. I said it when I was there: its definition of impartiality or the middle ground is not how many of us see it. That’s why I’m contemptuous.
“There is a liberal consensus. The BBC denies this but Andy Marr – who most people think is part of that liberal consensus – came out and said it. So it’s not just right-of centre people. When you’re there, you can feel it, you can smell it, you can almost touch it.”
So what does the BBC, which recently scrapped a planned climate change special and claims to have no political opinions, believe in? Randall offers up three examples: that increased state spending is generally good; that there is little or no difference between being anti-immigration and being a racist; and that the death penalty is “appalling”.
He goes over to his files to find a print-out of an email he received from a “very senior BBC person” while he was an employee there. Carefully obscuring the name of the sender, he shows it to me: “The BBC internally is not neutral about multiculturalism. It believes in it and promotes diversity, let’s face up to that.”
Randall says: “I’m amazed he put that down. What happened next was the BBC ran into a horrible brick wall when Trevor Phillips, the Chief Rabbi and then George Alagiah, its own British-Asian reporter, came out and said actually this headlong dash for multiculturalism is creating a divided society.
“But there are a lot of people out there who are not mad, who are not bad – decent people who think that the death penalty should be brought back, are deeply worried about immigration and think that the money that’s been poured into health and education over the last 10 years has largely been wasted. They are all reasonable positions but inside the BBC they would all be seen as way out there.”
The rest is well worth reading too.
Thank you to reader The Admiral for the link.