The BBC swears until it is blue in the face that it is not biased against the case for withdrawal from the EU, and that it reports the campaign fairly. It engaged at vast expense Stuart Prebble, a former BBC trainee, and long-time chum of BBC Trustee David Liddiment, to write a highly questionable academic report that said so. But this is a big …
BBC Plugs Sham EU ‘Debate’ About EU Presidency
A frequent problem in the BBC’s coverage of EU issues, as John Humphrys has accepted, is a failure to present the full facts: bias by omission. If the BBC collectively doesn’t like an aspect of UK policy – such as the so-called ‘bedroom tax’ – there is a relentless editorial focus against it. No stone is left unturned by BBC …
BBC charter must not be renewed until pro-EU bias ends
Lord Pearson of Rannoch, initiated an hour’s debate in the House of Lords about biased BBC coverage of the EU. His main demand was that the BBC Charter is not renewed until the bias is rectified, and his key point that despite repeated assertions to the contrary the BBC simply does not cover the withdrawal perspective fairly or adequately. The …
BBC in new World Service Propaganda Push
Be afraid, be very afraid. James Harding, the director of BBC news and current affairs, has delivered a speech in which he has said the BBC’s ambition is to double the reach of the World Service in the next eight years: He stated: “Internationally, Sir Howard Stringer has been looking at how we can take the BBC’s global audience of …
Back to the future: the BBC’s attacks on EU withdrawal
Another European election and the BBC are in full cry again trying to find ways of showing that those who support withdrawal are racist. They have form, and it has been tracked in detail by News-watch. Their justification, of course, is that the party has ‘controversial’ policies that need probing. The latest story elevated to front page status is that …
Geert Wilders: the ‘maverick’ damned by BBC reporting
The Dutch politician Geert Wilders and his Freedom political party (PVV) stir up strong sentiments. He is renowned for his stance that Islam in his country is responsible for major social divisions and has lead to the radicalisation of young Muslims to the extent that they are joining terrorist organisations. Mr Wilders is also strongly against the EU and openly advocates departure. …
BBC Prebble report into EU coverage ‘not worth paper it is written on’
News-watch has written a paper for Civitas, the respected think-tank, that shows that the Prebble report into the BBC’s EU coverage ‘is not worth the paper it is written on’ and was not independent. The Times says that the Civitas paper demonstrates that ‘the clean bill of health for the BBC (given for the EU coverage by Prebble) “raises serious questions” about …
Nick Robinson raises spectre of racism against EU withdrawers
One of the problems of the BBC’s coverage of ‘withdrawal’ from the EU is that mostly, they don’t do it – but when they do deign to do so, it’s through a totally negative lens. The News-watch long-term survey of Today – which goes back twelve years and covers roughly half the programme editions – shows that there have been only 108 appearances …
Today editor Jamie Angus: Voice of Prejudice?
Jamie Angus was appointed editor of Radio 4’s flagship Today programme almost a year ago, in May 2013. Monitoring by Newswatch has shown that a highlight of his tenure to date is that the programme devoted 83 minutes to items on Nelson Mandela on the day of his death – the highest total for any single topic since the introduction …
BBC Trustees ‘failed to challenge’ BBC executives over £100m digital disaster
This section is dedicated to the unfolding saga of the BBC’s failed Digital Media Initiative, which the National Audit Office has said cost the licence-fee payer almost £100m as a result of a catalogue of fundamental management failures by both the board of management and the Trustees. Chairman of the BBC Trustees Lord Patten and former director general Mark Thompson …