The institutionally biased BBC

On Saturday ConservativeHome reported the news that Robin Aitken's book on BBC Bias had been launched.  Watch this 15 minute video from 18DoughtyStreet.com for an overview of the book's main themes.

You can embed this video on your blog by getting the code from here.

Comments

[thatcherite]

But what is Hugo Swire doing about it? Absolutely nothing! Old Etonians love their establishment friends in the BBC BBC and its institutionalised Europhile social democracy.

Lord (Richard) Ryder, Tory Chief Whip under John Major is another example. He who took the whip away from the Maastricht rebels. Lord Ryder is now BBC Vice-Chairman. What has he done to tackle BBC bias - nothing it seems.

Kelvin Mackenzie for Chairman of the BBC!

[Paul Oakley]

Nice to have this confirmed by an insider. There is additional bias when the BBC graciously seeks the views of the public, eg when BBC London News invites email comments on the lead stories of the day. I sent them a number of emails about the Olympics before we "won" that white elephant. Deathly silence. I've also raised concerns about the surveillance capabilities of Oyster cards. Same story. Although my emails were no doubt badly written and full of spelling errors it's odd that nobody at all has been allowed to raise concerns such as these.

[Mike A]

In the 80s, the BBC got attacked from the left because it toed the line about the strikes (editing tape to show miners' aggression and refusing to show police actions).

C'est la vie.

[George Hinton]

Old hat.

Been there, done it, got the t-shirt.

As has been said, what is the way forward to deal with this bias and expunge it for the future......wholesale redundancies would be expensive...., so a clever clever HR Director needs to look at contracts of employment and install neutrality caveats and then enforce them.

[RichardShackleton]

Or just use the analogue switch-off as an excuse to make the licence fee voluntary. In other words you only have to pay for the BBC within your new TV package from Sky, Freeviw or Virgin etc IF YOU REALLY WANT IT.

[Tim Williamson]

We shouldn’t really be surprised. The BBC, like Universities, the NHS and local government are all funded by the Government. Sorry, I mean taxpayer. They also share a mindset which is Guardian & BBC-led, which is determinedly Hampstead-left and anti-monarchy. No surprise then that the BBC and local government -- Social Services and Local Education Authorities in particular -- use the Guardian to recruit most senior positions. Like recruits like recruits like recruits like.... and so it continues. It’s no surprise then that these institutions have become institutionally left-wing. It's an insidious process. It's also absorbed and adopted the Murdoch-led republican inclination.

[Denis Cooper]

By implication all BBC employees already have a kind of "impartiality clause"
in their employment contracts, because the BBC as a whole is required to be impartial by its Charter, and that is the only possible justification for funding it
by a compulsory levy on all TV viewers whatever their political leanings. The problem is how to enforce that requirement for impartiality when the government of the day can pick one of its own party donors to be Director-General and then expect him to support the government line. It's beyond me how a presenter can say on air "if we win the election" and keep his job. He should have been out of the door without his feet touching the ground once that party bias was exposed.

[Dave Bartlett]

Have the BBC made any comment on Mr Aitken's book? I googled bbc.co.uk, but found nothing.

"Can We Trust the BBC" is currently #396 at Amazon UK, which is pretty good selling. But bearing in mind what Mr Aiken says in the video, about change at the BBC coming only in response to critism from the left, maybe Nick Cohen's "What's Left" (currently #76 at Amazon UK) will be more likely to move the groupthink towards the centre.

I've not yet read either book.

[Tim Williamson]

Further to the above comments, the endemic bias at the BBC isn't predominantly with the presenters, notoriously partisan though some of them are. It's the enormous number of researchers, assistant editors, assistant producers and all aspects of programme administration that lead to the end product.
Years ago I knew someone involved in a current affairs programme -- we shared an occasional pint at the local Con club. He told me about the need to ensure that when photographs of leading Tory politicians were shown to illustrate an item, certain 'committed' assistants didn't carefully select especially unflattering or 'unfortunate' photographs. At the same time, he noted, the selected photographs of Labour politicians were never unflattering. If the BBC's army of programme-support staff are predominantly left-of-centre, that example might indicate just how deep the problem may lie.

[Dave Bartlett]

Googling around, came across a mention of a debate(?) "Is the BBC institutionally biased?" on Thursday 22nd at the Institute of Contempory Arts.

In the 1950s the BBC was seen as Conservative. Since the '80s it has been accused of Leftism. Is the BBC institutionally biased? How does this affect the way that news is presented? What issues does it raise about the BBC's relationship to the State? Is objectivity as important as balance?

Speakers: Robin Aitken, a broadcaster who worked at the BBC for 25 years, and author of Can We Trust the BBC?; Jean Seaton, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Westminster; Peter Horrocks, Head of Television News, BBC; Tim Gardam, Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford, and Director of Television and Director of Programmes at Channel 4 (1998 - 2003).

£10 / £9 Concessions / £8 ICA Members.

I hope Conservative Home will consider sending a representative to cover it for a Tory Diary post.

[Editor]

I'll try Dave but you'll be pleased to know that 18DoughtyStreet.com and I will be doing an hour long special interview with Robin Aitken next week.

[Dave Bartlett]

you'll be pleased to know that 18DoughtyStreet.com and I will be doing an hour long special interview with Robin Aitken next week.

Sounds good :-)

[Jack Bains]

The leftish BBC ran an 18DoughtyStreet video about taxation several times this weekend on News 24.

[BBC Watcher '07]

"No Tories in the room"

Precisely.

It is worth noting that on Newsnight yesterday, on a panel of 7/8 discussing the "Road Pricing" petition, there was not one Tory.

There was a Lib Dem MP, Labour MP, Sun Economist, Small Businesswomen, CBI rep, Ecowarrior and petitioner - but no Tory.

I'm sure they felt that "Tories" were adequately represented by the presence of two businesspeople - and maybe the Sun economist. Such is their way of sterotyping society.

How the hell do they feel they can justify excluding a representative of this country's most popular political party? On the virtually the same day the Conservatives hit 40% in the opinion polls!

The BBCs bias is not even underhand, subtle or subconscious. It is open, blatant and all-pervasive.

[Scrounging Off The State]

Unfortunately bias is inevitable. John Elridge (author of Getting the Message: News, Truth and Power) wrote that as long as news ‘seeks to establish its professional credibility on the basis of claims to impartiality, neutrality and objectivity, those involved will be constantly immersed in challenges and attacks they will find difficult to defend.'

The BBC are fighting a losing battle, impartiality is impossible for so many reasons, lack of minority journalists, the unobservability of most news events and subsequent reliance on unreliable sources, news values and selection, interpretation... the list goes on.

[DrFoxNews]

Why isn't this site flogging its 'biased BBC' hobby-horse to death about the line-up of Comic Relief Does The Apprentice?

Alastair Campbell, Ross Kemp, Piers Morgan, Jo Brand, Sir Alan Sugar...

A veritable Who's Who? of Labour-friendly characters getting their profiles boosted and not a peep of disgust from DrFoxNews.

Shameful.