Old media

The BBC in Britain and CBS in America epitomise the left-liberal bias of the established media.

America’s old media

If the old media had had it their way John Kerry would have beaten George W Bush in the 2004 presidential race. Clear majorities of those Americans who thought that TV news was biased, believed that old media networks like ABC, CBS, CNN (dubbed the ‘Clinton News Network’) and NBC were biased towards the Democrats. Only Rupert Murdoch’s new kid on the block - Fox News - was seen as Bush-friendly.

Before American audiences had ‘wised up’ to the bias of the establishment broadcasters they trusted what they were told. No longer. Landmark books like Bernard Goldberg’s Bias, websites like RatherBiased.com* and monitoring organisations such as Accuracy In Media have made viewers and listeners appreciate the liberal worldviews that distort much of the output of the old MainStream Media (MSM).

The old media’s problems have grown as new media entities have emerged. Fox News has led the charge against the old monopoly but talk radio stars like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh reach tens of millions of Americans everyday.

The blogosphere has done most to puncture the MSM’s superiority, however. Karl Rove - the ‘architect’ of George W Bush’s re-election – has paid tribute to America’s bloggers. He argues that democracy is much healthier when many voices are heard and bloggers are giving voice to opinions that CBS et al tuned out. Rove believes that the internet is reversing the media centralisation of recent decades. It was the webroots that exposed the fake documents that CBS employed against George W Bush during the 2004 campaign. More recently, the fact-checking that has become the weapon of blogger Davids against old media Goliaths toppled CNN’s chief news executive - Eason Jordan. Jordan, the same man who (in 1991) had agreed to keep quiet about Saddam’s human rights abuses in return for keeping CNN’s Baghdad operation, had suggested that US troops in Iraq had been targeting journalists.

The old media are running scared in America… but what about in Britain?

Britain’s old media

The BBC is one of Britain’s most popular institutions but its ‘red corner’ news and drama infuriates conservatives. And the compulsory poll tax (nee licence fee) that funds the BBC has given the Corporation a dominance in Britain that ABC, CBS or NBC never possessed at the height of their powers.

Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph’s former editor, has suggested for most BBC employees, “there is something defective, even almost perverted, about being Conservative, or indeed conservative. You are therefore guilty of racism, homophobia, selfishness etc. until proved innocent… It seems to me that the BBC today is the enemy of conservative culture in Britain.”

Moore continued:

“How does the BBC approach subjects such as American power, organised religion, marriage, the EU, the Middle East, the actions of the Armed Forces, the rights of householders to defend their property against burglars, public spending, choice of schools, or any perceived inequality? Who will be more politely treated - Gerry Adams or Norman Tebbit, a spokesman for Hizbollah or Paul Wolfowitz? If someone appears on a programme described as a "property developer" with someone described as a "green activist", who will get the rougher ride? If a detective drama features a feisty lesbian and a chilly aristocrat, which is more likely to be the murderer?”

Former BBC executive Tim Luckhurst wrote an article - entitled The Extreme Centre - that described the biases inherent in books written by BBC journalists. “The books published by BBC correspondents tell us more than what the individual authors think. They tell us what the BBC hierarchy deems acceptable,” Luckhurst wrote. He then asked:

“Would the BBC tolerate the publication by one of its correspondents of a book arguing that Britain should abandon the EU and join the North American Free Trade Association? Would it employ a correspondent who argues (as I and a substantial minority of the Scottish population do) that the Scottish Parliament has proved to be a disreputable institution and that devolution has created waste, incompetence and bureaucracy in approximately equal measures? How might it react to an education correspondent who published the suggestion that rigid academic selection in state schools is considered socially just in many parts of modern Europe? Would a Middle East correspondent who observed that politicised Islam has proved intrinsically incapable of creating economically vibrant societies, or of balancing the rights of the sexes, be permitted to prosper?”

Most conservatives know that the answer to these questions is no, no, no and no.

Another ex-BBC employee - Robin Aitken - has detailed some of the BBC's biases in his Taking Sides: Bias At The BBC book. 

Michael Gove has written about a “left-wing spirit” infusing BBC thinking but all hidden behind home county accents and professionalism (an example of wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing). Gove complains about the dominance of left-wing presenters and its uncomprehending antagonism towards George W Bush.

Charles Moore acknowledged that the dominance of liberal views is not a problem peculiar to the BBC. Liberal views are rife throughout Britain’s establishment. “But,” Moore continued,  “what is unique is the BBC's power to impose them. In order legally to have a television in your home, you have to pay the BBC £116 a year. This allows it to dominate virtually all forms of broadcast media, many of which have nothing to do with any idea of "public service broadcasting".”

Postscript 1

Anyone who travels overseas and watches TV, or listens to radio, knows that British broadcasting is special. The jewels of bbc.co.uk, Radio 4 and the World Service all glitter in the crown of public service broadcasting. Whenever conservatives make the case for reform of the BBC, its defenders squeal that its public service jewels must be defended. But the British Broadcasting Corporation and public service broadcasting are not the same thing. Conservatives don’t object to the quality of the BBC’s output. They object to its biases. The Corporation’s news and drama programming consistently exhibit the same liberal left prejudices. In favour of the big state. Against religion and the family. For poseur multilateralism. It should be possible to keep the licence fee – or introduce a less regressive and modern equivalent – but allow other broadcasters to access the funds that it raises. That way there’ll still be money for high quality, world-beating programming. But that money will be shared amongst broadcasters who are more interested in the views of every Briton.

Postscript 2

Britain does not yet have a developed blogosphere to challenge and fact-check the BBC but a cadre of bias-exposing bloggers will be an important part of the conservative infrastructure that will be needed to support a conservative revival in Britain.