BBC executives admit to having a liberal bias

[Joe Republic]

Link


We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News

By SIMON WALTERS, Mail on Sunday
Last updated at 21:11pm on 21st October 2006


It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

'Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it.'

In one of a series of discussions, executives were asked to rule on how they would react if the controversial comedian Sacha Baron Cohen) known for his offensive characters Ali G and Borat - was a guest on the programme Room 101.

On the show, celebrities are invited to throw their pet hates into a dustbin and it was imagined that Baron Cohen chose some kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a Bible and the Koran.

Nearly everyone at the summit, including the show's actual producer and the BBC's head of drama, Alan Yentob, agreed they could all be thrown into the bin, except the Koran for fear of offending Muslims.

In a debate on whether the BBC should interview Osama Bin Laden if he approached them, it was decided the Al Qaeda leader would be given a platform to explain his views.

And the BBC's 'diversity tsar', Mary Fitzpatrick, said women newsreaders should be able to wear whatever they wanted while on TV, including veils.

Ms Fitzpatrick spoke out after criticism was raised at the summit of TV newsreader Fiona Bruce, who recently wore on air a necklace with a cross.

The full account of the meeting shows how senior BBC figures queued up to lambast their employer.

Political pundit Andrew Marr 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.'


Continued.

[Michael Z]

We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News

By SIMON WALTERS, Mail on Sunday
Last updated at 21:11pm on 21st October 2006

Whereas the Hate Mail isn't biased. At all.

I also find the timing of this article rather amusing, given that the BBC has been toeing the government's line like a nice little lapdog ever since the Hutton enquiry. But of course, the Muslim veil "debate" and the fact that, when White supremacists are arrested for planning a full-scale terrorist campaign it gets completely ignored (I dunno about you guys, but I didn't hear anyone condemning Christians or saying that the "white community" should look for any signs of trouble in their midst), is a surefire sign of a "liberal media". I'm so sick of this sh**t, seriously.

[Joe Republic]

We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News

By SIMON WALTERS, Mail on Sunday
Last updated at 21:11pm on 21st October 2006

Whereas the Hate Mail isn't biased. At all.

Did you actually read any of the article, or just judge it as irrelevant based on the source?  It's quite hard to denounce it when you see what many of these executives have actually said.

[Michael Z]

Did you actually read any of the article, or just judge it as irrelevant based on the source?  It's quite hard to denounce it when you see what many of these executives have actually said.

I sort of touched on this in my other post. Ever since the Hutton enquiry the BBC has been very scared to upset the government, so obviously they would now "admit" to having a liberal bias. You should compare BBC News prior to and after the Hutton enquiry. That aside, I think it's telling that the Mail seems to have been the only paper to pick up on this, given that it has a very clear and concise agenda in this regard.

Actually, one problem I do see with BBC News is that, in their quest to have "balanced" viewpoints they very rarely have a centrist or moderate voice, instead preferring to pit, say, a member of Liberty against some nutter from one of the Muslim extremist groups, consequently totally polarising and contorting the debate. But that isn't really a sign of liberal bias. It's just bad journalism.

[merseysider]

Michael Z completely misses the point.

Yes of course the Daily Mail is blatantly biased. It makes no attempt to hide the fact. It is a hateful publication and I wouldn't buy it.

However, the BBC is publicly funded and has objectivity as a key part of its mission statement. It must therefore be judged against higher standards.

This mission is not being fulfilled; think of the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath (the David Kelly / Hutton affair) where the BBC News and Current Affairs Department was behaving like Britain's unelected fourth political party. Or just listen to the Today programme on the way into work, and how John Humphrys and Jim Naughtie could turn a debate about gardening into an opportunity to start blethering on about Iraq.

[Joe Republic]

Yes of course the Daily Mail is blatantly biased. It makes no attempt to hide the fact. It is a hateful publication and I wouldn't buy it.

It also doesn't force people to pay for it if they want the privilege of reading a different newspaper.

The 'TV License' is the worst idea I've ever seen.

[afleitch]

I'm also expecting the Pope to announce that he's a Catholic any day now

My belief is that when it comes to individual programming and subject matters, then yes they can show 'bias' as long as the range of subjects covered is wide and varied. (though when it comes to the Room 101 example that is silly and blantantly hypocritical ) When it comes to news presentation however I take a different line. Should the BBC news editorial team choose to follow a particular 'slant' then it shoud allows allow ample and opposing response.

Luckily, it does seem the era of BBC News plucking its reporters and analysts from the pages of the Guardian (who in turn now seem to pluck theirs from Hizbut Tahrir or a rambling drunk from off the bus but thats another story!) is over. They played it safe with Nick Robinson in my opinion

[Ban my account ffs!]

I love the BBC, but here's one thing that annoys me greatly about them:  Their pure bias towards global warming.

I mean, I understand:  GLobal warming is one of the biggest threats we face today and it is indeed happening (as someone who is vested in a winter culture that requries cold and snow, I've seen our winter economy all but dry up in the past 15 years)...

But I got really angry in 2004 when the BBC came out with an article that said that 2003 was the 2nd warmest year on record, and would likely have been warmer than 1998 had their been no el-nino in '98, because there was no el-nino in 2003.

Unfortunately for the BBC< there was, in fact, an el-nino in 2003 that did warm ocean temperatures and likely had a positive impact on temperatures in 2003.

So, I e-mailed the BBC, and gave them links to government sites that stated that there was, in fact, an el-nino in 2003.

They e-mailed back, and said "Okay, there was an el-nino, but it wasn't as big as 1998 so we'll just say "No sizable el-nino" rather than "no el-nino"... well.. that helps.  The El-nino in 1998 was massive.. and the world record for temperatures was easily broken... but also, there was a very strong La-Nina in late 1998 that suppressed global temperatures and took away from what would have been an unprecidented record in about September of 1998.

There was no La-Nina in 2003 to counter-act the effects of a moderate El-Nino, so I can safely say, the effect was largely the same.. meaning that 2003 was in 2nd, no matter how you spin it.

Of course, this is almost frivilous in the scheme of things.. but the BBC needs to get its reporting right.

Other than that, I love the BBC, because they have a vested interest in just reporting the news and not using flashy graphics and pretty pictures to lure us in.

Why is it that a liberal bias means reporting on stories that get people thinking that the conservative media all-out ignores (Darfur, for example)... and a conservative bias means trying to get Republicans elected?

[Michael Z]

Michael Z completely misses the point.

Yes of course the Daily Mail is blatantly biased. It makes no attempt to hide the fact. It is a hateful publication and I wouldn't buy it.

However, the BBC is publicly funded and has objectivity as a key part of its mission statement. It must therefore be judged against higher standards.

That wasn't my point. My point is that the nature of the BBC's coverage has actually changed since Hutton and Grade's installation as Director-General. That was basically the main thrust of my argument, and thus accusations of liberal bias don't necessarily stick, and furthermore that the Mail's article cannot be taken seriously because of its obvious agenda.

Also, while I clearly don't take the Mail seriously, I fail to see how that is "judging the Mail against the BBC". You seem to be putting words into my mouth there, since I am judging the Mail solely on its own terms, not against the BBC's. Plus I'm not going to suddenly and unquestioningly believe something because of one article printed by what is to all intents and purposes a fringe paper, especially when trying to portray the media as having a "liberal bias" is a famous chestnut the right has been playing for god knows how long now. Not even mentioning that the recent coverage by BBC News has been far from "liberal", but more to that later.

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You're talking opinion here, not facts, and we could easily take this exact same information in the sentence above and arrive at totally different conclusions. In your opinion, the BBC didn't act in the public's interest. IMO they did. Taking the government to account when there are clear holes in their policies are, IMO (emphasis), a sign of journalistic integrity.

I'm not disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing, in fact the question of whether I'm right or you're right is actually beside the point, I just wanted to point out that your argument is a little flawed on these lines.

Besides, I fail to see how this is any different over the fracas the BBC had with Thatcher over the Falklands war. Of course, the same debate was raging back then, and probably the "liberal bias"-accusation applied more then than it does now.

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Like I said, this is little different to the BBC's dispute with the government over the Falklands war. However, what you wrote does not actually relate to anything I have said (or written, whatever) vis-a-vis my statement on how the BBC has been covering Iraq and terrorist alerts since Hutton.

Let's take a look at the recent terror alerts and how the BBC parroted the Home Office's proclamations of doom and gloom. However, had the BBC actually bothered to check the science behind it, they might have discovered that, actually, the terror plot was totally unfeasible, probably would have failed, and that John Reid might, just might have been amplifying the true nature of this particular plot for political gain. Perhaps. Just maybe. No such critical tones from the BBC. Not from ITN or Sky News either, of course, but that was to be expected of course.

Since then, the BBC's coverage has become increasingly poisonous. "We reveal the true extent of the homegrown terrorist threat!" the BBC proclaimed in a way that was clearly designed to reassure the British public that they were not going to be blown to sh**t on their way to work. Very responsible journalism. And very liberal too, I am sure everyone here can agree. After all, there's nothing liberals enjoy more than picking on minorities and making them look like the enemy within. I'm not even going to go into the retarded hysteria over the veil, the BBC and other assorted media completely ignoring the foiled white supremacists' terror plan, etc, etc. Yes, a huge liberal bias.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

IMO the overall bias of the BBC tends to be towards a sort of establishment liberalism (something that has been the case since... er... the BBC was founded really...), something especially noticable on BBC TV news and also on Radio Four.
The BBC is certainly not leftwing (under any definition), witness the fawning coverage it's given to Cameron for the past year, or the tendency to prefer politicians of the Labour Right to those of the (mainstream) Labour Left, and it's news angle never has been even remotely left-leaning, liberal yes, but that is not the same thing... unless you're the Daily Mail, which o/c seems to think that anyone to the right of Norman Tebbit is an out-and-out Communist.
And like all media, the BBC has also has a strong bias towards ratings, something that they (as a publically funded broadcaster) should be above. The way they joined the commercial media in spinning Jack Straw's (quite mild actually) remarks about veils into the ghastly media-storm we've seen recently was disgraceful.

Interesting fact; every single Government since the birth of the BBC has been quite convinced that the BBC was biased against them.

[Joe Republic]

For a government-sanctioned media network that forces anybody with a TV to pay for it - regardless of whether they intend to watch it - to have any kind of bias at all is disgusting.

[Michael Z]

For a government-sanctioned media network that forces anybody with a TV to pay for it - regardless of whether they intend to watch it - to have any kind of bias at all is disgusting.

On this note, I wouldn't actually mind knowing how the TV Licensing system works. I do know that TV license revenue is acquired by a private company in its own right (which actually seems to be spending most of their revenue on making some really quite patronising, not mention fascistic and Orwellian "Pay us or we'll get you! We know where you live!"-type adverts), but I would like to know how the BBC is connected to it. I know they are, but how.

But I wonder if it's possible for any media- or news outlet not to have any bias at all. Somebody out there decides what is newsworthy and what isn't, and the fact that they have to use their own judgment to make this decision automatically suggest a bias of one form or another.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

(which actually seems to be spending most of their revenue on making some really quite patronising, not mention fascistic and Orwellian "Pay us or we'll get you! We know where you live!"-type adverts)

Funny thing about that, is the fact that all they've got in those dectector-vans are lists of households without licenses...

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There will always be a bias of some sort (and for those reasons). I think the problem with the BBC is that it has several consistent biases (something acceptable with a private news organisation, but something that a public broadcaster shouldn't really have), and not just political ones (it would be nice to hear some non-RP accents reading the TV news every now and again).
O/c the Daily Hate Mail would whine about biased-BBC even if there were no consistent bias...

[Joe Republic]

On this note, I wouldn't actually mind knowing how the TV Licensing system works. I do know that TV license revenue is acquired by a private company in its own right (which actually seems to be spending most of their revenue on making some really quite patronising, not mention fascistic and Orwellian "Pay us or we'll get you! We know where you live!"-type adverts), but I would like to know how the BBC is connected to it. I know they are, but how.

Here's where I first read up on TV licensing, and here is more info on the British TV license specifically.  Although it doesn't affect me in any way, it's just one of those issues that grates on me.

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Oh of course, this isn't in dispute.  But my view is that if you're going to have any kind of government-sanctioned media network at all (which I don't agree with anyway), you could at least make an effort to be unbiased.

[WMS]

Why is it that a liberal bias means reporting on stories that get people thinking that the conservative media all-out ignores (Darfur, for example)...

Actually, I have found the Internet site StrategyPage.com to be much better at covering horrible wars all over the place than the mainstream media, either left or right. They have a bias - they don't hide it - which I suppose comes down to "pro-military", which given that the founders and staff of the site are ex-military themselves is unserstandable. But that does not equate to blind support of the Republicans or of current administration policy - they can and have been quite critical of various policies and certainly have criticized U.S. allies such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

But my main point was that this 'conservative' source has consistently covered places like Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Colombia, the Philippines, Chad, and so on, even when the media stops covering a place when they've milked what ratings they can out of it (or when it no longer serves their political purposes - the media can and will draw attention to and away from a place to serve a purpose, usually using a problem somewhere as a club against an administration they dislike until it is no longer useful then dropping it like a hot potato - Ivory Coast, anyone? - or even the Sudan). The idea that only liberal news sources cover things like Darfur is invalid.

As for the BBC, they do have some biases. ALVARO URIBE IS A COMMUNITARIAN, NOT A CONSERVATIVE, YOU TRENDY-LIBERAL BBC IDIOTS! HE IS VERY POPULAR AS WELL, FAR MORE SO THAT THOSE PSYCHOPATHIC CORRUPT FARC GUERRILLAS YOU SEEM TO THINK SHOULD PROPERLY RULE COLOMBIA! Hey, I read their Colombia coverage and "far right-wing", "highly conservative", and the like were what they consistently referred to Uribe as being.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The BBC seems to be much better than basically any American journalism. Unlike the American media, they actually reported on the Florida 2000 scrub list.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The BBC seems to be much better than basically any American journalism.

That's not really much of an acheivement

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Yeah. US journalism tries to be "objective" () which in my mind is BS.

[Serenity Now]

The BBC is obviously biased in a way that makes it more socially liberal, the kind of people who work in the media simply are, highly educated people tend to be..

I'm not saying that in an offensive way, if it seems so think of it as you will, you could pretend some people are too educated and no nothing of the "real world"..