At what point do BBC ‘correspondents’ cross the line from offering a properly judged and impartial assessment into propaganda and overt electioneering? News-watch surveys provide abundant evidence that it is all too often – and a new prime example was 556 words on the doctrine of climate alarmism from Roger Harrabin the BBC’s ‘environment analyst’ on Radio 4’s The World …
News-watch survey of BBC Article 50 survey shows deep anti-Brexit bias
The latest News-watch detailed analysis of BBC output, covering the UK’s Article 50 letter and its aftermath, shows heavy bias against the case for Brexit. The report, which included more than 73,000 words of programme transcripts, can be found in full here. Coverage of the survey’s findings is in the Daily Express here. In the week of the filing of …
BBC still resists Brexit – against the will of even Remain voters
YouGov’s latest poll on attitudes towards Brexit – as the New Statesman outlines here – demonstrates that 69 per cent of the public now support leaving the EU and only 21 per cent want to ignore the result of the referendum. Not only that, 25 per cent in the Brexit-supporting total are Remain voters who accept that the British people …
This election is a battle between the Tories and the broadcasters
This is an election like no other for the BBC. They have a mission. Two weeks ago, as is laid out here, Today presenter Nick Robinson effectively declared war on Brexit with his statement that the Corporation would henceforward work flat out to find the problems with Brexit, and not bring balanced coverage of the Leave perspective. Of which, more …
Nick Robinson wheels out usual BBC defences against EU coverage bias claims
BBC presenter and ex-political editor Nick Robinson has been sounding off aggressively against those who he complains are ‘moaning’ that the Corporation’s reporting of Brexit is biased. ‘Calm down dears’ is his core, patronising message. The Radio 4 Today presenter has declared in the Radio Times that, as departure negotiations proceed, there is no need to provide balance between the …
BBC Business News coverage of Brexit ‘continues Project Fear’
A report by News-watch into the BBC’s coverage on Brexit covering the six month period after the referendum vote has found overwhelmingly negativity about Britain leaving the EU – breaching the Corporations rules on impartiality. The report into the BBC flagship Today programme on Radio 4 found that of the 366 guest speakers who appeared in the Business News segment, 192 of them (52.5%) were negative about the impact of …
BBC Trust defends Corporation’s Harlow ‘race hate’ sensationalism
The killing last August of a well-liked Polish man, ‘Arek’ Jóźwik, after a late night fracas in a pizza parlour in Harlow sent the BBC newsgathering operation into overdrive. It was the end of the silly season and only ten weeks after the referendum. The BBC, of course, was then, as now, hell-bent on finding and giving maximum exposure to …
KUENSSBERG’S BBC2 BREXIT PROGRAMME PROJECTS LEAVING EU AS NIGHTMARE OF COMPLEXITY
Britain’s Biggest Deal, BBC2’s programme about the triggering of the Brexit process, had a prime time slot, and was presented by the Corporation’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg. It was thus a shop-window effort. Impartial, in line with the BBC’s Charter requirements? No. It was a no-holds-barred attempt to show how literally nightmarish the exit process will be. Since June 24, …
New boss Clementi faces uphill struggle against liberal bias
How totally hostile can the BBC’s coverage of the Trump presidency and Brexit actually become? Recent evidence suggests that the race to the bottom is well and truly on. Exhibit A is the weight it gave on Tuesday morning to Kenneth Clarke’s utterly preposterous (and chilling) claim that the referendum vote is a reflection of the ‘tyranny of the majority.’ …
Confirmed: BBC complaints process is unfit for purpose
At the heart of the BBC’s reform under its new Charter – due to come into effect imminently – is that for the first time, an outside body, Ofcom, will become the final court of appeal in complaints about impartiality. The idea is that this will clean the Augean stables and the Corporation will end its rampant bias towards Brexit, …