BBC Bias Digest

08:44 am
16 April 2024

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BBC BIAS DIGEST 8 SEPTEMBER 2020

BBC Digest, Uncategorised | | by David Keighley

DAVIE ‘HAS FIGHT ON HIS HANDS’: Former BBC producer and news executive Robin Aitken (£ Telegraph 8/9), in a wide -ranging assessment of the scale of the challenge facing new director general Tim Davie, argued that the task ahead was ‘formidable’ because ‘every BBC employee, from the most junior researcher to the most senior editor, is subject to the same, massively coercive, group think’, and asserted there was BBC groupthink on key issues such as the re-election of Donald Trump. Mr Aitken said that Mr Davie must thus need to find journalists sympathetic to right-wing views and promote them through the ranks. In that connection, the effort to tempt former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil – who had been treated ‘with bad form’ by Tony Hall – was good news, but the corporation needed more like him. Mr Aitken also argued that the scale of the bias problem was also illustrated by Richard Sambrook, a former BBC news chief who had been appointed by Lord Hall to review the use of tweets and other social media by BBC staff.  He noted that Mr Sambrook had become a professor of journalism at Cardiff University and there had taken enthusiastically to twitter himself, arguing that Brexit was ‘utterly stupid’. Mr Aitken said:

‘No doubt these sentiments go down well in the Senior Common Room in Cardiff but they hardly suggest Sambrook is an impartial observer. Is he going to call-out errant BBC journalists for tweeting the very same views he holds?

‘Interestingly Cardiff’s School of Journalism often provides research data claiming to prove that the BBC is, indeed, impartial. The BBC and its fellow-travellers in academia are happy collaborators in a mutual back-scratching exercise. What this demonstrates is that the BBC has many powerful allies and they will be vocal and active in their resistance to change. To succeed, Mr Davie will have to swim against the tide of “educated” opinion across the board.’

He concluded:

‘Mr Davie has made all the right noises in his first week in the job; he has used his new high office to signal the course he wants to chart. More difficult than talking about it, though, will be effecting enough real change to satisfy the circling critics. He has a fight on his hands.’

 

BBC EUROPE EDITOR ‘BREACHED EDITORIAL GUIDELINES: Guido Fawkes reported (7/9) that the BBC had partially upheld a complaint against Europe editor Katya Adler for publishing a tweet in which she had branded cabinet minister Michael Gove ‘delusional’ and had misquoted him in terms of his opinion on a key phase of negotiations with the EU. The article noted that the executive complaints unit (ECU) had said Ms Adler had gone beyond the editorial guidelines’ licence for correspondents to use  ‘professional judgments, rooted in evidence’.

DAVIE ‘SHOULD EXAMINE OTHER FORMS OF BBC FINANCING’: Holly Fleet (Daily Express 8/9) said that John Sergeant, the BBC’s former chief political correspondent, had warned director general Tim Davie that he must consider forms of funding other than the licence fee, even if it meant a loss of income, and that he should accept that non-payment of the current fee should be decriminalised.

MUNCHETTY ‘MOONLIGHTING AGAIN’:  Amie Gordon (Daily Mail 8/9) said that BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty – who was warned in August about accepting paid promotional work from the car manufacturer Aston Martin – had been ‘reminded again’ of the danger of potential conflicts of interest after taking part in similar work for the Natwest bank.  Ms Gordon said the videos, titled In Conversation  With. . . , included chats with high profile guests such as former Labour politician Ed Balls, the captain of England’s cricket team, Eoin Morgan, and perfume entrepreneur Jo Malone. Ms Gordon reported that the plugs for the bank had been recorded before Tim Davie – who had warned staff about such ‘moonlighting’ in his inaugural address to staff – had assumed his new role on September 1.    She said that ‘BBC insiders’ were furious with Munchetty, who earned £195,000 a year. A BBC spokesperson had said:

‘Since this event, Naga has been reminded of the risk of conflict of interest when undergoing external engagements. We are developing clearer direction in this area as part of our wider work on impartiality and will have more to say on that in due course.’

Tim Davie: Reformist or PR Hype?

Tim Davie: Reformist or PR Hype?

BBC Director General | | by David Keighley

Is Tim Davie genuinely a reformer?

His regime as new BBC director general took off at an apparent breakneck speed from September 1. In his first three days in office, he reversed the decision not to include the sung version of Rule Britannia in the last night of the proms; said he was going to ensure BBC output was scrupulously impartial; claimed that management and staffing of the corporation were to be slimmed down and made more sharply efficient; he axed former Labour minister James Purnell, who, under Tony Hall,  had improbably become the corporation’s  director or radio and education, from the BBC’s executive committee; warned presenters to stop tweeting and posting political opinions; and declared that BBC colonisation of the airwaves through the development of new channels were over.

But not so fast.  Is his agenda really radical? Or PR hype?

The answer lies in the small print – and, more tellingly, in what he did not say  – in his address to staff made at lunchtime on Thursday (September 3) at BBC Cardiff, now housed in a spanking new £100m Welsh headquarters building

One immediate point is that his headline-grabbing decision to change the format of the last night of the proms next Saturday (September 12) was no big deal.  A choir was already performing in the Royal Albert Hall and was going to sing You’ll Never Walk Alone.  Of concern – showing perhaps that nothing much has yet changed at the corporation – is the wording of the BBC press statement about the decision. It’s an exercise in PR guff and obfuscation which casts what had clearly been a woke decision to axe patriotic songs as being determined by creative considerations.

Perhaps Mr Davie’s  biggest pledge is his push to restore BBC impartiality. That he has to say this at all – given that it is a core Charter requirement – shows the extent of the decline of the corporation.

Here, the crash-bang announcement was that Emily Maitlis and the army of BBC presenters who believe their legitimate goal is to change the world according to the rubric of the woke instruction manual rather than to report it, are going to be muzzled and prevented from posting incontinently on social media and Twitter. If true, that’s a welcome development, even if it comes well after the horse has bolted.

But will even this relatively straightforward intention work out? Already, there are reports that Gary Lineker, the £1.7 million-a-year lead presenter of BBC football, has shown he doesn’t give a hoot what Tim Davie thinks. On Friday, he launched a political advocacy video which – in pushing the need for open UK borders – suggests  that we would not have fish and chips if mass immigration not been in full flow throughout the centuries.

And what of restoring impartiality in a more general sense? Here, Mr Davie has the  biggest mountain to climb. The rot set in decades ago with the BBC’s pathological hatred of Margaret Thatcher – yielding programme’s such as the Panorama edition Maggie’s Militant Tendency – and reaching its zenith under the recently-retired  Lord Hall of Birkenhead.

He never tired of telling us his BBC was free from bias while shutting down whole rafts of national debate over issues such as climate change and swearing blind Brexit coverage was balanced when patently, it was not.

And the problem with BBC bias, of course,  is that it is not just in news reporting and current affairs programmes. It totally saturates output. Dramas are now made primarily to preach political points and to reflect diversity targets. Doctor Who, according to BBC director of content Charlotte Moore is ‘inspirational’. Why? Because it’s cracking good drama? Of course not! It’s because it now has a female in the main role. The fulcrum of most BBC comedy is ridicule of Donald Trump. Nature programmes such as Springwatch have become, in effect, Extinction Rebellion propaganda manuals.  Science so-called documentaries are commissioned and constructed to make  political points (as Charlotte Moore’s speech also underlines), and history programmes are a sustained exercise in attacking the United Kingdom and its achievements while simultaneously pushing a globalist agenda.

So what is Mr Davie going to do about this vast, multi-billion pounds avalanche of bias and distortion? Here,  his speech of last week – apart from the headline-catching assault on tweeting – was largely silent. He said he was ‘committed’ to it, and said vaguely that there would be a re-casting of internal editorial guidelines and some ‘training’.

That’s like using a toffee hammer to demolish a house. There are no new internal measures for reviewing and policing output; and nothing about bringing independent scrutiny to challenge the decisions and judgments made by BBC staff. And David Jordan, the BBC director of editorial standards – who some credit with offering a smidgeon of ballast against the relentless tide of wokeness under Lord Hall  – has been axed from the Tim Davie executive committee, while June Sarpong, the Lord Hall-promoted director of diversity, remains.

Mr Davie was virtually silent, too, about how to restore impartiality, but, by contrast, not so on ‘diversity’. That, he said, was  a top priority in every editorial meeting and every future staff appointment, in steps towards creating BBC staffing which is 20 per cent black and ethnic minority, compared to 13 per cent in the population as a whole.

And what of the licence fee? On that subject, not a peep, even though polls have suggested that 60 percent of the UK population oppose it and view it as an anachronism in the world of Sky Q, Netflix and Amazon Prime.

That’s an astonishing omission, given the pressure now building to abolish it.  Especially as Mr Davie also declared that he is opposed to a shift to subscription financing.

 

BBC Bias Digest – 7 SEPTEMBER 2020

BBC Digest | | by David Keighley

NEW DG ‘CONSIDERS TWO-TIER’ BBC LICENCE FEE: James Robinson (Daily Mail 6/9) reported that new BBC director general Tim Davie was considering the introduction before the end of the current BBC Charter in 2027 a two-tier licence fee – with basic and premium packages – as well as future funding via income tax, which would involve a sliding scale levy according to income, or via council tax.   Mr Robinson explained that the two-tier licence fee would mean that basic programmes such as Eastenders and Blue Peter, as well as news output would be available for the cheaper fee, while Strictly Come Dancing and first-run dramas would be graded as premium.

TIM DAVIE ‘HUMILIATES’ PURNELL, BUT ‘DESPERATELY WOOS’ ANDREW NEIL:  Andrew Pierce (Daily Mail 6/9) suggested that in Tim Davie’s management shake-up, a loser was former Labour minister James Purnell, who had been in overall charge of radio services, but was now line-managed by Charlotte Moore, whose new role as chief content officer encompassed all services except news and that emanating from the regions. Mr Pierce claimed that the change was a ‘humiliation for Mr Purnell, who had been in the running to become director general.  Mr Pierce also speculated that Tim Davie was ‘desperately’ trying to woo back to a presenter slot the former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil, whose previous BBC current affairs roles had been axed by former director general Tony Hall.

BBC STAFF SURVEY PLANS ‘TRIGGER OUTRAGE’:  Susie Cohen (Daily Mail 6/9) said that the BBC was ‘under fire’ from a range of MPs and pressure groups for Plans to spend up to £1 million (over five years) on  computer software involved in regular staff surveys designed to gauge opinions of staff on how to make the corporation a better place in which to work. Ms Cohen said that Dennis Reed, of campaign group Silver Voices, had said that over-75s who were now being forced to pay for their licence fees would be ‘enraged’ by the news.

 

BBC BIAS DIGEST 4 SEPTEMBER 2020

BBC Digest | | by David Keighley

CHARLOTTE MOORE APPOINTED TO BBC BOARD: A BBC announcement (3/9) said that Charlotte Moore had been appointed Chief Content Officer of the BBC  – in charge of all content except that originating from BBC News and the nations and regions – and had joined the corporation’s executive board.  The release said:

The Chief Content Officer’s responsibilities include:

  • Television commissioning for all BBC network TV channels and BBC iPlayer
  • Radio commissioning and production for all ten national radio networks and BBC Sounds
  • Multi-platform commissioning and production for all children’s and education content
  • BBC Proms and Orchestras

As Chief Content Officer, Charlotte Moore will be the creative lead and set the strategy for BBC TV, Network Radio, BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, across all key genres and platforms. She will lead the Channel and Station Controllers and set an editorial strategy which reflects the diversity of all the BBC’s audiences.

The release also confirmed that, as Tim Davie had outlined in his speech to staff on 3/9, the BBC Executive Committee, which previously had 18 senior executive members of the corporation, had been slimmed down to 10 members. Those removed from the committee included David Jordan, the director of editorial standards, James Purnell, the former Labour minister who was director of radio and education, and Sarah Jones, chief general counsel.

BBC ‘WORRIED ABOUT LICENCE FEE’: Guido Fawkes (4/9), noting that new director general Tim Davie had thrown some ‘surface-level red meat’ in terms of u-turning to allow Rule, Britannia to be sung at the last night of the proms and talking about getting rid of left-wing comedy, was at the same time digging hard to protect the corporation’s ‘telly tax’ (the licence fee). The blog said this was evidenced by that the BBC was currently advertising for a new £63,000-a-year ‘communications specialist’ to work specifically on TV licensing.

Emily Ferguson (Express 4/9) reported that figures gathered by her newspaper suggested that the BBC had boosted its licence fee enforcement spending by £38 million to £140 million in the coming year, the extra costs being triggered by the scrapping of free licences for the over-75s from August 1.

BBC ‘SHOULD AXE SPRINGWATCH PRESENTER BECAUSE OF BIAS’: James Gant (Daily Mail 4/9) said that following BBC director general Tim Davie’s speech in which he had said bias had no place on the BBC,  Tim Bonner, the head of the Countryside Alliance, had asserted in a tweet that the corporation should drop BBC Springwatch presenter Chris Packham because, he alleged, he frequently expressed strong opinions on matters of public policy. Mr Gant noted that within hours of Mr Bonner’s tweet, Mr Packham had protested in a tweet that a stag hunt group had received a £50,000 coronavirus loan and a £10,000 grant.

Nicholas Burnett: Can Tim Davie Turn the Tide of Bias?

Nicholas Burnett: Can Tim Davie Turn the Tide of Bias?

BBC Bias, BBC Director General, Tim Davie | | by News-Watch

This is a Guest Post from Nicholas Burnett from The Conservative Woman:

THE paradox of the Western World is encapsulated by the angst the BBC so willingly brings upon itself. Once a central plank of British culture, it is now part of a pro-globalising bourgeois media-set who will report ‘largely peaceful protests’ straight-faced against a backdrop of burning cities. It’s as if there is something the rest of us are not privy to. And of course, there is.

Black Lives Matter, a far-Left Marxist organisation, was immediately hailed. BBC coverage continually affirmed the BLM narrative, at times taking a campaigning tone for the cause. Like many, I objected to the clearly favourable line on a movement which descended into rioting, but the wider issue is the corporation’s merger with Left-leaning identity politics.

I complained to the BBC in June. I pointed out that under the BLM narrative white people are summarily accused of racism; that the BBC fails to balance its sudden specific interest in police brutality with a wider context; conflating American experience with the British is absurd and that the far greater cause of violent black deaths is ignored. I finished ‘I despair for race relations following the hysterical coverage and tensions you have abetted’. And I genuinely do. If anyone at the BBC thinks its approach will have a generally wholesome impact on race relations they are deluded. One only has to see the thinking behind UKBLM how divisive their message is.

https://twitter.com/Never_Again2020/status/1298982384059084802

In response, the BBC claimed its reporting ‘reflects the global impact . . . and the strength of feeling . . . galvanised’ insisting that it ‘will continue to report impartially on issues highlighted as this story develops’. When it talks about ‘global impact’ and ‘strength of feeling’ one can only assume it is referring to its own echo chamber which includes other Leftist cultural institutions, academics and campaigners. You can respond back to the BBC if you are unhappy with its first reply, which I did, and two months on no follow-up has been received (rather an email suggesting I try Ofcom as they are oh-so-busy right now).

BLM has explicit aims to destabilise society. Surely its inflammatory messaging is relevant to the looting and violence continuing in America as well as abuse of and attacks on police officers on both sides of the Atlantic? When 36 police officers were injured in London in that first weekend of unrest in June, the BBC talked of ‘largely peaceful protests’ and omitted to inform viewers about what BLM thinks about our police. None of this matters to the BBC in the same way it would (and did) do when those ‘protesting’ are white nationalists. The BBC believes it has an active duty to stand against racism but it conflates the narrative of activism with reporting, apparently assuming the righteous position of BLM from the outset.

Throughout the summer, in the midst of racial tension stoked by Marxist agitators, the BBC chose to amplify individuals’ claims of racism against the police without challenge or context. The same sense of grievance plays out in much of the ‘woke’ narrative too often consuming BBC News output. Many black people don’t feel deeply offended by white society. Many gays feel awkward with train carriages painted in their name. Many women roll their eyes when the next round of gender-pay grievance figures is headlined. Conservative views are omitted from the BBC’s narrative as it gives credence to ‘strong feeling’ over balanced rational coverage. Britons do care about fairness, tolerance and equality but not the version pushed by activists.

Michael Collins, author of The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class, touched on the issue of race in a recent interview with Peter Whittle: ‘We kind of covered it ’cos we had to . . . we are being educated by people that didn’t have that experience’.  

White working-class Londoners did the BLM thing 40 years ago, moving through and beyond racial tensions as a community that got on with it. The liberal middle classes have apparently suddenly discovered this cause, delivering the message with a tone that insists on national self-reflection and demands a review and cleansing of the past. Many see through this preaching for what it is: vanity.

The ruling elites with a globalised worldview in both the USA and here in the UK were sent packing by electorates in 2016 yet a bourgeois liberal class have retained their position as cultural custodians and decanters of information in the media they control. Trump and Brexit were shocking to these elites but self-explained as mere interruptions to their assured hegemony which with the ‘right information’ the electorate could and would be corrected to understand what’s good for them. The explanation BBC Newsnight editor Lewis Goodall has for public dissatisfaction with output lies somewhere around the retort that ‘sometimes the truth hurts’:

Unfortunately there is another ‘truth’ to which the BBC is oblivious: Brexit didn’t go away and far from being shamed as an embarrassing irony of the misinformed, Trump is hot on the heels of Biden in the American polls and may well be about to take round two. What are the liberals not seeing? Perhaps they, too, need ‘unconscious bias’ training about working-class Britons?

The BBC continues unabashed with a declaration for more diversity. What it sees is not unique among our institutions’ worldview: race, sexuality and gender have become primary factors in the worth and measurement of people. For example, after the selection of Kamala Harris as Biden’s candidate for vice president I was left knowing little about her beyond her sex and race – I could have figured those out for myself. By choosing this path it taps into a navel-gazing narcissism which will only demand ever more attention.

For institutions, identity politics may cynically keep bureaucratic claims of inequality and discrimination at bay but ‘being seen to do something’ hardly lays the foundations for lasting change or growth. For the individual, identity politics may help the existentially weak claim a sense of Self, but it hardly builds real character, resilient enough to integrate into the whole of society ‘just as oneself is’. Last week the Huffington Post reported claims of institutional racism within the BBC with employees of its Africa service complaining that having a white manager is akin to ‘working the cotton plantations’ of old.

This really is what you reap when you sow a vision of humanity that goes no deeper than the immutable characteristics of birth and assumes those are the determiners of our life experience.

We are told that incoming director-general Tim Davie is seeking to reform the BBC and make its output more politically diverse. But will he be able to turn back the tide?

 

Image by Patrick Behn from Pixabay

BBC BIAS DIGEST 3 SEPTEMBER

BBC Digest | | by David Keighley

BBC MUST ‘URGENTLY CHAMPION IMPARTIALITY’: Dan Sales (Mail online 3/9) said that new BBC director general Tim Davie, in his first address to staff, had asserted that if they wanted to be opinionated columnists or partisan campaigners on social media, they should not be working at the BBC, and that the corporation needed to urgently ‘champion and recommit to impartiality’.  He had insisted his drive was about being ‘free from political bias, guided by the pursuit of truth, not a particular agenda’, and asserted:

‘If you work here, nothing should be more exciting than exploring different views, seeking evidence with curiosity and creatively presenting testimony. Making use of our own experiences but not driven by our personal agendas. I wonder if some people worry that impartiality could be a little dull. To be clear, this is not about abandoning democratic values such as championing fair debate or an abhorrence of racism. But it is about being free from political bias, guided by the pursuit of truth, not a particular agenda. If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC.’

Mr Sales reported that Mr Davie had also told staff that there was no room for complacency about the BBC’s future and must evolve to protect what was cherished because if current trends  continued ‘we will not feel indispensable enough to all our audience’. He added that Mr Davie believed the corporation had spread itself too thinly amid competition from streaming services, which could mean it was time to stop making some shows, to stop navel-gazing, and maybe close down some services, stating that the end had come of ‘linear expansion  for the BBC’.

Mr Sales also said that Mr Davie had made it clear that he opposed the idea of a subscription model of revenue generation in future, but had not spelled out what other options might be favoured.

Steven Brown (Express 3/9) said that Mr Davie, in his address to staff,  had said that the future of the corporation was in doubt if it could not regain the trust of the public.  He had also said that the corporation must explore new ways of delivering impartiality, including seeking a wider spectrum of views, pushing out beyond traditional political delineations and finding new voices from across the nation. Mr Brown added that he had warned staff that he would be taking action in the coming weeks, including new guidance on how to deliver impartiality, and affecting a ‘radical shift’ in the focus of the BBC  to reconnect with those who felt alienated by the corporation.

Ti Davie’s full speech can be read here.

 

NEW BBC DG ‘IN TOUCH WITH ORDINARY PEOPLE’: Robert Hardman(Daily Mail 3/9), stressing that he wanted the BBC to thrive,  argued that in the row over the last night of the proms, new director general Tim Davie – who had announced that the sung version of Rule, Britannia would be included –  had been handed a very simple, headline-grabbing and cost-free means of making his mark on the corporation, and in tune with ‘ordinary people’. Mr Hardman claimed that the decision would be welcomed by most ‘level-headed’ people in the country, though he said that the announcement about the change of heart over the proms was ‘both condescending and nonsensical’ in claiming that the problems had been thrust on the BBC by the problems of Covid-19  rather than being of their own making.

Leo McKinstry (Express 3/9) claimed that the decision by Tim Davie over the proms represented an extraordinary defeat for the ‘social justice warriors’, and that if Mr Davie continued in the same way, he would ‘transform the corporation for the better’.  Mr McKinstry  suggested that the new director general was the ‘antithesis of the progressive mandarin’ who had worked in the commercial world and in the 1990s had been a Conservative activist.

BBC’ SHOULD PROVIDE COMEDY THAT IS FUNNY’: Rod Liddle (Sun 3/9), noting that new BBC director general Tim Davie had reportedly suggested that BBC comedy was too ‘left-wing’,  argued that the real problem was that jokes told on air – involving often, for example, that Donald Trump had an orange face – were not funny.   He asserted:

‘Listen in now and you get ­panels of people who all think the same thing, making the same jokes, over and over. It is stultifying. Luckily, the new director-general of the BBC has noticed this. Tim Davie has said he wants a few more right-wing comics on those panel shows.’

Mr Liddle argued that the solution was not to choose comedians simply because they were right-wing, but ‘comics brave enough to tackle subjects the BBC staff think are sacred cows’.

He concluded:

‘One more thing, D-G. I hope you are including Newsnight in your list of comedy programmes that need an overhaul. And ­ridding of leftie bias. Get shot of Emily Maitlis for a start. That would give us all a laugh.’

 

‘CONSERVATIVE VIEWS OMITTED FROM BBC NARRATIVE’: Nicholas Burnett (The Conservative Woman 3/9), discussing BBC bias, observed that throughout the summer, in the ‘midst of racial tension stocked by Marxist agitators’ (referring to the Black Lives Matter protests), the BBC had chosen to amplify individuals’ claims of racism against the police ‘without challenge or context’.  He added:

‘The same sense of grievance plays out in much of the ‘woke’ narrative too often consuming BBC News output. Many black people don’t feel deeply offended by white society. Many gays feel awkward with train carriages painted in their name. Many women roll their eyes when the next round of gender-pay grievance figures is headlined. Conservative views are omitted from the BBC’s narrative as it gives credence to ‘strong feeling’ over balanced rational coverage. Britons do care about fairness, tolerance and equality but not the version pushed by activists.’

Mr Burnett argued that the BBC’s pursuit of ‘more diversity’ had led now to the assumption that race, sexuality and gender were primary factors in the worth and measurement of people , and that – in effect – was bouncing back on them with reported claims of institutional racism within the BBC, with employees of the Africa service complaining that having a white manager was akin to ‘working the cotton plantations of old’.

 

 

BBC Bias Digest 2 September 2020

BBC Digest | | by David Keighley

Mark Duell (Mail online 2/9) reported that the BBC had announced that sung versions of Land and Hope of Glory and Rule, Britannia would be included in the last night of this year’s proms on September 12, reversing an earlier decision that they would not be. Guido Fawkes (2/9) included the full BBC statement:

‘The pandemic means a different Proms this year and one of the consequences, under COVID-19 restrictions, is we are not able to bring together massed voices. For that reason we took the artistic decision not to sing Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory in the Hall. We have been looking hard at what else might be possible and we have a solution. Both pieces will now include a select group of BBC Singers. This means the words will be sung in the Hall, and as we have always made clear, audiences will be free to sing along at home. While it can’t be a full choir, and we are unable to have audiences in the Hall, we are doing everything possible to make it special and want a Last Night truly to remember. We hope everyone will welcome this solution. We think the night itself will be a very special moment for the country – and one that is much needed after a difficult period for everyone. It will not be a usual Last Night, but it will be a night not just to look forward to, but to remember.’

A report on the BBC’s own website (2/9) reflected the statement and noted the decision had promoted a tweet from culture minister Oliver Dowden that he was ‘pleased to see common sense has prevailed’, while Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had said it was the ‘right decision’. The article noted that performer Chcichi Nwankou, who ran a black and ethnic minority orchestra, had told the BBC that the inclusion of the songs was ‘offensive’.

Mark Duell also reported that other supporters of the decision included television presenter Piers Morgan and actor Laurence Fox.

 

The BBC’s LOVE AFFAIR WITH BANKSY

The BBC’s LOVE AFFAIR WITH BANKSY

BBC Bias | | by Craig Byers

Guest post by Arthur T from Is the BBC Biased?

 

A comment on Is the BBC Biased? a couple of days ago said:

The BBC are displaying their hero worship of Banksy again today. 

Banksy, African migrants and his rescue boat adrift in the Med. It’s a story made in heaven for the BBC metro-liberals. 

Just what is it about Banksy that so attracts the BBC above all other artists?

It’s staggering to find out just how much attention the BBC pay to the day-to-day activities of Banksy, when they hardly ever report on the subjects of any other artist’s work – unless of course their work carries a highly politicised message like Banksy. Even then, by comparison it is a drop in the ocean.

Believe it or not, Banksy has his own page on the BBC News website telling us the latest:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cp7r8vglgj1t/banksy

Entries here are as follows:

  • 29/8/20 Migrants evacuated from overloaded Banksy ship
  • 28/8/20 Banksy funds boat to rescue refugees at sea
  • 28/7/20 Banksy’s works fetch £2.2 m to aid Bethlehem hospital
  • 15/7/20 Cleaners remove Banksy tube art ‘unknowingly’
  • 14/7/20 Banksy dons cleaner disguise to spray paint Tube
  • 17/6/20 Banksy? Yeah I know who he is ‘Louis Theroux and street artist Banksy had a day out watching Peter Crouch play for QPR.’
  • 16/6/20 When Louis Theroux went to a QPR match back in 2001, he met an aspiring street artist called Banksy, and they both saw a ‘lanky, ungainly’ young forward called Peter Crouch play for the home side.
  • 10/6/20 Banksy artwork stolen from Bataclan found in Italy
  • 9/6/20 Banksy has put his suggestion forward for what should happen in the wake of the toppling of Colston’s statue at Sunday’s protest.

etc etc

Away from his own BBC News web pages, Banksy also features strongly elsewhere across the BBC – let’s look at Newsround (aimed at youngsters):

24/2/20 Banksy: Who is the famous graffiti artist?

Banksy is a famous – but anonymous – British graffiti artist. He keeps his identity a secret.

Why does no one know who Banksy is? His identity is unknown, despite lots of people trying to guess who he is.

Why is Banksy controversial? His artwork can be rebellious and is known for delivering political messages.

2 Comments ‘Woah!’ and ‘I think Banksy is Awesome!’

In the Arts and Entertainment pages of the BBC News website:

6/5/20 Will Gompertz has a say:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52556544

‘New Banksy artwork appears at Southampton hospital’

Here, we have the semblance of an art critic’s opinion from our Will, who as we know at ITBBCB? rates art works firstly on their political message (just so long as it’s the correct message), and secondly and then only occasionally, on their artistic merit. Here are some extracts:

The largely monochrome painting, which is one square metre, was hung in collaboration with the hospital’s managers in a foyer near the emergency department. 

It shows a young boy kneeling by a wastepaper basket dressed in dungarees and a T-shirt. He has discarded his Spiderman and Batman model figures in favour of a new favourite action hero – an NHS nurse.

So much for the description. The story moves straight on to the political message:

Paula Head, CEO of the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust said: “Our hospital family has been directly impacted with the tragic loss of much loved and respected members of staff and friends.

The fact that Banksy has chosen us to recognise the outstanding contribution everyone in and with the NHS is making, in unprecedented times, is a huge honour.

She added: “It will be really valued by everyone in the hospital, as people get a moment in their busy lives to pause, reflect and appreciate this piece of art. It will no doubt also be a massive boost to morale for everyone who works and is cared for at our hospital.

As far as it’s possible to tell from the above image, this isn’t spray painted. The denim effect would be almost impossible to recreate other than by a transfer print taken from a photograph. The 2 D basket, which doesn’t show the return banding, has a lack of perspective to match the figure. The basket also looks out of scale in relation to the size of the figure. We shouldn’t expect the BBC arts correspondent to give his view on the technical aspects of a work, should we?

In reply to Charlie’s question, from OT comments,

Banksy, whose real name is Robin Gunningham, is so liked by the BBC because his work carries a political message more than it does an artistic one. He is a political cartoonist – bang on message for the BBC’s narrative. His work is easily reformatted for printed or webpage imagery. It doesn’t require a second look – there are no details worthy of closer study. His air of secrecy and derring-do seal the deal. He would be the go to number one person to invite to the average Islington dinner party hosted by the Metro LibLeft Beeb programme commissioner. To change the old adage slightly – his work is 90% indoctrination, 10% inspiration.

All of the above doesn’t say much for the BBC’s integrity when they promote to youngsters through Newsround that Banksy’s identity is secret – self-evidently a lie. They say ‘His identity is unknown, despite lots of people trying to guess who he is.’ What a falsehood to promote to young viewers!

Perhaps when the time is ripe, there will be a great reveal in a feature length documentary by Louis Theroux. He is probably staking his claim to that high-earning nugget right now. In the meantime, no doubt the mystery is inflating prices for off-the-cuff napkin sketched by Banksy made during his circuit of north London Beeb dinner parties.

Another benefit of this secrecy is the ‘one stage removed’ strategy adopted by the BBC when they want to avoid scrutiny of their output. Independent think tanks, Cardiff University research or ‘a spokesman said’ are all familiar tactics. The extra plus with Banksy is that his work has to be posted, publicised and then authenticated as a ‘genuine Banksy’ giving ample wriggle-room of deniability should the publicity turn nasty.

All in all, the conclusion must be that the BBC is assisting a commercial enterprise. Books, calendars, posters and other memorabilia must rake in funds for the Banksy brand. The air of mystery, or should we call it deceit, is promoted by the BBC, giving this artist his own pages on their licence-payer funded website, as well as plenty of news and local news coverage.

BBC BIAS DIGEST 1 SEPTEMBER 2020

BBC Digest | | by David Keighley

‘DAVIE FACES EXISTENTIAL BBC THREAT’: Edward Browne (Express 1/9) reported that in a speech to staff on Thursday, new BBC director general Tim Davie was expected to announce a shake-up in BBC comedy output  so that it was no longer dominated by ‘left-wing bias’.  He reported that according to ‘inside sources’, the BBC was perceived as targeting the Conservative party more often than it did the left and now needed to commit to producing material that was more inclusive of beliefs across the political spectrum. Mr Browne added hoped that such a move would help restore trust and confidence in the corporation as it faced questions about the future of its publicly-funded model.  The Express also reported (1/9) that pressure groups the Silver Voices and the National Pensioners Convention were writing to Tim Davie to plead that he reverse the decision by the BBC to scrap free licences for the over-75s.

Former leader of the Conservative party in Scotland Ruth Davidson (Telegraph 1/9), surveying the tasks in front of new BBC director general Tim Davie,  argued that, because the current licence fee funding model for the BBC was on its last legs, he must come up with an alternative. She argued that he must exercise a tighter grip on ‘talent management’, particularly in preventing BBC presenters from both moonlighting and becoming involved in political activities and social media commentary. In addition, he needed to make the corporation genuinely diverse in its staffing and what was reflected in the output.

Ex-BBC television news executive Roger Mosey (Daily Mail 1/9) argued that Tim Davie had to deal with a ‘existential threat’ to the corporation over its funding model and needed to be ‘honest about what he wants the BBC to do, how much it will cost and how it can find the money without penalising the poorest’, as well as tackling the growing feeling among sections of the public that the BBC was not on their side.  Mr Mosey claimed that the row over the last night of the proms – with the BBC axing the singing of Rule, Britannia – had prompted despair among current and former executives, with one saying it was ‘unbelievable’ that a decision had been taken to axe the singing of patriotic songs. He argued that the BBC had done well 25 years previously  in identifying the appeal of Tony Blair and Labour, but had struggled to understand the rise of Boris Johnson and the Tory party’s surge in the general election of 2019. Mr Mosey opined:

‘Davie, thank goodness, seems to get this.  Privately, according to friends, he admits that the BBC ‘has some blind spots’, acknowledging that it underestimated the strength of public hostility to the EU during the Brexit debate.  The same friends told a ­Sunday newspaper last weekend that he is determined the BBC should shed its London metropolitan bias and ‘politically correct’ culture.  Can he achieve this? I t will certainly be a challenge. That ‘woke’ mindset seems only to have hardened in recent months, with some insiders expressing fears that it is becoming increasingly impossible to challenge fashionable orthodoxies inside the BBC.’

BBC BIAS DIGEST 31 AUGUST 2020

BBC Digest | | by David Keighley

NEW BBC DG ‘MUST CONSIDER ALTERNATIVE FUNDING MODELS’: Gordon Rayner (Telegraph 31/8), quoting Whitehall and ministerial sources, said that Tim Davie, the new BBC director general, had been told to come up with a ‘palatable’ replacement for the licence fee by 2027 when the current BBC Charter ran out, and also that decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee – making evasion only liable to civil penalties – was now a ‘done deal’ which will be announced within weeks. Mr Rayner claimed that a minister had also said there was interest in ‘levelling the playing field’ by allowing  broadcasting regulator Ofcom to award more licences to commercial rivals. He added that the BBC Licence Fee (Civil Penalty) Bill was due for a second reading in November. Mr Rayner also reported that Mr Davie, in address to staff later in the week, would say that the current licence fee needed to offer better value for money by the BBC connecting properly with all its audiences, by offering fewer repeats and programming that appealed to a wide range of views and backgrounds, rather than just to metropolitan ones.

Helena Kelly (Daily Mail 31/8) following up the Telegraph report above, said that there was ‘real optimism’ in ministerial circles that the BBC could thrive without the fee, and that  alternatives being considered were said to be a subscription service similar to Netflix or Amazon Prime.  Ms Kelly quoted a BBC spokesman as saying that the licence fee was the way of funding the BBC at least until 2027.  Also in the Mail (31/8), Katie Feehan said that an ‘insider’ had claimed that Tim Davie’s immediate priority would be to undo ‘the terrible damage done by Tony (Hall)’ and reverse the decision not to include a sung version of Rule, Britannia in the last night of the proms on September 12. Ms Feehan said a senior BBC source had told her that the proms row was another example of the BBC walking into a ‘completely unnecessary and absurd row’ about culture. It was also report in the Mail that Tim Davie was expected to clamp down on BBC presenters making money by hosting corporate events, and on staff use of social media, especially with regard to comment which could be interpreted as biased.

NEW DG ‘IS NOT STEREOTYPE BBC EXECUTIVE’: Matthew Moore, media correspondent for The Times (£ 31/8), argued that new BBC director general Tim Davie faced an “even more daunting” set of challenges than his predecessor Lord Hall did on Day 1 and that he had “a fight on his hands” due to “dwindling ratings, stretched finances, a hostile government and a suspicious public”. Mr Moore claimed however that Mr Davie did not fit the “north London elite” stereotype of a BBC executive, having a “staunchly suburban” background and “commercial instincts” and added that he “is understood to appreciate that the licence fee is unlikely to continue in its current form after 2027, and will prioritise maximising outside revenues”. Mr Moore opined that it was “savvy” of Tim Davie to “pronounce his ‘deep commitment to impartiality'” in his statement accepting the job, calling it “a clear message to No 10 that he had heard its complaints about the notorious Emily Maitlis Newsnight monologue and other bias rows.”

‘A CONSERVATIVE CHAIRMAN WON”T SAVE BBC’: Nigel Jones (The Critic 30/8), noting that former Telegraph editor Charles Moore and Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil were being cited as possible replacements for Sir David Clementi as chairman of the BBC when he retired in February 2021, argued that Boris Johnson was ‘probably too timid and pusillanimous’ to appoint either man. He added that even if either Tory accepted the ‘Herculean task’ of clearing this particularly noxious stable, they would find themselves on mission impossible without sacking the entire BBC staff and starting from scratch because the poison of leftist wokeism was ‘engrained in the BBC’s very bloodstream’.  Mr Jones reported that Margaret Thatcher had similarly hoped that her appointee as chairman, the Conservative Marmaduke Hussey, would sort out the corporation, but he had failed.  Claiming that the BBC had long since surrendered any claim to be an impartial national broadcaster,  he concluded that a bold and truly conservative government should ‘have the guts’ to pull the plug on the BBC by scrapping the licence fee and leave it to sink or swim, unsupported by a television tax ‘which is reluctantly paid by an increasingly resentful and restive public’.

BLACK BBC STAFF COMPLAIN OF CORPORATION ‘RACISM’: Kurt Zindulka (Breitbart Europe 30/8) said that dozens of current and former black employees of the BBC, speaking to the Huffington Post, had complained of a hostile work environment and ‘covert racism’ within the corporation, despite it being seen as ‘woke’ and disproportionately diverse by most ‘right-leaning Britons’.