This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? Something highly unusual and rather disconcerting happened on Radio 4’s Feedback this week. Questions about BBC bias were put and a senior BBC editor repeatedly admitted that the BBC had got things wrong. I cannot recall ever hearing such an interview before on Feedback – except over climate change, where various BBC editors have publicly confessed to …
BBC Archers trial portrays Brexit supporters as prejudiced bigots
This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? Though I’ve listened to Radio 4 every since I was in my teens I’ve never paid any attention to The Archers. For me The Archers has never been anything more than a happy opportunity to go and brew a nice cup of tea until the next programme …
Does Fairhead departure presage May action against BBC bias?
The abrupt and unexpected departure of Rona Fairhead from her post as BBC Chairman is interesting indeed. David Cameron had appointed her Chairman for the first, crucial phase of the new Charter covering the abolition of the Trustees and their replacement by a souped-up executive board – but suddenly, seemingly as a result of intervention by Theresa May, she’s toast. …
BBC continues to push Brexit race hate line
Photo of Gary Younge by boellstiftung So what is it that the BBC is trying to prove about Brexit? It looks increasingly that, as the dust settles on the referendum result, they are mounting an all-out campaign to find evidence to support the Corporation’s long-held belief that the who support ‘out’ are motivated by xenophobia and racism. Last week, on …
BBC push Farage race-hate ‘ blood on hands’ post-Brexit claims
BBC programmes have given a platform for claims that Nigel Farage has ‘blood on his hands’ for Harlow killing – despite local police warning against ‘jumping to conclusions’ about a ‘race hate’ angle. In Harlow, six teenagers have been arrested and bailed on suspicion of killing a 40-year-old Polish man who was mortally injured in attack in the town centre on …
BBC comedy ’spoof’ about Farage sounds alarm bells
So finally, then, the BBC is going to make a programme about Nigel Farage. Not – as might maybe expected from the UK’s main public service broadcaster – a documentary explaining his remarkable role over 20 years in triggering the UK’s exit from the European Union. That’s not yet in the pipeline. The Corporation is still far too busy finding …
R4 Brexit Street maligns ‘out’ voters
What could be the biggest threat to Brexit? Tory back-sliding and plotting by remainiacs like Anna Soubry? Undoubtedly they will have spent much of the summer fomenting new lines of subversion. They are ready pounce on and exaggerate any dissension in party Brexit ranks, as last weekend’s Sunday Times story about the alleged turf-war spat between Boris Johnson and Liam …
BBC snooping intensifies in pursuit of iPlayer licence-fee dodgers
Watch out! Are you about to be packet-sniffed by the BBC? The prospect of millions of viewers being snooped upon by Corporation licence-fee collectors in unprecedented ways is firmly on the agenda. The BBC has denied that the actual ‘packet-sniffing’, which (for the uninitiated) involves breaking into private wi-fi networks using special software, and is illegal if used privately, will …
Can new Culture Secretary Karen Bradley Sort Out BBC Bias?
These are frustrating times for those who want an end to BBC bias. Post-Brexit, there has been a concentrated deluge of pro-EU, anti-Brexit broadcasting. The primary intent seems to be to force a second referendum and keep the UK in the EU. Evan Davis, as ever, is among those leading the charge. The highly biased coverage of post referendum affairs …
BBC Front Row: Brexit ‘threatens to generate riots’
Guest post from The Conservative Woman by Mark Ellse ‘There now follows a party political broadcast on behalf of the Socialist Workers’ Party.’ That’s what it should have been entitled. It pretended to be a programme about the arts, to wit BBC Radio 4 Front Row’s ‘Cultural Reponse to Brexit.‘ The programme came from the Royal Society of Arts, the …