Peter Sissons has written a book about his time at the BBC. No surprises for readers of B-BBC, and my sources in the newsroom have been telling me these sort of anecdotes for 15 years or more. But finally, someone has broken ranks,and Mr Sissons conveys conviction. The BBC reaction, of course, will be wearyingly predictable; an embittered old man who has lost his marbles. The full article is here. Enjoy every nuanced kick!
IN THEIR DNA
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As I put elsewhere, there are plenty of quotes to add to the top of this page with the Clarkson and Marr ones.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349506/Left-wing-bias-Its-written-BBCs-DNA-says-Peter-Sissons.html
This is the link.
Lets hope that Peter discovers this site and contributes eh? Only insiders will be able to spill the beans and with some disgruntled ex beeboids soon to be out on their ears lets hope some come away with the odd memory stick jam packed with LEAKED documents 😀 .
It would be very satisfyiong to see the BBC at the recieving end of a wikileaks style raid on their files, I dont think they would be as supportive and understanding as they are with Assange and his leaks and in fact just being able to witness the how very dare they rage would be just purrrfick to see.
Come on ex beeboids to be, when you clear out your desks just take a few thousand files with you eh? 😉
I have just left a liink to Biased BBC on the Daily Mail comments (but I suppose it will be edited out).
Casie, I have often thought that a leak of bBC documents would really damage them. But if they’re all left-wingers it won’t happen.
Can’t someone at least slip us the Balen Report?
So basically (and tell me someone if I’m reading too much into this), talentless BBC staff with the approved left wing bias get promoted to executive level to manage the news agenda in favour of Labour and feather their nests while they’re at it with exorbitant salaries. That’s how we end up with meaningless exec titles like, .. erm .. ‘Director of Vision’.
Maybe the BBC did a deal with wikileaks, they air wikileaks stuff in a sympathetic way and wikileaks keeps any leaked BBC stuff secret?
Hey disgruntled ex beeboids thrown on the scrapheap if you are reading this then why not offer up some dirt and get your own back on those elites who threw you away without a backward glance while the elite beeboids give themselves massive pay rises with the cash saved? You know it makes sense 😉 !
Excellent article by Peter Sissons, basically confirming everything that most of us on this website already know. Only 31 comments so far, but early evidence is that Beeboids are targeting the comments board, already. But, it is saturday morning so most Beeboids probably don’t get up until midday.
I have posted B-BBC’s website address, not moderated yet. Let’s see if the Mail let it through.
I beat you to iy Grant! (see above)
Looks like the comments aren’t being let through today. I’ve made a few but doubt they will appear now.
The beeboids are already working overtime at the Digitalspy broadcast forum (Even more than the BBC Points Of View messageboard). Some of them have posted so many posts for so long, they can only be working full time to influence opinion.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1427245
They are always working overtime there! They have about four who seem to be on permanent duty, ready to go on the attack as soon as anyone approaches and makes any whisper of a comment that is even mildly questioning, let alone critical of the Beeboid Corporation. There are about another half dozen who circle about near at hand and quickly close in when they scent anything in the air.
Any one of the four could start an argument in an empty room and keep it going relentlessly, pointlessly far far beyond where any normal person would even want to or see any point in doing.
Ever get the feeling the word ‘bitter’ being associated with Peter Sissons is a co-ordinated campaign? Surely not!
http://twitter.com/#!/search/sissons%20bitter
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/NF1951574?thread=8013985
Perhaps Tom Baldwin is behind it, or to be fair to them, perhaps the beeboids have a limited vocabulary.
They may be on overtime, but I hope it is performance related.
Can’t be ars*d to register, but this latest smug numptie has set up a blinder…
‘Just out of interest, does the OP find News International’s blatant right-wing bias as appalling as the beeb’s ‘left wing’ stance?’
Er… totally! Thing is, I don’t feel the need to pay for such views. As opposed to being obliged, by law, to fund those I don’t share. Uniquely.
Then again, this is one of the hive (love the one’s who deem dissenters as ‘you lot’) who feels s/he enjoys greater ‘intellect’.
They really don’t do irony, do they?
I noticed the three names appearing again “Andrew Neil, Nick Robinson and Jeremy Clarkson”. That’s it then, sorted, the BBC cannot be biased. Lets just forget those who have or are connected to Labour such as Andrew Marr, Michael Crick, Gavyn Davies, Sir Michael Lyons, Martin Sixsmith…
http://biasedbbc.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=labour#ixzz1BmqRQv7K
Marky,
Prick Robinson moved to the Left years ago, Brillo more recently. That just leaves Clarkson and he is not allowed to interview Leftie politicians, more’s the pity.
@ Grant Yeah I know about Nick (wet Tory) Robinson. Clarkson is a presenter of a light entertainment motoring show which is more buffoonery than anything else. Now if you add all the lefty presenter/comedians as an indication of BBC’s bias you would have a very long list and see how totally retarded the post left on Digital Spy was.
Robinson admitted on his blog to protecting Gordon Brown’s reputation against the rumors of anger and violent treatment of aides. Clarkson is a licensed jester and not even a proper conservative. When will the defenders of the indefensible start admitting to things like Young Communist maven Andrew Marr or Gordon Brown’s biographer, Robert Peston?
Don’t forget this from Peter Sissons – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199104/Peter-Sissons-BBC-standards-falling–bosses-scared-it.html
Just when will something be done about this. The first thig must be to reduce their money its just so bloated.
Great article, simply because of who penned it. But nothing that we didn’t know or that government didn’t know.
Will they do anything?
No.
Paddy
Why do I have to pay for these tossers.
Imagine if to read the telegraph you had to pay for the Guardian.
Imagine with every vote for the Tories you had to place a second vote with labour.
Imagine if for every season ticket you bought for your club you had to buy one for Liverpool.
Why should my money be purloined by this nest of armchair revolutionary scum?
The worst part is auntie sets the agenda and channel 4 slavishly follows so there is no intelligent in depth non trot news on tv.
Watching the mainstream you would think you are either stupid and need bite size news or alternatively, an arts degree owning bitter public employee who thinks activism is next to go godliness.
Surely there could be room for a Newsnight but with a times or telegraph slant.
I feel like the kid watching the emperor walk by in his new impartial clothes. All I want to do is shout “the bastard is naked” but I still have to pay a tithe to the dodgy tailors?
Scum
Scum paid for by me
And you
Paddy,
Exactly !
The example I always use with Lefties is “imagine if you had to pay an annual subscription to the Conservative Party on pain of imprisonment before you were allowed to vote in elections ? ”
That usually shuts up all but the really extreme nutters.
Two Cheeks of the same Arse
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/01/sucking-at-public-tit.html
Worth reading
When I read this I’m often reminded of the book “The Nazi’s – A Warning from History”.
The too often common perception of the Nazi’s and the wider wartime Germany was that it was organised from top to bottom. In actual fact it was often far from that. Control remained witha strategic view with the rest engaged in a concept known as “working towards the Furhrer“.
In effect this was everyday folk, just trying to survive, get by and hang on to the thing that keeps a roof over their head and food on the table. In a way this situation answers the question so many ask of how can so many be in on this deceit?
It demonstrates the power of this system that someone of the calibre of Peter Sissons can only obviously fight it outside because the Cabal of the Beeb, Indie and Guardian effectively rule the worldview of people who rely on the state broadcaster.
I’m not certain how much traction this story will get today but it gives a strong foundation for future battles with the BBC.
I can tell you one place it won’t be reported..
Our “impartiality Is in our dna” national broadcaster
It is a monster, everyone knows this, and still it carries on. A real Conservative govt. would have made it’s prime directive of shutting it down and throwing it’s staff into the streets.
Direct action is what is required, start a movement, enlist the EDL.
The BBC is a Great British Institution that must be defended at all costs. That is why I oppose its bias. Clear out the biased staff and restore the integrity and impartiality that once made it such a great source of national pride.
I’d no more make common cause with a nasty bunch of fascist thugs like the EDL than I would trotskyites or Islamists. You do that, you dont just destroy the BBC, you destroy the nation.
Remember when people called Maggie a Fascist.
Can’t understand why the Conservative do not attack the BBC for its blatant bias, no hatred, of the Conservatives. They have the gun that is pointed at this BBC monster’s head, and the BBC know it.
The entire BBC management should not just be sacked, with no compensation, on the grounds that they have systematically, and with malice aforethought, perpetrated a “hate” crime against a substantial portion of the electorate, but they should also be charged for that crime.
Bastards.
DP111,
I think most of the Tories are just masochists. They love nothing more than a good whipping by the BBC. Pathetic creatures. Impossible to take them seriously.
Peter Sissons has apparently nothing to say about the blatant hate fest of Israel that the BBC has conducted over the last three decades.
KeV, the media have done a job on the edl. It may have started as a right of centre movement but with a bit of pushing from agent provocateurs and our Telly journos it has lurched to the right to become nothing more than a sect of the bnp. I am no Nazi and even though I respect Cassie and her views I cannot support a bunch of racist antisemitic skinheads.
I don’t believe the answer to the corrosive extremist left is to enlist the extreme right.
I just wish call me Dave would fumigate broadcasting house and rid us of these nihilist misanthropic trots.
They really hate this sort of exposee . My blog post ont his attacted almost instant astroturf response.
Keep up the good work !
Good reply you made on your blog Shed man. As usual the lefty brought into the argument Murdoch, Fox News, Daily Mail when the discussion is about the BBC bias. Their tactics are so transparent.
Checked out your blog post MiaS. Excellent retort to the Beeb propaganda android.
Glad you see the merits of R5L too!
Good piece and great response to the angry commenter.
This piece by Peter Sissons confirms so many of the things that I have written over the past few years that some may wonder if I am in fact Peter Sissons…
I am not!
http://notasheepmaybeagoat.blogspot.com/2011/01/left-wing-bias-its-written-through-bbcs.html
Excellent stuff from Sissons. Oddly enough, I didn’t hear it mentioned on Today prog’s paper review (they did manage to get yet another couple of kicks at Palin via a report on the Onion’s new TV show, though.) Strange Twitter silence on Sissons from BBC staff, too.
I think Pete s should be made honorary life president of this site.
Go Pete. You septigenarian demigod
Just read the Peter Sissons article, so its all true then.
My favorite piece is this.
“But whatever your talent, sex or ethnicity, there’s one sure-fire way at a BBC promotions board to ensure you don’t get the job, indeed to bring your career to a grinding halt. And that’s if, when asked which post-war politician you most admire, you reply: ‘Margaret Thatcher’.”
No wonder the BBC hate Rupert Murdoch.
And Sarah Palin.
As Margaret Thatcher won three general elections on the trot, with handsome majorities, it can be stated fairly, that the BBC is full of contempt and hate for the vast majority of people in the UK, while gorging itself on their money.
Bloody parasites is an appropriate phrase to describe them.
And as for their venom and hatred of Israel, they really should be tried for hate crimes.
I’ve noticed that more people are noticing the bias, not only here but in public also.
Last weekend I was talking to a final year degree student studying Jounalism. Without any prompting whatsoever (apart from asking if she’d like to work at the BBC when she finished) she told me that the BBC was over funded and clearly politically and culturally biased. Rather than have political persuasion, she was aspiring to be professional.
Then two weeks ago I was being lectured in a pub by a plumber (who I first overheard complaining about the license fee) on how biased the BBC were towards the Labour party – he was certainly animated when I asked him what he thought about Question Time!
Everyone knows now. It is a complete sham.
Something will have to be done because a critical mass of people are taking note.
Stuart,
If he is a good plumber, could you let me have his mobile number ?
By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover (Peter ‘The Man’ Sissons,)
The Coulson story has been a prime example. The BBC and the Guardian have been working hand-in-glove over this (in spite of the public’s overwhelming indifference to the story).
One example is Radio 4 reporter Jon Manel.
Last night Eddie Mair introduced him like this: “For many months our reporter Jon Manel has been covering the allegations of phone-hacking at the News Of The World often bringing ‘PM’ listeners first news of developments”.
Manel’s report gave the Guardian its due but plugged his own role too. Sean Hoare (the reporter sacked by the NOTW for alcoholism) was interviewed by PM. “Earlier this month we revealed on PM that the NOTW‘s news editor Ian Edmundson had been suspended…”. “This week we reported another NOTW employee had been mentioned during court proceedings.” Manel, like his counterparts at the Guardian, has devoted a lot of time to this. Peter Sissons won’t be surprised at that.
Nor will he be surprised that it’s not the only Guardian-friendly story Jon Manel has been involved with. He also devoted a lot of time to talking to detainees at Guantanemo Bay, and he is the man we most have to ‘thank’ for Binyam Mohammed becoming the poster-day of the Guardian-BBC axis – in report after report after report. He also did a File on 4 about how illegal immigrants are contributing to this good of this country and had a sustained dig at UKIP during the general election over their immigation policy. His other reports have covered a campaign against academy schools (another hate-target of the Left) and a campaign against a third runway at Heathrow – both absurdly tilted towards the campaigners.
The BBC mindset in action.
Good tracking as ever, Craig.
How is Helen Boaden feeling this morning after the excellent Sissons article ? I think he pissed on her cornflakes ?
And who did the Today programme report on Coulson this morning? The Guardian’s Steve Hewlett.
Steve Hewlett, I think he does the radio 4 Media Show. So much power for such a small paper.
There could be 5 or 6 good candidates from Fleet Street or the specialist press for hosting a “media” review half-hour each week – the programme covers financial and regulatory issues etc. It is a job that should be done on rotation ?
No, no, better to have just one voice. Now where’s that Roladex ?
I thought that name rang bells! .. I was suggesting a short while ago that David Cameron set up a Commission of Inquiry to examine allegations of BBC bias. The urgency mounts. .. What’s stopping him?
“What’s stopping him?”
Because he is a wimp ( a PR man) who believes that a very small proportion of man made CO2 is responsilbe for the climate. He even thinks that if the whole of Britain closes down its economy while other countries go ahead with their 21st technology, the whole world will cool 2 degrees centigrade by 2100.
If he cannot fathom this scam out, he will never see bias at the BBC. Cameron and his LibCons are a lost cause.
After Blair’s stirling comments on Iran yesterday I say bring him back to head up an alternative ‘Coalition Party’! Regardless of the downside a staunch Tory like me can see, he’d be an infinite improvement on the moral pygmies in all 3 main parties these days. .. Would be great seeing Liam Fox as his deputy!
I wonder if they’ve seen it yet as the Mail is one of many papers BBC emplyees don’t read.
The BBC only quote the Daily Mail when they need to sneer in that vile way leftist scum do, or Dame Nikki Campbell needs to attack those nasty right wingers like Littlejohn.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/letters/article181440.ece
Yes, the Today programme paper reviews contain quite a bit of sneering at the Mail. James Naughtie (for instance) put on a silly voice yesterday when he quoted Littlejohn then immediately went back to his normal voice to quote Steve Richards of the Independent. And exactly a week earlier John Humphrys quoted Littlejohn again (on wasteful practices by the police) and put on an even sillier voice. They just can’t stop themselves.
Dez, Scotty – are you reading this? If so, please let us have your opinions on what Mr Sissons has said. Thank you.
Demon,
Dez and Scottie boy disappeared when Johnson resigned. I thought they would reappear when Coulson resigned, but no sign of them yet.
It is a shame, because they are one of the most entertaining turns on B-BBC.
Blimey, that article could have been taken straight from this blog. If anyone is shocked by what Sissons says they are an idiot.
We’ve known all this for years as for the Guardian and Indy, tell us something news
Someone needs to get some of those quotes placed on the sidebar though.
Whilst we’re on the topic of BBC scum, although Amanda Platell doesn’t mention the leftist scum at the BBC by name, her comments reflect exactly what I and others were saying here.
While I have every sympathy for the Vincents themselves, the way their story has been seized upon by the smear-merchants of the Left for a direct attack on Mr Cameron’s principles is disgraceful, cynical and deeply insensitive.
The facts are that Celyn’s funding had not been cut. It was just that her mother was pleading for more assistance than the six hours’ respite care she gets at the moment. Few would blame her for that. But to accuse Cameron of cutting spending on care for children like Celyn is scandalous and untrue. He has increased it by £20million.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1349453/Amanda-Platell-Despicable-smears-girl-Dave-didnt-betray.html
Peter Sissons – in what article doing what the Biased-BBC fails to do
On last nights BBC Midlands Today we had a story about within 10 years or so whites may be a minority in Birmingham. Naturally the only opinions offered were those who found that and multi-culturalism to ba a good thing. A muslim gent was interviewed. The views of those who were frightened/concerned about what’s going on outside the glittering city centre were not discussed.
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/the-mole-janfeb-11-a-stranger-in-my-own-land-anonymous-inner-city-birmingham-muslim-gangs
Inevitably, Gavin Esler’s weekly gathering of left-liberals, Dateline London, has chosen someone from the Guardian stable – Ned Temko of the Observer – to talk about Coulson. You could have staked your house on that.
Brace yourselves for the next freighter-full of biased crap courtesy of the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y4yql
as Sir Paul Nurse tells us why we must believe every scientist – even “climate scientists” – because, well, they’re scientists. The congregation at the Bishop Hill website – as well as his grace – gives the BBC a going-over
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/1/22/more-bbc-propaganda.html
I don’t think anyone believes scientists any more, judging by the comments after each new “scientific” proclamation in the press.
When will they learn that they have to earn respect, rather than expect it after their recent (and current) biased, fund-hunting shenanigans?
You would think that, expecially with the climate change nonsense, (where all their “predictions” spectacularly fall by the wayside), they would be best advised to keep their heads down for a while, rather than set themselves up as deserved targets for public scorn. Talk about Aunt Sallies…
Don’t say Coalition, say Tory-led government, Labour’s spin chief tells media
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23915147-dont-say-coalition-say-tory-led-labours-spin-chief-tells-media.do
And they obey.
BBC staff are beginning to respond on Twitter. If you spot any more please add a link or screengrab, could be a blogpost in it.
BBC Twitter Tutor Sue Llewellyn. And just as Robin H predicted she goes on to say Sissons is “desperately bitter“.
Radio Five Live producer Rhian Roberts says “he comes across very unhappy.”
Meanwhile Kevin Maguire cosies up to the BBC by also claiming Sissons is a “bitter man”.
Yes I like the comment saying ‘the newsroom is littered with Daily Mails’. Yes, they’ve looked at the story, dismissed it, and dumped it in the litter bins.
Face up to it BBC – he has a point and more people know it too – the cat is out of the bag.
They read the Daily Mail so they can tweet condescending remarks about it to each other.
Yes, usually calling it the ‘Hate Mail’ or the ‘Daily Heil’.
Stuart, it would take the BBC to have shame to face up to it, and shame is one thing they simply dont have. Only a thorough going cull of BBC newsrooms will restore impartiality.
I think they meant the newsroom was full of “Daily males”.
Great sleuthing again DB. If memory serves, M/s Llewellyn has betrayed bias a number of times on Twitter. Would it be good to juxtapose her Tweet of “Rubbish” against those biased tweets?
But is he right, Beeboids? Tell us that.
Millie,
My post, before I read yours !
So the Beeboids say Sissons is “bitter” but don’t dispute that what he says is true.
I wonder if a FOI could be put in to find out how many copies of each newspaper the BBC officially buys?
Has there ever been a senior BBC news guy who says that the BBC is biased to the right ?
As far as I know – no-one has.
By contrast – the D-G recently declared that there was a strong leftie bias “in the past” – without saying how that ever stopped. All of that was well summarised by Robin Aitken and Antony Jay. We have had a succession of BBC people admitting leftie and PC bias still exists on all sorts of subjects – see the quotes in the sidebar by Andrew Marr, by Jeff Randall and others.
We have now seen abundant Tweets that show which way they lean. Craig regularly gives close analysis to the “balance” of BBC choices of programme guests, to the extent to which the right are interrupted whereas the left get a soft ride. And this blog has recorded hundreds and hundreds of specific instances of BBC bias.
Now we have Peter Sissons’ book blowing the lid off what happened over many years in the BBC newsroom – compared to the relative integrity at ITN. This adds to his earlier article giving examples of clear bias at the BBC, of minds closed to anything but the leftie agenda.
But Helen Boaden spouts that “Impartiality is in our genes”.
Helen Boaden lies. And I believe she knows she lies, which makes her a total hypocrite. Or if she does not know she lies, she is plain stupid.
And she – and the D-G and the BBC Trust know damn well that there are NO proper mechanisms within the BBC to ensure proper balance. There are no quantitative measures such as Craig has used. There is no proper complaints machinery – the complaints procedure is purpose-designed to fob people off.
JA, any news organisation genuinely committed to impartiality would keep a very careful record of the number of complaints they receive for bias against the left and the right. Over 10 years ago I had correspondence with the then Producer of ‘On the Record’ David Jordan. I asked him for a breakdown of how many complaints they receive for left/right bias. He literally said they dont have the resources to compile this information.
He is now Head of Editorial Policy and Standards. He draws up the BBC’s ‘impartiality’ guidelines, and probably has as much of a laugh in drawing them up as his staff do in reading them.
It’s a joy, if a rare one, to engage in debate with those who may not share one’s views, but are prepared to recognise the factual basis of an argument as a foundation to understand each other better… and maybe even discover common ground. That usually requires concession, but need not be weakness.
Sadly rare amongst the Beeboid glee club ad hominids that infect here.
This story seems to have been kept out of the major BBC blog world for a while, but is now creeping in.
Glimmers of awareness on Newsnight, Robinson. Neil, too, were it not stuck in a blind alley and either only opened for a brief window or shut down almost immediately.
And I have noticed a few, who may not be regular BBC critics, who at the very least are conceding that this is of note, and the fact that the words are printed in a paper some simply cannot acknowledge as existing is, basically, irrelevant.
There may be consequences to going on record to call Mr. Sissons a liar but, as evidenced above, going with ‘bitter’ is a favoured attempt at distracting smears. Yes, you, Mr. Maguire, if you can get your hypocritical head out of Aunty’s addictive, lucrative fundament long enough to recognised how you have been bought, paid for… and fatally compromised as a credible ‘journalist’.
Thing is, all the snarking doesn’t get around the facts of what Mr. Sissons has outlined, does it? Eh, Helen? Are you there?
This seems a good example:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2011/01/hes_an_accident.html#P105483982
‘To understand its political mindset we should just ‘follow the money’. It comes from its reliance on funding by the State, and hence it inevitably supports political parties that favour an increased role for the State.’
Funny that at least one of the Robinson ad hom rebuttal team really doesn’t do irony and has, in a weak ‘defence’, essentially reinforced the point everyone was making and dug an even deeper hole.
“MPs should choose the next BBC Chairman – and the next head of UKREP”(by D. Hannan, MEP)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100073092/mps-should-choose-the-next-bbc-chairman-and-the-next-head-of-ukrep/
“The Biased Broadcasting Corporation”
(by Melanie Phillips)
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6639799/the-biased-broadcasting-corporation.thtml
I don’t give a sh*t for Mr Sissons’s opinions now any more than I did when he was working at the BBC.
He took big cash from the UK taxpayers while the going was good and now the cash avalanche has stopped he starts to whine.
*uck off. We never needed or wanted you in the first place.
Why do we have to pay for government funded news and trash TV in return for permission to use our own TV sets in our own home?