Category Archives: BBC bias

Well, as Alan notes, I was on the BBC earlier today to discuss the much awaited White Paper on the future of the BBC. I have to say that it was, as many predicted, a complete whitewash, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. The fundamental problem is that the BBC license tax is confirmed for the next 11 years, allowing it to extort the annual £3.5bn license tax on fear of criminalisation. That is the substantial point  – all this other stuff about creating a new Unitary board is largely an irrelevance. There is no real disclosure of who earns what – unless you are in the £450k+ league and even then the actually income is not to be revealed. We may all be “shareholders” in this “envy of the world” but we’re not to be told how much the bosses earn!

It gets worse;

Whittingdale said the BBC will be “required to give greater focus to under-served audiences, in particular those from black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds, and those in the nations and regions”.

So he is actually pandering to the BBC’s existing obsession to please anyone who isn’t White British.

I find the whole thing pathetic. The Government has BOTTLED it and rolled over to the BBC. We can expect more of the same for years to come and it is a Conservative Government which has ensured this. Talk about Darwinism.

The Government’s white paper on the future of the BBC was published today and the BBC is to be duly eviscerated…..oh, no, in fact not much will change in the end and the BBC is in fact pretty happy, as it should be, with the deal.

Let’s deal with Peter Kosminsky first…he’s a bit of a drama queen and wildly over the top in his attacks on Whittingdale and was entirely wrong about the whole process…Whittingdale was never going to ‘eviscerate’ the BBC and he made that quite clear in several speeches.

Kosminsky was on 5Live with Peter Allen and was raving about the Unitary Board that will replace the Trust…apparently this will be packed wiith political placemen who will control the editorial direction of the BBC, the Board will be stuffed with people who think just as the government does.  This is ‘really, really scary’.

Trouble is that’s complete bunk…8 of the Board’s members will be chosen by the BBC, 6 by the government…and it has no control over the editorial direction of the BBC…which Kosminsky would know if he had actually listened to the speech by Whittingdale…

So the new Charter will create a unitary board for the BBC that has a much clearer separation of governance and regulation. The board will be responsible for ensuring that the BBC’s strategy, activity and output are in the public interest and accord to the missions and purposes set out in the Charter.

Editorial decisions will remain the responsibility of the Director-General – and his editorial independence will be explicitly enshrined in the Charter – while the unitary board will consider any issues or complaints that arise post-transmission.

And for the first time, the BBC will have the ability to appoint a majority of its board independently of government. This is a major change, as previously the BBC Governors, and then the members of the BBC Trust, were all appointed by government.

Kosminsky went on to tell us the BBC’s role was to speak truth to power on behalf of the public…trouble is the BBC doesn’t represent the Great British Public, it represents a very small group that thinks of itself as an elite that should govern without the trouble of having to be elected….so much for representing the public.

Curiously I heard a BBC guest this morning talking on a different subject but by coincidence state that the BBC is not driven by public opinion and if it were it would be a very different BBC.  No kidding.

In contrast to the excitable Kosminksy there was the BBC’s very own James Purnell in the studio as well who was pretty much purring as he digested the fact that the BBC has got away with it, not just got away with it but come out on top with a very good deal.

Before Whittingdale’s speech Peter Allen had on one Professor Patrick Barwise from the London Business school whom you might have thought the BBC would have brought on to be an independent voice of reason and calm discussion.  Far from it.  He is very pro the BBC and was in fact employed by the BBC to run up an ‘independent’ report for them and in his own writing openly expresses support for the BBC…

Our research suggests that cutting the BBC licence fee would reduce consumer choice and value for money, as well as greatly damaging UK programme producers.

We believe that without the BBC, the UK television industry’s revenue would most likely be lower.

Our analysis suggests that although scaling back the BBC would not be as bad as abolishing it, it would still have a detrimental effect on UK viewers and producers. within a generation the BBC will be reduced to a minor sideshow, the UK equivalent of PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States.

On the programme he ranted that we had ‘a secretary of state who was very hostile to the BBC and who was ideologically inclined to take it apart in the interests of commercial media companies’…he also dismissed DV as ‘The Blogger’, as did Peter Allen.   So over-the-top was Barwise that Allen actually had to step in and say Whittingdale was not here to defend himself.  Ian Hislop came on to give us his two penneth worth for what they were worth…not that much I should say.  Apparently the government had been publicly trumpeting a lot of very bad ideas that it then withdrew almost immediately…and he hoped, they will now bin them all.  So at least we know where the BBC stooge stands if we didn’t before.  Guaranteed another season of HIGNFY then.

So what is all the fuss about?  Is the BBC to be eviscerated?  Or has it been handed a lifeline that keeps it afloat and indeed launches it into a very secure future?

What are the onerous demands placed upon the BBC?

It must be impartial in its news and current affairs…yes, well, that is perhaps asking a lot…..’by making it clear in the organisation’s overall mission for the first time. This will make sure the BBC remains the most trusted provider of high quality news for audiences in the UK and abroad. ‘

It must support diversity…no problem there.

It must support the creative industries…and all programming, except news and current affairs, will be put out to tender…so Hall’s bluff about the BBC being the essential hub of a creative Britain has been called….’the BBC should proactively seek to enhance, bolster and work in partnership with the wider broadcasting and creative industries.’

The BBC must support local media in the interests of furthering democracy…not sure letting the BBC having influence over local media is in the interests of democracy.

The BBC must produce programming that has quality and innovation at its heart….programmes that are of ‘high public value’ and which are ‘distinctive’ in nature…..“Commissioning editors should ask consistently of new programming: ‘Is this idea sufficiently innovative and high quality?’ rather than simply ‘How will it do in the ratings?'”

The BBC has always been keen to hear the views of the National Audit Office and now it has a chance to feel the benefit up close and personal...’.The NAO will become the financial auditor of the BBC and have the power to conduct value for money investigations of the BBC’s activities, with appropriate safeguards for editorial matters.’

The good, and expert, Professor Barwise, in his ‘analysis’ after the speech, stated that the license fee would not go up….and yet Whittingdale quite clearly stated it would go up in line with inflation…

The licence fee has been frozen at £145.50 since 2010. We will end this freeze, and will increase the licence fee in line with inflation to 2021-22, at which point there will be a new settlement. In line with the other reforms to funding announced last July, this means that the BBC will have a flat-cash settlement to 2021-22.

This gives the BBC the certainty and funding levels it needs to deliver its updated mission and purposes. And it will ensure the BBC will remain one of the best-funded public service broadcasters in the world, receiving more than £18 billion from 2017-18 to 2021-22.

The Charter will last 11 years to take it out of the political cycle but will have a mid-term check.

The license fee funding system will also remain for 11 years at least and the iPlayer will now only be watchable with a licence.

Ofcom will also get a bigger role in regulating the BBC….

Ofcom has a proven track record as a regulator of media and telecoms. It is the right body to take on external regulation of the BBC.

We will require Ofcom to establish new operating licences for the BBC – with powers to ensure its findings are acted upon. Ofcom will also take charge of regulating the distribution framework and fair trading arrangements for the BBC. It will be a strong regulator to match a strong BBC.

At present Ofcom cannot hear complaints about BBC impartiality and accuracy and it is the BBC Trust that not only judges on editorial matters and complaints on them but also approves BBC editorial standards and so there is a conflict of interest as they sit on judgement on themselves.

Whittingdale doesn’t set out the exact process for complaints merely saying…‘The complaints system will undergo long overdue reform.’  However the Report by Sir David Clement on which this white paper is mostly based suggests a BBC first approach where the complaint goes to the BBC first and if not answered satisfactorily Ofcom can be appealed to or can itself step in if it thinks the case warrants early intervention in order to speed up the process.

Overall not much will really change as even the BBC admits….’For an exercise billed as a far-reaching reform, what’s striking about the white paper is how little will change fundamentally.’   The BBC has come out of this review rather well with guaranteed independence, a licence fee linked to inflation and more cash from the iPlayer and a more hands-off approach from the politicians with the Charter given an 11 year lease of life.  The new Unitary Board won’t rock the boat, especially with so many of the BBC’s own appointees on board, and Ofcom will be a minor fly in the ointment for the BBC.

On a final note, Labour’s Maria Eagle was entirely graceless, ill-judged and misinformed in her response to to Whittingdale’s speech loudly claiming that he was involved in some right-wing stitch up with the Press to do down the BBC…the echoing silence in the House said much about what the MPs thought of her conspiracy theory as they had just listened to the man himself lay out the very good terms of business he proposes for the BBC’s long term future.

Labour, as always, desperate to make some political point scoring and yet have had the rug pulled from under them as the much trumpeted ‘evisceration’ of the BBC has not happened leaving Labour high and dry with nothing to complain about as Whittingdale notes himself…

“[Eagle] rehearsed all her lines of attack only to wake up this morning to discover that all the concerns she expressed were based on ill-founded hysterical speculation by leftwing luvvies and others,” he said. “In actual fact what the government has proposed has been widely welcomed by, amongst others, the BBC.”

LOL.

Amused to hear the BBC dismiss DV as ‘The Blogger’ this morning.  They managed to avoid actually telling you what he blogged on and where to find it.  Funny that.  Wonder how such dismissive tones sits with the new duty to reflect the views of all people in the UK…presumably that will include those of a different political persuasion to those the BBC normally panders to in its news and programming.  Can we have a rightwing Kosminsky?

For your edification, education, delight and entertainment…

• BBC Charter Review: A snapshot of the government’s plan for the BBC

  • Published 12 May 2016
  • Guidance
  • DCMS
  • Part of a collection: BBC Charter Review

• Research to explore public views about the BBC

  • Published 12 May 2016
  • Research and analysis
  • DCMS
  • Part of a collection: BBC Charter Review

• Culture Secretary statement on the BBC reforms

  • Published 12 May 2016
  • Statement to Parliament
  • DCMS
  • Part of a collection: BBC Charter Review

• Plans to overhaul governance and secure the future of BBC

  • Published 12 May 2016
  • Press release
  • DCMS
  • Part of a collection: BBC Charter Review

• A BBC for the future: a broadcaster of distinction

  • Published 12 May 2016
  • Policy paper
  • DCMS
  • Part of a collection: BBC Charter Review

Tomorrow sees the long awaited White Paper from the Government on the future of the BBC. I reckon it’s going to be a damp squib but the luvvies are in semi-hysterical mode as we saw at the BAFTA TV awards. Your thoughts? I know I will be discussing this on the BBC, Talk Radio and elsewhere tomorrow so I’d welcome your insights.

We noted earlier that the BBC was blaming the EU referendum for the slowdown in employment despite the fact that the US faces a similar problem and today the BBC once again makes a similarly false claim, saying that British industry is in recession due to fears of Brexit quoting this….

“Growth could be even weaker if the surveys disappoint in coming month, which seems probable given the intensifying uncertainty over the outcome of the EU referendum.”

No other reason is given for the figures.

The BBC tells us..

UK industry fell back into recession as it shrank for the second quarter in a row, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

It is the third time UK industry has been in recession in eight years.

Although industrial production rose 0.3% from February to March, it fell 0.4% both in the first three months of 2016 and in the last three of 2015.

So industry perked up in March but has been sluggish for several months [hmmm….hasn’t the BBC, and Labour, been telling us the economy has been sluggish since 2010…all due to Osborne’s austerity?  Guess the BBC has changed its mind]

But hang on…once again we look to America…

In January this year…

U.S. manufacturing teeters on the edge of recession

After a few years of unusually strong growth, the U.S. manufacturing sector is really hurting again.

The strong dollar, weak export markets and the collapse in commodity prices are taking a toll on American factories.

And on April 1st…ie just after March when British industry picked up a bit….

U.S. Manufacturing Index Indicates Growth For First Time In Six Months

After reporting contractions in U.S. manufacturing activity for five straight months, the Institute for Supply Management released a report on Friday showing that activity in the sector expanded at a faster than expected rate in March.

So is the American economy also subject to the malign influence of the EU referendum or is the BBC playing fast and loose with the truth and pumping out pro-EU propaganda?  One might come to that conclusion.

A pool cameraman for the BBC, ITV and Sky filmed the Queen making a comment about the visit of a Chinese delegation to London saying they had been ‘very rude’.

The BBC has led with this for most of the day as their top story on the radio, and apparently Derbyshire also ventured there [As always looking for the important story] and the BBC blasted it out over the World Service…to be blocked in China.

The Guardian tells us that it was the BBC itself that decided to broadcast this conversation to the world and it was a high level BBC news mandarin who made the decision to go ahead….

“We have a team looking through the rushes of this sort of thing, and that’s what they found,” said a BBC insider. “It’s just a routine thing and usually there is nothing much of interest. In this case there was.”

Given the sensitivity of any story involving Buckingham Palace, the story would have been referred to the news department’s most senior executives before it broke on the BBC on Tuesday lunchtime. “There would have been high level talks within the BBC about this sort of thing.”

What’s you’re poison?

The BBC itself has been coy about revealing that it was in essence their cameraman and they who broke this story…the BBC have been somewhat reserved about telling us just who the ‘pool’ cameraman was and his relationship to them….From the Guardian….

As is usual, when the Queen performed her walkabout on Tuesday, meeting garden party guests lined up in advance by officials, she had in tow a small pool of journalists.

Among them was Peter Wilkinson, the pool cameraman. BBC reports referred to him as the “palace cameraman”. However, he is not a member of the royal household – though he wears a royal badge for ease of security access.

He is employed by and paid by the three major broadcasters – the BBC, ITV and Sky – to cover royal engagements for them as a pool, sending his footage directly to them.

The BBC has also been somewhat economical with the whole story and the reason for the Queen saying the Chinese were rude…I had no idea from BBC radio other than she had said they were rude……from the Guardian….

Later, the Queen told her guest: “They were very rude to the ambassador” – referring to Barbara Woodward, Britain’s first female ambassador to China.

D’Orsi complained to the Queen that Xi’s visit had been “quite a testing time for me” and claimed that at one point Chinese officials “walked out” on both her and the British ambassador, telling her “that the trip was off”.

“Extraordinary,” the Queen replied.

“It’s very rude and very undiplomatic, I thought,” the police commander concluded.

The BBC website is more forthcoming but if you didn’t see that you’d be in the dark and you still aren’t told that it was the BBC that first betrayed the Queen’s trust….as Buck House says….it was a private conversation, and the repercussions could be damaging diplomatically at the very least.

Why did the BBC broadcast the story when they knew that this would cause some trouble with the Chinese who obviously are not happy having blacked the story out at home?

The Guardian thinks that this has caused a rumpus between the UK and China..

UK’s ‘golden era’ with China in balance after Queen comments

Whoever the senior BBC news executive was that made the decision to go public he/she must have known that this would cause huge embarrassment for both sides and perhaps cause a fallout.  So why did he/she decide to broadcast this and do so so prominently making it one of the BBC’s top stories?

This must be something of a breach of protocol for the BBC to publicise a private converstaion and one that is obviously so diplomatically sensitive.

The BBC’s intent seems to be to deliberately cause a rift with China…the story in itself is hardly news…the Queen saying the Chinese were rude for not giving enough notice as they cancelled a meeting, so what?….it is the BBC that has made it news by stirring up an ‘international incident’ over nothing at all.   Why?  Are they out to damage Cameron who has made a big thing out of the relationship with China?  Have to think that is the real motive as there seems to be little other…as said it is hardly a news story of any real interest in and of itself.

Whatever the motive it is hardly the action of a responsible and trusted news broadcaster and no doubt in future the Royal family will look even more askance at any request from the BBC for unique access and stories.

OK, here’s a brand new Open Thread to detail the bias from the State Broadcaster. So what’s been bothering you….?

Trevor Phillips has made another speech on immigration and integration in which he slams the likes of the BBC and politicians who don’t just bury their heads in the sand but actively work to hide the problems and paint an alternative, and false, narrative of all being well….a more perfect description than the one above of the BBC and the Left’s approach to this issue would be harder to find.

In a 100-page paper, published by the think-tank Civitas set to provoke uproar, he argues that a new brand of “superdiversity” is bringing challenges to the Western way of life, far removed from those of immigration of the past.

Crucially, he says, race is no longer a “purely black and white affair” but a divide between the majority and people with different “values and behaviours”.

What is extraordinary, but not unexpected, is that in a week when the BBC is focussing on immigration and will have a day next week devoted especially to the subject it has totally and absolutely ignored Trevor Phillips’ comments whilst every other news outlet covered the story.  The last time Phillips spoke on this issue and suggested Muslims’ lack of willingness to integrate was a problem the BBC instead of investigating the issue chose to mock and discredit him and yet today he states that Muslim immigration threatens to shake the foundations of “liberal democracy” itself…..surely newsworthy and demanding investigation…apparently not if you are a BBC journalist.

Rome Burning

Britain risks “flames” of racial and religious conflict because of a “liberal self-delusion” over the impact of mass immigration, the former head of the equality watchdog Trevor Phillips claims today.

In a startling assault on decades of official multiculturalism and diversity policy, the founding  chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission argues the UK is being allowed to “sleepwalk to catastrophe” by leaders too “touchy”, “smug”, “complacent” and “squeamish” to talk about race.

“We maintain a polite silence masked by noisily debated public fictions such as ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘community cohesion’.

“Rome may not yet be in flames, but I think I can smell the smouldering whilst we hum to the music of liberal self-delusion.”

Significantly, he claims the arrival of some Muslim groups in particular who are actively “resistant to the traditional process of integration” threatens to shake the foundations of “liberal democracy” itself.

The reaction by many to the election of Sadiq Khan to be Mayor of London illustrates how it is not just the BBC that burys its head in the sand…..Khan almost certainly being voted in on a tide of Muslim votes in a London with nearly 1 million Muslims in the population.  Never mind Khan’s deliberately chosen associations with extremists you only have to look at what he has said and done to get an idea that his first identity is ‘Muslim’ and that Muslim issues are his first concern….and those concerns, such as British foreign policy and Israel, are the very same concerns that fuel Muslim radicalisation.  Khan feeds that narrative whilst of course not backing the violent Islamist response.

Hugo Rifkind in the Times tells us that ‘The new mayor could be a great British leader, a symbol of how multiculturalism can work.’  I would suggest this is a blinkered and overly optimistic view of what Khan stands for given his signing of a letter denouncing British foreign policy as an attack on Muslims, presumably his Muslim identity trumps being British, and that he backs a boycott of Israel whilst telling British Jews that he doesn’t.

Did Khan almost certainly say he was ‘looking forward to being Emir of a great city’ on the Marr show (28 mins 30 sec)….When I heard him speak I was sure he did say that…then thought maybe he said ‘a mayor’…but why would you say ‘a mayor’ and not ‘the mayor’ which is the more normal phrasing when he has already been elected and there is only one mayor of London?  Was Khan playing games having been bet he couldn’t slip in such a word into the conversation?  Calling yourself an ‘Emir’ might indicate problems ahead.

Rifkind states that ‘In a better world Britain’s Muslims and Jews are obvious allies’.   Says it all about the delusional state of many in the media who live on a diet of wishful thinking and self-delusion as ‘Rome burns’.

So the BBC is not alone in its delusions though the BBC’s are more often cynically deliberate and intended to suppress the truth.  With millions of Muslims flooding into Europe that is a truth that needs to be talked about openly….does such a movement of people who follow a religion so implacably opposed to Western values ‘ threaten to shake the foundations of “liberal democracy” itself.’?

I thnk we have the right to know.

The BBC thinks we don’t have that right.

Deepjoy….this morning the BBC were once again trying to use a bit of emotional blackmail to keep the borders flung wide open as the Today programme spun a tale of thousands of desperate migrants dying and being lost or buried in unnamed graves across the Mediterranean.  We had the sad tale of an Afghan who couldn’t find his family and had to sell his home in Afghanistan to fund a search for them [So he had a house which he kept…no doubt intending to use it as a holiday home to go back to occasionallywhilst allowing his extended family to live there whilst he sent home the handouts to them he was given by the gullible Europeans….Most of Afghanistan is safe, as is much of Iraq….why do we allow ‘refugees’ from these countries to come here, especially as so many ‘desperate’ Iraqis head back home to Iraq when they don’t like the weather or the handouts aren’t big enough?]

And now we have another tale of some Afghans infiltrating into Europe via the ‘refugee’ route [so often denied by the BBC] only this time intending to carry out extensive terrorist attacks across Europe….including the UK.

Interesting the brevity of the BBC report compared to the far more informative Telegraph one.

Nothing from the BBC like this for instance…

The two men were described as “human bombs” by a centre-Right politician, Roberto Calderoli of the Northern League.

“We now have human bombs here at home, bombs that are in danger of exploding in our homes and in our piazzas,” he said in reaction to the arrests.

He blamed the centre-Left government of Matteo Renzi for “allowing in hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants without the slightest controls, without knowing who they are, where they come from, how they paid for their journeys.

“Now we find that we have terrorists at home, welcomed into our migrant reception centres.”

The BBC in a dangerous denial whilst spinning relentless lies about the benefits and necessity for all these people to come to Europe whilst avoiding mention of the very obvious dangers, and not just those of terrorism.