Another black day for the BBC

Conservatives have long worried about the BBC and this year has provided new evidence for the BBC's unreliability:

• The internal seminar revealed that the Corporation itself admitted serious biases;
• There was the BBC's staggering and arrogant refusal to grant one serious interview to Robin Aitken after the 25-years-BBC-journalist exposed Corporation bias in his authoritative book;
• Then came the internal report that confirmed the nature of institutional bias;
• Last week we had the mistreatment of Her Majesty The Queen.

Today we have substantial evidence of faked phone-ins including for the Comic Relief programme.

Our new Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt MP has issued an appropriately strong statement:

“This is a grim day for the BBC.  Mark Thompson has uncovered a hornet’s nest of deception at what was Britain’s most trusted broadcaster.  The most worrying thing is the impact it will have on charitable giving, as many of the fake winners were in programmes raising money for good causes.  Tough words are fine but the proof of the pudding is what actually changes.  At stake is not just standards of BBC broadcasting but also the new governance arrangements, which the BBC has assured us will be more effective than the old cosy arrangements with the BBC Governors.  The bottom line is not just can we trust the Beeb, but can we trust the Trust?”

I'm hoping for an equally robust answer from Jeremy on my recent question about BBC reform.  Hoping.  Not necessarily expecting!

Comments

[Evan Price]

Have we finally arrived at a time when the Charter of the BBC is seriously reconsidered? I'm not certain; not because of the alleged bias; but because of the disgraceful cynical and contemptuous treatment of the public who telephoned into television programmes such as comic relief and sport relief. The BBC needs to get its house in order and the team at the top needs to consider its position ...

[Umbrella man]

If the BBC is willing to fake phone-ins for such a thing as Comic Relief who can believe that their reporters don't also fake sources they quote on news bulletins?

[malcolm]

BBC in trouble? Good.

[Man in a Shed]

The BBC seems to believe in the end (which are left wing and liberal) - not the means. That is why they fake children's program phone ins and why they censure the news that they think it is fit to give us.

It also shows the low level of personal integrity in a wide number of their staff (endemic perhaps). Sending everyone on an ethics training course will not change that.

Perhaps we could reflect that they are a product of the society they have helped to create - post Christian, un-English, and immoral.

[Top of the shot]

Only recently, a newsreader referred to the "New Government". I do not recall an election. That is typical of the way the BBC, especially some of the newsreaders show their biase.

Also the use of the word Tory. Whenever the BBC use it, it is always used in the worse way possible. Michael Howard was right to complain about that a few years back

[Andrew Woodman]

On the subject of the BBC, was Andrew Neil right on the Daily Politics earlier with his accusations about Liam Fox not asking questions about Afghanistan?

[Edison Smith]

Andrew Woodman - no.

This posted by 'lc' on the PMQs thread.

Five minutes of thorough research will tell you that since Liam Fox has become the Shadow Defence Secretary (December 2005) the Shadow Defence team have:

- Asked 226 written parliamentary questions on or related to Afghanistan;

- Asked 42 written parliamentary questions on or related to casualties;

- In the last two weeks released four press releases on Strategic airlift, Merlin helicopters, medical treatment, and operations in Afghanistan.

The BBC need to get their facts straight.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2007/07/open-thread-on-.html

[Dontmakemelaugh]

Perhaps we could reflect that they are a product of the society they have helped to create - post Christian, un-English, and immoral.

Posted by: Man in a Shed | July 18, 2007 at 22:44

Thanks for the description of the BBC, Man in a Shed. You could not ask for a better one in so few words.

I refused to the give the BBC a penny quite some time ago. I would have thought that anyone prosecuted for no TV Licence would have a perfect reason in court for refusing to pay for that corrupt body. I only ever watch television through Rumberlow's shop High St Window (can get cold in Winter, so wrap up).

[Brown Broadcasting Corporation]

Never been a better time for the Conservative Party to make clear its commitment to breaking up and selling off, by means of trade sales, the wholly anachronistic, dishonest and politically biased BBC. Come on you Cameroons, stop pointlessly courting them and promise to abolish them instead, now there's something that WOULD get Murdoch onside.

[Jonathan Boyd Hunt]

If the BBC is not biased, how come this collection of hundreds of articles on BBC bias?

General BBC Leftist Bias (100 images)
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Admissions of BBC Liberal Bias by BBC Staff and The Left (32 images)
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The BBC's Stirring of Muslim Hatred (36 images)
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The BBC's Anti-Americanism (41 images)
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The BBC's Anti-Israeli, Pro-Palestinian Reporting (15 images)
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The BBC's Anti-Christian Reporting (36 images)
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The BBC's Drunken Profligacy with the TV Poll Tax (76 images)
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The BBC's Falling Standards (55 images)
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Anatomy of an Arrogant, Dangerous Broadcaster - The David Kelly Affair (69 images)
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The BBC's Reporting of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan - versus Pravda's (15 images)
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The BBC - The Leftist "Guardian of the Air" (29 images)
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The Power-Crazed, Ever-Expanding BBC (54 images)
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One hour interview of BBC staff reporter and author Robin Aitken on the BBC's "Institutional Leftism" (4x15 minute video files)
plus
The BBC's Jane Garvey inadvertently blows the gaffe on the BBC's inherent anti-Conservative Bias (audio file plus transcript)
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[Tony Makara]

It really is time that the BBC was privatized. The BBC has been a nepotistic gravy-train leeching on the back of the British taxpayer for too long. An organization that can award 18 million pound contracts and at the same time cheats children out of money in faked contests has to be wound up.

The BBC likes to propagate the myth that it is the 'Gold Standard' provider of quality broadcasting. However to my knowledge the BBC is the only outlet that has broadcast images of a transvestive vomiting into the face of a little girl. This vile scene was part of the 'Little Britain' comedy(!) show. Which it seems is favourite viewing with Tony Blair's family.

We musn't buy into the BBC's infactuation with itself. The BBC has taken for granted, and abused our trust for too long now. Its time for a future Conservative government to act and privatize the BBC.

[Ken Stevens]

BBC should occupy its proper niche in the UK establishment of being an unbiassed public service broadcaster. Abolish licence fee, replacing it with per capita payment by Treasury based on most recent census population figures, uprated in intermediate years by RPI, resultant overall payment being about one third of present income. That would finance non-ratings-driven public service broadcasting, with other current BBC activity being privatised and/or sold off to commercial companies.

[Graeme Archer]

*Please* let the current imbroglio have the silver lining of reigniting the debate on the governance and funding of the BBC. I am the most sickeningly liberal, centrist, "on the one hand ... on the other hand ... ", (wannabe) metropolitan Cameroon you could possible design, and my thoughts on the BBC are:

Sack them -- Turn it into iTunes -- Make them earn their money the way the rest of us do, by delivering a service that customers will buy -- No more poll-tax funding to keep the likes of Jeremy Hardy & Sandi Toxic in constant Radio4 employment.

[Graeme Archer]

By the way, there was one of those unconscious examples of their anti-Israeli bias on Today this morning, they were discussing Blair's new "job" and the "reporter" said something like "and he'll be talking to Israel about the chance for peace, despite their launch of a war against Hezbollah". It's outrageously decontextualised. Sack them! Turn it into iTunes etc etc.

[mark]

Why all the fuss now about the BBC conning viewers out of money all of a sudden, they've been at it for years, it's called the licence fee.

[Jake]

The BBC was long ago seized by the left and has acted cynically as a propaganda organisation for the left ever since .

It takes care , sometimes , to prate the mantra of impartiality to anyone stupid enough to believe it . In fact it is committed wholeheartedly to the Labour party
as the vehicle of the left .

This is not only wrong in itself but has led to a mindset of endemic dishonesty and deviousness combined with the arrogant, smug, patronising, complacency of a poll tax funded empire ( £3.5 billion pa )complete with mandatory opaque accounts unavailable for public viewing .

The whole thing stinks .

It is beyond reform and should be closed .

Not sold off
( (other than the physical assets )

- CLOSED .