TONY PARSONS: BBC ‘DOESN”T LIKE OUR COUNTRY’: Author and commentator Tony Parsons (The Sun on Sunday 2/8) claimed that the BBC’s decision to scrap the free TV licence for the over-75s was ‘a kick in the head’ for those ‘who have borne the brunt of this health emergency’. He asserted: “This was the year for the BBC to reach out to …
BBC Bias Digest 1 August 2020
BBC SLAMMED FROM WITHIN FOR USE OF ‘N-WORD’: The Daily Telegraph (£ 31/7) reported that the use by BBC social affairs correspondent Fiona Lamdin of the n-word an item broadcast on the BBC News Channel had come under fire from the BBC’s gender and identity correspondent, Megha Mohan, who had stated: “By not saying the N-word, you send a clear …
BBC Bias Digest 31 July 2020
BBC STAFF HEADCOUNT ‘FALLS BY JUST 2 PER CENT’: Freddy Mayhew (Press Gazette 30/7) reported that despite the BBC spending £500m in severance pay and restructuring costs in the past 11 years, the headcount had shrunk from 22,874 to 22,401 – only two per cent. He said the Corporation’s annual reports showed that the BBC had been engaged in ‘constant …
BBC Bias Digest 30 July 2020
OFCOM SURVEY FINDS “MORAL DISLIKE” OF THE BBC AMONGST YOUNG: Craig Simpson, Daily Telegraph (£ 30/7), said that a report from Ofcom had found that younger audiences ‘are flocking to streaming services like Netflix to find shows with a “talkability factor”‘ and that BBC programmes ‘fail to provide “watercooler moments”’ for young people. The report found that, with attitudes to …
BBC Bias Digest 29 July 2020
BBC AXES AFTERNOON NEWSROUND AFTER 48 YEARS: Joe Kasper (Sun 29/7) said the BBC was axing its afternoon live television edition of the children’s news service Newsround – shown currently on kids’ service CBBC , but formerly on BBC One – after almost 50 years. Mr Kasper reported that the BBC wanted to transfer more of its children’s content online …
BBC Bias Digest 28 July 2020
SKY ARTS ‘TO FILL GAP LEFT BY BBC CUTS’: Luke May (Daily Mail 28/7) reported that satellite broadcaster Sky had decided make its dedicated arts channel available from September on the Freeview platform with no extra charge because cuts on the BBC Four television channel meant there was an important gap to fill. Mr May said that the BBC had …
BBC Bias Digest 27 July 2020
BBC ‘FINALLY ADMITS’ PANORAMA BREACH: Guido Fawkes (27/7) said that the BBC had finally admitted – after receiving 800 complaints – that its April Panorama programme ‘Has the Government Failed the NHS’ had breached editorial standards by not labelling one of the contributors, Dr Sonia Adesara, as a Labour activist. But the article also declared: ‘The organisation, however, refuses to …
Craig Byers: Supporters of BBC becoming campaigning organisation ‘are winning’
This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? If you subscribe to it, you may well have read former Head of BBC Television News Roger Mosey’s interesting piece in The Sunday Times last week where he claimed that there’s a “battle” going on at the BBC between older hands who want to stay true to the Corporation’s long commitment …
Tom Mangold: BBC’s embrace of woke culture is ‘fatal act of self-harm’
This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? Tom Mangold’s Mail on Sunday piece headlined “I fear that my beloved BBC’s bizarre obsession with a toxic culture of wokeness will end as a fatal act of self-harm” ought to matter to the BBC because Mr Mangold isn’t just any old BBC veteran. He was Panorama‘s lead investigative reporter for …
BBC Bias Digest 26 July 2020
BBC VETERAN ATTACKS ‘SPITEFUL AND VENOMOUS’ REPORT ABOUT CHURCHILL: Writing in the Mail on Sunday (26/7), veteran BBC investigative reporter Tom Mangold – who joined the Corporation in 1964 – expressed ‘sadness’ at the BBC, provoked by watching ‘for the tenth time’ an ‘outrageous’ News at Ten report which branded Winston Churchill a racist responsible for the 1943 Bengal Famine. He …