(This is posted due to a conversation started on my LiveLeak account.) I have talked about the bias embedded in NPR previously, but few are aware of the embedded bias at the BBC. And so, I wanted to get a critique of their biases into the anals of PapaG. I often talk to people who see to think they are in am elite class of people when they mention they listen to the BBC. Don’t get me wrong, they bring stories about world events other news orgs miss. However, many people are not trained to get the bias behind their headlines. The Daily Mail, a UK newsdaily, has an interesting article from a while ago:
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.’
While the BBC admitted their bias and have tried to correct it, they still do not know what impartiality is — not to mention political correctness and multi-culturalism. Someone who worked at the BBC for some time (Peter Sissons, a 20 year veteran of BBC News) wrote in his memoirs about some of this culture of progressiveness at the BBC, to wit NewsBusters wrote on:
While liberal media bias is often easy to spot, it’s rare to see veteran journalists come clean on the biases of their own news outlets. But when one does, it’s hard to dispute the first hand account of the newsroom’s consistently leftist politics.
In his new memoirs, veteran BBC news anchor Peter Sissons details the startling depths of leftist politics that pervade coverage at Britain’s state-owned broadcaster. Leftism is “in its very DNA,” Sissions claims of the BBC.
In excerpts from the memoirs, titled “When One Door Closes”, published in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper, Sissons details the groupthink mentality at the BBC:
At any given time there is a BBC line on everything of importance, a line usually adopted in the light of which way its senior echelons believe the political wind is blowing. This line is rarely spelled out explicitly, but percolates subtly throughout the organisation.
Whatever the United Nations is associated with is good — it is heresy to question any of its activities. The EU is also a good thing, but not quite as good as the UN. Soaking the rich is good, despite well-founded economic arguments that the more you tax, the less you get. And Government spending is a good thing, although most BBC people prefer to call it investment, in line with New Labour’s terminology.
All green and environmental groups are very good things. Al Gore is a saint. George Bush was a bad thing, and thick into the bargain. Obama was not just the Democratic Party’s candidate for the White House, he was the BBC’s. Blair was good, Brown bad, but the BBC has now lost interest in both.
Trade unions are mostly good things, especially when they are fighting BBC managers. Quangos are also mostly good, and the reports they produce are usually handled uncritically. The Royal Family is a bore. Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.
In short, pick the default leftist position on any issue, and odds are it is the position held and espoused on air by the BBC.
And while leftist politics color the news at the channel, they also dictate its corporate structure and inner workings, according to Sissons. One’s politics, he writes, can dictate one’s success or failure in climbing the Company’s corporate ladder.
If Human Resources — or Personnel, as it used to be known — advise that it’s time a woman or someone from an ethnic minority (or a combination of the two) was appointed to the job for which you, a white male, have applied, then that’s who gets it.
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’.
In fact, there are whole blogs that deal with the bias at the BBC. Biased BBC for instance. In one forum this was posted in relation to the memoirs of Peter Sissons being released:
Very interesting complete article, I encourage you to read it:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti…r-Sissons.html
Originally Posted by Andrew Marr
“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”
Originally Posted by BBC Drama Commissioning Controller
“We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.”
Ben Stephenson. BBC Drama Commissioning Controller
Guardian, July 16th 2009
Originally Posted by BBC Internal Report
“An internal report from 2007 said it had to make greater efforts to avoid liberal bias. That report criticised the BBC for coming late to several important stories including euroscepticism and immigration, which it described as ‘off limits in terms of a liberal-minded comfort zone’.”
“BBC programmes are being undermined by the liberal culture of its staff”
BBC report on the BBC report on biased BBC reporting
Which is funny, as the BBC spends 86% of its recruitment budget on advertising in one unashamedly left-wing newspaper – The Guardian.
BBC spent a colossal:
1. Guardian £231,944
2. The Telegraph £32,535
3. The Times £6,159
The Guardian on itself: “…a quality national newspaper without party affiliation; remaining faithful to its liberal tradition.” The Guardian is also has a miniscule readership, Telegraph is read by more than twice as many people, and the Times more.
…(read more)… (emphasis and stylization added)
A round table. Take note that the point Carol makes is one I make about NPR:
For instance, NPR: 18,321 words in pro-Arab only segments, 4,934 words in pro-Israel segments. Bias in number of Arab-only vs Israeli-only segments: 63-percent Palestinian/pro-Arab only segments, 37-percent Israel/pro-Israel segments. (SOURCE)
Read more: RPT What “Is” Fascism (Two Posts Combined & Imported from Old Blog)
