BBC STAFF SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS “MUST MEET OUTPUT STANDARDS’: Charlotte Tobitt (UK Press Gazette 29/10) reported that the BBC’s new social media rules stated that staff should treat their personal accounts as if they were BBC output, complying with its strict editorial standards and not including anything which they could not say on air on a BBC programme or on …
BBC BIAS DIGEST OCTOBER 26, 2020
NEW ‘PRO-BREXIT’ ONLINE VIDEO SERVICE PLANNED: Christopher Williams (£ Telegraph 24/10) said that Ben Habib, a former Brexit party MEP and commercial property executive, was attempting to raise £4m of start-up capital for Unlocked, a new online video channel aimed at ‘muzzled majority’ news audiences not served by existing broadcasting services. Mr Williams reported that Unlocked would provide a platform …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 25 OCTOBER 2020
DEFUND THE BBC LAUNCHES LEAFLET DRIVE: Steve Bird (£ Telegraph 25/10) said that Defund the BBC – a pressure group supported by a group of Conservative MPs including Andrea Jenkyns, Ben Bradley, Lee Anderson and Christian Wakefield – had launched a leaflet campaign entitled ‘The BBC is Broken’, telling homeowners how to legally cancel their licence fee payments. Mr Bird …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 24 OCTOBER 2020
JAMES PURNELL LEAVES BBC: Mark Duell (Mail 24/10) reported that former Labour government culture secretary James Purnell, who had become the BBC’s director of radio and education, was leaving the corporation ‘after losing his place on its executive team following the arrival of new director general Tim Davie’. Mr Duell said that Mr Purnell, who had worked at the …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 21 OCTOBER 2020
BBC CHAIRMAN: ‘GREAT MAJORITY OF OUR OUTPUT IS VERY GOOD’: Anita Singh (£ Telegraph 21/10), reporting a speech by BBC chairman Sir David Clementi to the Voice of the Listener and Viewer organisation, said he had asserted that the corporation ‘took seriously’ that over-50s thought the BBC was biased to the left while young people tended to believe it was …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 20 OCTOBER 2020
POLL: 98% SAY BBC BREXIT COVERAGE FAVOURED EU: Steven Brown (Express 20/10) said that a poll conducted by his newspaper into attitudes about the BBC’s coverage of Brexit had found that 98% (of 19,285 responses) believed that the Corporation ‘did side with the EU’ in its Brexit reporting. He explained that the conducting of the poll had been prompted …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 19 OCTOBER 2020
‘WOKE’ BBC ‘SHOULD BE DEFUNDED’, SAYS BURCHILL’: Julie Burchill (£ Telegraph 18/10) argued that as ‘a circuit-break to the gloom and doom ahead’, the government – in order to win back support – should embark on a ‘brisk defunding of the BBC’. She opined: ‘I’m sure that most of us could get behind putting a rocket under all those self-righteous metropolitans who …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 18 OCTOBER 2020
DIMBLEBY AND GIBB ‘NOT ELIGIBLE’ TO BECOME BBC CHAIRMAN: Edward Malnick (£ Telegraph 18/10), reported that the job advertisement for the new chairman of the BBC stipulated that candidates must be independent of the BBC, and not employed by the corporation in the past five years, and he suggested that this would mean former BBC1 Question Time presenter David Dimbleby …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 17 OCTOBER 2020
‘GEORGE OSBORNE ‘COULD APPLY TO BECOME BBC CHAIRMAN: Christopher Hope (£ Telegraph 17/10) reported that the post of BBC Chairman had been formally advertised with a closing date for applications of November 11, and that the government had increased the salary for the part time role from £100,000 to £160,000 a year for a three to four day working week. …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 13 OCTOBER 2020
UPHELD BBC COMPLAINANT ‘IN SHOCK’: Charles Moore (£ Telegraph 13/10, second column item) outlined how a correspondent was ‘in shock’ after a complaint she had submitted directly to director general Tim Davie – bypassing the usual complaints procedure – had been upheld in fewer than three weeks. Mr Moore said the woman had complained that BBC Parliament’s coverage of the …