BBC PROMS DECISION ‘IN BREACH OF CONTRACT WITH BRITISH PEOPLE’: Under a multiple by-line, the Daily Mail (25/8) said that the actor Laurence Fox was leading protests to defund the BBC after the Corporation had decided that the last night of the proms would be staged on September 12 with orchestral versions of Rule Britannia and Land of Hope of …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 24 AUGUST 2020
BBC ‘NEVER MORE NEEDED’, SAYS HALL: The BBC was vital to democracy and had never been more needed to counter the spread of fake news, Tony Hall, the BBC’s outgoing director general had told the Edinburgh Festival (inews 24/8). Adam Sherwin reported that Lord Hall had also claimed in the speech that the BBC had played a crucial role in …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 23 AUGUST 2020
BBC MIGHT DROP ‘RULE BRITANNIA FROM LAST NIGHT PROM’: Faith Ridler (Mail on Sunday 23/8) said that, under pressure from 35-year-old Finnish conductor Dalia Staseveska, the BBC was considering dropping both Rule Britannia and Elgar’s Land of Hope and Glory from this year’s last night of the proms, due to take place on September 12. Ms Ridler said that Ms …
BIASED BBC DIGEST 21 AUGUST 2020
NEWSNIGHT POLICY EDITOR LEWIS GOODALL ‘SHOULD RESIGN’: An article on Guido Fawkes (20/8) called on Lewis Goodall, the BBC2 Newsnight policy editor, to resign over an article he had written for the New Statesman magazine which, it was claimed, ‘spectacularly’ breached editorial impartiality guidelines on three grounds in that it expressed strong views,. Advocated against a single policy and exhorted …
BIASED BBC DIGEST 20 AUGUST 2020
BBC NEWS CHIEF PREDICTS AXING OF MAIN TV NEWS PROGRAMMES: Jack Wright (Daily Mail 20/8) said that Fran Unsworth, the BBC director of news, had suggested in an interview that most ‘linear’ television news programmes such as BBC1 News at 10 could be axed within the next decade, to be replaced by news content in the ‘digital space’, and received …
BIASED BBC DIGEST 19 AUGUST 2020
OVER-75s ‘MISSING OUT ON FREE TV LICENCES’: Jess Sheldon (Express 19/8) said that according to a survey compiled by the charity Turn2Us, 39 per cent of over-75s pensioner households on state Pension Credit who were entitled to free licences – amounting to almost 600,000 individuals – were not claiming them. Ms Sheldon explained that from August 1, as a result …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 18 AUGUST 2020
BBC GUILTY OF ‘BREATH-TAKING DOUBLE STANDARDS’ IN ATTACK ON SALMOND: Christopher Stevens (Daily Mail 18/8), reviewing The Trial of Alex Salmond – a BBC2 programme about the former SNP leader’s trial on charges of sexual assault in March – said that its approach smacked of ‘breath-taking double standards’. Noting that it had been presented by Kirsty Wark, of Newsnight, he …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 16 AUGUST 2020
BBC1 ‘LESS POPULAR AS MAIN SOURCE OF NEWS”: Charlotte Tobitt (Press Gazette 15/8) reported that Ofcom’s annual news consumption survey had found that 75 per cent of respondents chose television news services as their most-used platform for news, ahead of the web (65 percent), radio (42 per cent) and newspapers (35 per cent). She also said that the amount of …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 15 AUGUST 2020
MUNCHETTY ‘WARNED FOR MOONLIGHTING’: Andy Halls (Sun 10/8) reported that BBC1 Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty – whose salary from the BBC was £195,000 – had been warned about potential ‘conflict of interest’ after she appeared in a corporate video promoting the Aston Martin car company without prior permission of her bosses or declaring her earnings. Mr Halls noted that the …
BBC BIAS DIGEST 14 AUGUST 2020
BBC ‘NOWHERE NEAR’ ETHNIC MINORITY TARGETS: Katie Weston (Daily Mail 13/8) reported that June Sarpong, the BBC’s director of creative diversity, was aiming for a BBC mid-level and senior management structure made up of 15 per cent of people from a BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic)background, compared to 12 per cent in the population as a whole. Ms Weston …