Kathy Gyngell clearly highlighted on The Conservative Woman blog yesterday the hypocrisy of John Humphrys revealed in his forthcoming memoirs, being serialised in the Daily Mail. Today she discusses further evidence of his double standards, this time over the Iraq Dossier affair. How could he have continued to work on BBC Radio 4’s Today – drawing massive pay from the …
When will Team Boris wake up to BBC bias?
ACCORDING to weekend press reports, Boris Johnson’s director of communications Lee Cain has had a lightbulb moment. He has told Downing Street staff that appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme is a ‘waste of time’. Well, golly gosh. An old saying about a pikestaff rushes to mind. In reality, it is hard to believe that the Johnson administration wants …
BBC pushes ‘Fake News’ Brexit fears
BBC Director General Lord Hall of Birkenhead has declared that the Corporation is on a mission to counter fake news. He publicly announced this back in the summer at the Prospect annual conference – the day before the white-collar trades union announced it would be campaigning for a Brexit ‘people’s vote’. Others who addressed the conference included arch-Remainers Hilary Benn …
BBC Brexit negativity hits new low with Peter Lilley ‘reality check’ ambush
The BBC’s visceral negativity towards Brexit was displayed on Monday in an extraordinary attempted ambush by Today presenter John Humphrys and the BBC’s ‘reality check’ correspondent Chris Morris. The intended victim of this double onslaught was Peter Lilley, now Lord Lilley, and the subject was a report he had written suggesting that life outside the EU could be prosperous and …
Can Podcasts Save Radio 4 Today?
The BBC Radio 4 Today programme is in dire trouble. It is haemorrhaging listeners and, according to latest reports, more than one million have deserted over the past year, bringing the weekly audience down to 6.7m. This should, of course, be a matter of urgent and very significant concern. The reality is that in the UK, only the BBC – …
BBC put Rees-Mogg under fire
The morning after being ‘caught up in a scuffle’ at the University of the West of England (a scene that BBC Somerset’s James Craig described as ‘very aggressive and unexpected’), found Jacob Rees-Mogg being interviewed on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme. The purpose of the interview was not, though, the previous night’s headline-making attack on him, which was sufficiently intimidating …
News-watch report finds BBC ‘has not covered left-wing support for Brexit’
This paper examines the BBC’s coverage, since 2002, of those on the left who wanted to leave the EU, including during the 2016 Referendum and the 2017 General Election. Data is from 30 individual News-watch surveys, analysing over 5,500 hours of BBC output, and 274 hours of EU-related content. The BBC’s editorial values commit it to reflect ‘a breadth of …
Nick Robinson ‘disingenuous’ in defence of BBC bias
The BBC seems to have appointed Radio 4 Today presenter Nick Robinson as its defender-in-chief. Back in April, he told those who thought the Corporation was biased against Brexit that they were wrong. The referendum was over, so there was no longer a need to strike a balance between the two sides. He has been in action again, this time …
BBC SPINS FRUIT FARMS MIGRANT LABOUR ’SHORTAGE’
This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? A couple of mornings ago Today sent a reporter to a fruit farm in Godalming and brought back a large punnet of Brexit-related gloom. Nick Robinson introduced the report with these words: Zoe Conway’s report included various hard-working, efficient migrant workers (as she portrayed them) worried about …
News-watch survey of BBC Article 50 survey shows deep anti-Brexit bias
The latest News-watch detailed analysis of BBC output, covering the UK’s Article 50 letter and its aftermath, shows heavy bias against the case for Brexit. The report, which included more than 73,000 words of programme transcripts, can be found in full here. Coverage of the survey’s findings is in the Daily Express here. In the week of the filing of …