The BBC Biased? Could It Be?

I grew up loving the BBC from across the pond. It always had the best programming as far as I was concerned. Thus it came as an utter shock to me when, later in life, it became apparent just how insidiously and dangerously biased the BBC's news division was - and had been for generations. It has become particulalry toxic to the functioning of a Western democracy since 9-11. I am reminded of the period prior to WWII when the BBC carried water for the world's most infamous appeaser, Neville Chamberlin, while refusing to give any coverage to Winston Churchill. Churchill would later label the BBC a "communist organization."

To be fair, the BBC does still on occaision come up with some amazing work. Undercover Mosque, by BBC 4, was as first rate and important a piece of investigative journalism as one will ever find. And the bulk of the BBC's work, when not on topics that lend themselves to left wing, avant garde causes or anti-americanism, is even handed and quite good. In what remains, which is a sizable portion of their reporting, there is a clear, if not at times over the top, anti-war, anti-american, anti-conservative bias and an embrace of suicidal multiculturalism - particularly a pro-Muslim bent - that pervades their work. Indeed, it sometimes pervades its work to a high degree of comedy. The BBC certainly seems to have a preference for political parties in its own country. And how many news rooms do you know contain a picture of Bush in Hitlerian garb? The Beeb's bias is both active and passive - it is evident in what the BBC chooses to report, and also in what the BBC chooses to simply omit from its coverage. And over the past few years, it has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer pounds to in a court battle to keep the "Balen Report" secret - an internal report on pro-arab, anti-semetic bias at the Beeb. The website Biased BBC does an excellent job of documenting BBC outrages, both active and passive on a daily basis.

The BBC has for years claimed the outrageous fiction that they are unbiased. Thus, it was good to hear today at least some small note of reality - that the BBC is at least acknowledging a portion of this bias in a report released but not yet up on the BBC website. The Times has the story:

There are some things you do not need an official report to tell you - that John Prescott thinks he is a babe magnet, that President Mugabe is not entirely in favour of white farmers and that Al-Qaeda takes a pretty dim view of the West. The report commissioned by the BBC into itself concluded with something equally blindingly obvious. It said that the organisation is institutionally biased and especially gullible to the blandishments of politically driven celebrities, such as Bono and Bob Geldof. Almost anyone in Britain could have told the BBC that for free, but maybe it’s better to have it in an official report.

All media organisations are biased and that applies especially to newspapers. But our bias is openly declared. If readers want different views they have no compulsion to pay and can go elsewhere. The BBC is in a different category; everyone has to pay for it and it is in the tricky position of being founded to be free from bias. It is meant to be a beacon of objective truth in a wildly polarised world. A tall order. In theory even rabid rightwingers and demented leftists can listen or watch (and increasingly read online) the BBC without discerning any tilt. But what emerges from the report is a picture of an organisation with a liberal, anti-American bias and an almost teenage fascination with fashionable causes. The report singles out the BBC’s overwhelming and uncritical backing for the campaign over Live Aid and now the Live Earth concerts on global warming.

That the BBC should investigate itself is perhaps admirable, but only if it acts on the conclusions. The likelihood is that it will lament its shortcomings, pledge to do something and carry on much as before. Changing its cosy culture will take more than a report; some who have worked there say it would require a small neutron bomb. The BBC is a self-perpetuating liberal arts club. Recruitment is the key. It needs to employ more nonconformist journalists whose paper of choice is not The Guardian.

Read the story here. And then there is this from the Telegraph:

The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded.

The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased - and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement.

It warns that celebrities must not be pandered to and allowed to hijack the BBC schedule.

After a year-long investigation the report, published today, maintains that the corporation’s coverage of day-to-day politics is fair and impartial.

That last statement is simply ridiculous and why I am incredibly cynical about this report doing anything but provide the BBC a whitewash. The BBC's day to day reporting is often its most objectionable. Just click on a few of the links I have included above to see for yourself. To continue:

. . . The report concludes BBC staff must be more willing to challenge their own beliefs.

It reads: “There is a tendency to 'group think’ with too many staff inhabiting a shared space and comfort zone.”

A staff impartiality seminar held last year is also documented in the report, at which executives admitted they would broadcast images of the Bible being thrown away but not the Koran, in case Muslims were offended.

During the seminar a senior BBC reporter criticised the corporation for being anti-American.

The report was jointly commissioned by BBC managers and the board of governors and will be published by the BBC Trust, which has since replaced the governors.
It has been approved by a committee headed by BBC trustee and former ITN editor-in-chief Richard Tait. Other members include BBC deputy director-general Mark Byford, head of BBC News Helen Boaden and creative director Alan Yentob.

Writing in The Observer yesterday, Mr Tait said that “the BBC cannot allow its output to be taken over by campaigning groups” and added: “At the BBC impartiality is and must remain non-negotiable because it is vital to safeguard the BBC’s independence.”

The report offers 12 new principles for the corporation to adopt to safeguard its impartiality.

These include: “Impartiality is no excuse for insipid programming. It allows room for fair-minded, evidence-based judgements by senior journalists and documentary-makers, and for controversial, passionate and polemical arguments by contributors and writers.”

A BBC spokeswoman said: “This report is about looking forward and how we are going to face the challenges of impartiality in the modern world.”

I apologize for being cynical, but the bias at the BBC news division is far too much for me to stomach, particularly since not only are its toxins infecting the UK, but it is also being pumped into the US. This internal BBC report seems more of a whitewash then anything else.

The BBC is, by law required to be objective in its reporting. The people of Britain are required by law to fund the BBC through a licensing fee on all television owners. Only half of the equation is being upheld at the moment.

There is no reason whatsoever for the BBC's news division to remain on the public tit, particularly when it is so clearly failing in its legal mandate. But even beyond that, there is no reason that the BBC news division should not compete in the marketplace as do nearly all other news divisions in the world outside of dictatorships and communist countries. The New York Times is watching its stock values plummet because of its one sided reporting. There is no reason the BBC should not enjoy the same opportunity.

Read More...

Summary only...

Britain Falling

American commentator Cal Thomas opines this morning that the end result of 60 years of hard left multiculturalism, social experimentation, socialist government policy and EU / British immigration policy is now culminating in the suicide of Britain. I can't say that I disagree. Britain's domestic policies and politics have become particularly indefensible as it has become more and more obvious that there is an existential threat posed to the UK by its immigration policy and its infestation by Wahhabi / Salafi Islamists. While no one is more appreciative then I of Tony Blair as a true ally of the U.S., from this side of the pond at least, looking at British domestic politics, it seems that he has done nothing to stem the suicidal tide set in motion by the UK's leaders early in the past century. To the contrary, he appears to have hastened it:

There are two ways to destroy a nation. One is from without by an invading military force. The other is from within when the people of the nation no longer embrace and promote the history, language and culture that brought it to prominence and power. Britain has chosen the second option, which is national suicide.

In addition to its indefensible immigration policy, which is rapidly diluting British culture, the nation's public schools are giving up classical teaching in history, science and English literature in favor of trendy things to make the subject matter more "popular." It isn't working. Students increasingly find the new curriculum as unpalatable as school lunches.

According to the British think tank, Civitas, no major subject area has escaped the blight of political interference. The Civitas report is called "The Corruption of the Curriculum." It says history classes teach from speeches by Osama bin Laden and what Arab media say about Sept. 11 with no balancing material from American sources. "History has become so divorced from facts and chronology that pupils might learn the new Œskills and perspectives' through a work of fiction, such as ŒLord of the Rings,'" says the report.

Science classes are dominated by debates over abortion, teaching about genetic engineering and the use of nuclear power, rather than emphasizing laboratory work. In English, the pursuit of gender and racial equality has led an exam board to produce a list of modern poems from everywhere but England and Wales, where many of the greatest writers were born. The English literature exam features 32 contemporary poems and only 16 poems written prior to 1914. Exam candidates must choose two about which to write, being careful to select one from each gender (what no gay or transgender writers?).

The Civitas report says, "The traditional subject areas have been hijacked to promote fashionable causes; teachers are expected to help to achieve the government's social goals instead of imparting a body of academic knowledge to their students."

The Daily Telegraph reports on another study which shows that attempts to make science more popular with the culturally trendy has had the opposite effect, "with pupils less interested in the subject and less keen to pursue it than they were under the previous, more fact-based lessons."

Private schools continue to teach the old subjects in the traditional manner and that is why what some are calling "educational apartheid" is becoming more obvious and a major concern. The study of science classes concludes that future scientists will be even more likely to come from these independent, or private schools, because the public school courses will leave state school students ill-equipped for further study.

A nation that lacks sufficient confidence to teach the next generation its own history, culture and even science is a nation that is unlikely to mobilize the national will to resist an invading enemy.

My own theory is that prosperity has a lot to do with this jettisoning of the past. When a nation focuses on profits, instead of prophets, and sexual pleasure instead of fidelity and virtue, it dooms itself to eventual extinction. . . .

Read the entire story here. I am an anglophile with a tremendous appreciation for the rich history of Britain and all of the good that it has done throughout the world. Britain is the mother of modern capitalism and democracy. Everywhere that Britain left its footprint the deepest during the age of empire, what the Brits left in their wake were the foundations of capitalism, a solid educational system, an equally solid legal system, and democracy. Were you find nations today that are the most free and who enjoy the highest standard of living, you will often find the footprint of Britain. The small island nation of Britain has been the great engine of historical development over the past millenium, really.

To my own thinking, it is the praetorian and avant garde left encapsulated by the BBC, that has led this charge to the cliff. But Britain's end is far from writ in stone. I still believe that, in its darkest hour, the sons and daughters of Chruchill, Nelson, Wellington, Adam Smith, William of Normandy and countless other legends of history will take back their country.

Read More...

Summary only...