BBC Bias Digest

News-Watch

10:39 am
05 February 2025
The BBC at 100: Leading the push for totalitarianism

The BBC at 100: Leading the push for totalitarianism

BBC Bias, BBC Centenary | | by David Keighley

As the BBC marks its centenary,  how is ‘Auntie’? Not the benign figure the Corporation likes to portray, but perhaps more like Peter Sellers’s chilling comic creation Auntie Rotter?

As Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries appeared to be preparing the old girl for genuine surgery in the Charter Mid-term Review. But as the Tory party and our democracy itself spectacularly implodes, don’t count on it. Auntie is too useful to our new totalitarian ruling class as a vehicle for the liberal-left propaganda it disseminates on a gargantuan scale.

True to form, the Corporation commissioned its own self-congratulatory centenary ‘official’ history in 2016 and the author, a  former BBC producer and don at Sussex University, duly obliged with a volume which trashes British history and values and risibly claims with Marxist zeal that from its inception the BBC has championed the British working class against the forces of the right. In that projection, those who dare criticise the BBC are enemies of the people.

The reality is that BBC audiences were high only when the Corporation was a state monopoly funded by a compulsory licence fee. As soon as competition entered the frame, people looked elsewhere for their entertainment. BBC services are now declining precipitously in the ever-fragmenting media environment, trust in the BBC’s journalism is in freefall, and, according to Reuters Institute research, it has become the least trusted public service broadcaster in the world. 

A key to the mentality and current drive of the BBC can be found the latest annual report (2021/2). There are pages and pages devoted to self-righteous tosh on ‘environmental sustainability’ (and commitment to Net Zero agenda) and gender and racial diversity. But in terms of how popular (or rather unpopular) BBC programmes are, the report waffles only about audience ‘reach’. To find out how bad BBC audience figures actually are, you have to scour the internet. An example is BBC2 Newsnight, the flagship news and current affairs programme, which had more than 1million viewers in around 2000, but is now down to fewer than 300,000. 

The current director-general, Tim Davie, claims he is sorting out impartiality but his plans for doing so are designed only to keep the BBC as its own judge and jury in virtually everything it does, with the fig-leaf Ofcom to conduct appeals against the BBC’s own industrial-scale rejection of millions of complaints. A measure of his feebleness is that, on his appointment, Davie promised a crackdown on presenters who posted politically biased tweets. But it has taken two years, till last week, for BBC football presenter Gary Lineker to be held to any form of account for the deluge of left-wing propaganda he spews out – and then for only one tweet. His punishment? A docking of his obscene £1.35million-a-year contract? No, Mr Davie thinks he is a ‘brilliant presenter’ and instead has had a ‘good chat with him’. He believes Lineker now understands impartiality. That’s okay then.

With the benefit of hindsight, the BBC became unashamedly socialist in support of the Attlee government in 1945, and has never deviated from that campaigning zeal. Margaret Thatcher was the only PM who genuinely tried to reform the bloated state propaganda organisation but even she did not have the power to dismantle it.

The BBC erupted with fury after the Brexit referendum confirmed that the British people did not share its values, as this News-watch report confirms. But perhaps the defining characteristic of the BBC in its centenary year is its climate alarmism and its chilling insistence that the ‘science is settled’. Shamefully, the Corporation accepted this was the case at an internal meeting in 2005. Thereafter, instead of objective reporting, it has peddled climate activism. There is a daily deluge of programme and news features and stories. Turn to the climate pages of the BBC website and you discover the real agenda – a total fanaticism about the climate emergency, a burning desire to force British people to change their evil carbon-generating ways and a complete adherence to Net Zero fanaticism. 

Exhibit A is the BBC Media Action site – the so-called ‘charity’ arm of the Corporation which used to be the World Service Trust. Its purpose now is to promote the UN and IMF world government agenda. In this domain – funded by huge grants from Bill Gates and the EU, and in partnership with a host of woke corporations including Twitter and Facebook, – it now actually has training courses for journalists to learn how to become climate change propagandists.

In the Media Action worldview, the only cause for changing weather is ‘climate change’. Basic geography has been abandoned for a one-dimensional fear agenda. Flash floods in Africa are not the result of the sun’s heat and volatile tropical atmospheric forces but rather burning too much fossil fuel.

George Orwell’s statue has dominated the entry to the £1billion BBC HQ in Portland Place since 2017. Its presence is deeply ironic. BBC staffers are reminded every day of the man who showed with terrifying accuracy in Animal Farm and 1984 what totalitarianism is like. Yet every day, they are pushing on a massive scale the propaganda Orwell expressed. Current political developments suggest that nothing will now stop them.

The BBC’s 100 years of glory – by its hired historian

The BBC’s 100 years of glory – by its hired historian

BBC Bias, BBC History | | by David Keighley

How sinisterly Orwellian is the BBC at projecting and protecting its own image? The BBC: A People’s History, a Corporation-commissioned book marking its 100th anniversary on October 18, provides abundant clues.

Investigations reveal that the Corporation, chillingly echoing Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, has maintained for decades a shadowy network of so-called ‘official historians’, perhaps centred in the Director General’s office, to sing its praises and to belittle and undermine its critics.

In January 2016, a press release from the University of Sussex trumpeted that former low-to-middle-ranking BBC producer David Hendy, then Professor of Media and Communications at Sussex, had been appointed ‘as [sic] the BBC’s latest official historian’ and would write an ‘authorised history’ of the Corporation to be published in 2022. Press officer Jacqui Bealing said that Professor Hendy was particularly proud to be following in the footsteps of the late Asa Briggs, a Sussex Vice-Chancellor who wrote a gargantuan five-volume history of the Corporation covering the years 1922-1974. These books, too, were commissioned by the BBC. The 2016 press release was rounded off with a quote from Robert Seatter, said to be Head of BBC History, who declared grandly that the book would ‘capture the transforming power of the BBC broadcasting in Britain and the wider world’. How Mr Seatter came to be appointed to his role and the exact job remit is a mystery, though a profile of sorts here describes him as a ‘reader, actor and animator.’ According to LinkedIn, in BBC Director General Tim Davie’s office there is also a ‘history manager’ named John Escolme. 

In becoming a BBC ‘official historian’, Hendy joined another Professor of Media Studies (at Westminster University), Jean Seaton, who in 2015 published a sixth volume of history of the BBC, covering 1974 to 1987. I described it on TCW as ‘a claws-fully-out attack from someone who clearly hates Margaret Thatcher’.  

In that leftist-hagiography sense, Hendy’s 638-page tome does not disappoint. This ‘official historian’ pulls no punches when it comes to describing Mrs Thatcher’s approach towards and impact upon his beloved BBC. He asserts that when she came to power in 1979, despite the BBC offering such ‘golden era’ programmes as Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff, Mrs Thatcher wanted ‘drastic reform’ and for a decade created an atmosphere in which the Corporation operated which was a ‘a potent brew of political, commercial and personal hostility’.

Also in Hendy’s sights is Winston Churchill. Almost every reference to him, beginning with his alleged assaults on journalistic freedom in the BBC’s handling of the General Strike of 1926, is peppered with insults, including that he was a ‘blustering’ bully. Hendy claims that Churchill thought the Corporation was a ‘hotbed of Communists’ and then contends that the BBC broadcast of his ‘finest hour’ speech in 1940 was not his finest hour at all and showed an ‘obsession with Empire and British race’. Hendy adds that wartime listeners preferred radio talks by the socialist writer J B Priestley.

Space does not permit detailed exploration of Hendy’s book, but it can it can be distilled as follows:

  • Nasty forces of conservatism conspired throughout BBC history to muzzle its journalism and limit unreasonably the licence fee, with Thatcher and Churchill heading the rogues’ gallery. Special opprobrium is heaped on Lord Rees-Mogg, ex-editor of the Times and a BBC trustee in the Thatcher era, with a quote from Deputy Director General Alan Protheroe that he was a ‘malevolent man’ who disliked the BBC to his very core and soul – ‘if he had one’.
  • For a century, the BBC has heroically fought – after a shaky start until it became a Corporation funded by the licence fee – to champion the authentic voice of the British people, and to the disgust of the ruling class, has managed to do so with landmark programmes such as Cathy Come Home and Boys from the Blackstuff.
  • The Corporation is a national treasure which must be preserved at all costs.

These broad-brushstroke propaganda arguments are supplemented by a self-congratulatory 100th anniversary section of the BBC website comprising 100 faces, 100 voices and 100 objects which was partly curated in association with Professor Hendy.

Back to the book, and Hendy proselytises throughout his narrative that the BBC is popular and meets audience needs. He avoids contemporary evidence of rapidly falling audience figures and a huge decline in public trust in its impartiality, reflected for example in an Ofcom News Consumption survey in 2021, in which only 55 per cent of those surveyed rated the Corporation’s record on impartiality to be satisfactory.

His approach towards those he sees as enemies of the Corporation is particularly simplistic and egregious. He claims that ‘academic study after academic study’ has established that the BBC output in recent years has tilted to the right rather than the left. Close scrutiny reveals that his findings are based on just three carefully selected surveys, each of which News-watch has demonstrated is based on deeply flawed methodology: for example. here in a Civitas paper.

Footnote: True to form, no financial or other contractual details were disclosed when Mr Hendy was appointed ‘official BBC historian’. To remedy the deficit, News-watch is filing a Freedom of Information request about the deal.

The BBC, skewered through its rotten core

The BBC, skewered through its rotten core

BBC Bias, BBC History | | by David Keighley

Few readers of News-watch  will need convincing that the BBC is biased. The Corporation’s track record of hating Britain and its values in a helter-skelter quest for ‘diversity’, and as a political campaigner against conservative values and in favour of liberal-left causes such as climate alarmism, lockdowns and much more, has been chronicled voluminously in these pages.

Now university lecturer David Sedgwick’s latest book, Is That True Or Did You Hear It On The BBC?  brings a series of fresh and meticulously researched insights into the gargantuan scale of the bias. It shows that without doubt the BBC complaints system is rotten to the core.

The book has been published at an opportune moment. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is assembling her Mid-Term Review of the Corporation. The public consultation phase has closed (July 29). Of course, her tenure in office may be short, but she has at least taken steps in the framing of the review to attack BBC bias head-on. Her appointment rattled the BBC, and executives are fighting tooth and nail to thwart her ambitions.

Meanwhile, Director General Tim Davie – despite a deluge of evidence to the contrary after almost two years in office – risibly continues to claim that his top priority is restoring impartiality. He has ordered a raft of measures allegedly to tackle the problems, including a politburo-style ‘10-point plan’.

Close scrutiny of the measures, however, reveals that they are little more than all-too-familiar BBC window-dressing and an exercise in kicking the can down the road. There is, for example, an acceptance that output should be subject to independent (non-BBC) review. To deal with this, four consultants have been appointed by the BBC, so the idea that they are truly ‘independent’ is yet more BBC flannel.

The peerless BBC blogger Craig Byers explains the inadequacies of the 10-point plan in further detail here.

Sedgwick has already written two books about the BBC, and a review of one of them is on TCW Defending Freedom here. In 21 illuminating case studies of BBC bias at its most flagrant, his latest title nails exactly why Davie’s measures are the equivalent of tackling a petrochemical blaze with a water-pistol. His key line of argument is that throughout its 100-year history, the BBC has blindly supported the social and economic objectives of ‘society’s wealthiest and most powerful entities’, and does not report news but rather ‘news narrative’ and is therefore ‘a hugely valuable asset of global power’.

Some might disagree with his suggestion that the 1984 miners’ strike was part of a popular uprising against the establishment, but his main point, that the BBC in 2022 has swallowed the World Economic Forum ‘Build Back Better’ agenda and is thus supporting undemocratic political agitation against the interests of the British people who are forced to pay to receive it, is strongly made.

The book begins with the BBC’s current main activist hobby horse: fanning alarm about the climate. The Corporation’s so-called environment ‘reporters’ trumpeted in 2004 that the Maldives were a ‘paradise facing extinction’ and that the 360,000 inhabitants would soon be forced to evacuate. Eighteen years on, says Sedgwick, the population and tourism have both doubled, and more than $800million is being ploughed into expanding the main airport to meet the mushrooming demand. A survey of atolls worldwide has shown a growth in landmass of 8 per cent over the past 60 years.

Another example is a forensic dissection of the so-called Harlow ‘race-hate murder’ of Arkadiusz Jozwik, a Polish man, soon after the Brexit vote in September 2016. Daniel Sandford’s television news reports trumpeted it as a race killing, and BBC2 Newsnight embellished the sensationalism by including claims that Nigel Farage had ‘blood on his hands’. Eventually it emerged that Jozwik had provoked a gang of youths by himself being racist and was punched in retaliation. One youth was convicted of manslaughter. The outrageous BBC reporting was also covered on TCW Defending Freedom, for example here. 

Sedgwick chronicles how the BBC rejected all claims of bias over the case, but three years later broadcast a programme intended to put the record straight. It was titled The Brexit Murder? thus compounding the original Sandford claims and confirming that even when seemingly trying to correct errors, the Corporation is so mired in its own confirmation bias that it cannot do so.

For its 100th anniversary celebrations, the broadcaster appointed as an ‘official BBC historian’ Sussex University media studies don (and former BBC producer) David Hendy.  He has written The BBC: A People’s History, which is best described as pro-BBC propaganda, and an extension of how the BBC attacks all those who criticise it. Hendy, in essence, argues that those who criticise the BBC are mainly right-wing, malicious axe-grinders. I hope to review it for TCW soon.

Sedgwick’s clear analysis is a valuable counter-balance to Hendy’s flummery.

Grade’s Herculean task to tackle the biased, woke BBC

Grade’s Herculean task to tackle the biased, woke BBC

BBC Bias, BBC Complaints Process, Ofcom | | by Andrew

MICHAEL Grade – Baron Grade of Yarmouth – becomes chairman of Ofcom today.

He takes over days after Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries published Up Next, her White Paper on the future of broadcasting.

Main points include that the current BBC licence fee funding regime will eventually come to an end, Channel 4 will be privatised and that ‘TV-like’ content will be subject to ‘harmful content’ restrictions regulated and policed by Ofcom.

The latter point apart – which Big Brother Watch fears will presage a new age of government censorship – many of the aspirations in the White Paper make sense and can be seen as necessary and often overdue adaptations to developments in the fast-changing broadcasting  arena.

Lord Grade – who takes the Conservative whip in the House of Lords – has a formidable industry track record, from being director of programmes of the former ITV company LWT in the 1970s, controller of BBC1 and chief executive of Channel 4 in the 1980s and 90s, to chairman of the BBC and then executive chair of ITV in the noughties.

It is rumoured in Westminster that he intends to be especially tough on the BBC and in particular to use Ofcom’s regulatory leverage over the BBC to ensure impartiality. He apparently has the full backing of Mrs Dorries, who, it is understood, pushed hard for his appointment.

But ambition will not mean a fig unless the Corporation’s epidemic-scale wokery and groupthink is rooted out. BBC bias is now so blatant that it is impossible to keep track, as Peter Hitchens eloquently pointed out at the weekend. 

On issues such as diversity and climate alarm, BBC troops see themselves as warriors of change and activists rather than chroniclers of events.

Changing the licence fee could have a powerful corrective impact, but there is no definite date or detail as yet. So in the short term, the only hope of rooting out bias is through Ofcom.

Against this background, in the 22,000 words of the White Paper, there are only six mentions of impartiality. The key passage at Chapter 2, section 1 states:

‘Looking forward, the government also wants to see the BBC taking steps to reform over the next six years. This includes taking action to improve on its impartiality, which is central to the BBC’s Mission and to maintaining trust with audiences. In that context we welcome the BBC’s 10-Point Impartiality and Editorial Standards Action Plan, published in October 2021, which aims to raise standards by ensuring that BBC programmes and content are fair, accurate, unbiased, and reflect the UK public. Alongside this, the BBC adopted the findings of the Serota Review into the BBC’s governance and culture in full. While the Action Plan is a good start, changes are necessary and they need to be delivered.’

Does that suggest definite action of the sort required? Only time – and Lord Grade – will determine.

His task, though, is Herculean.

Ofcom’s track record as BBC regulator – which it became at the start of the current Charter in 2017 – can only be described as complacent and inept. One of its key tasks in this domain is as appeals body on complaints. But in the four years since it took over, the Content Board has decided to investigate only six of the hundreds referred to it; none has been upheld. This chart illustrates vividly how dire the position is:

Part of the problem here is the Content Board is stuffed full of figures who have worked for the BBC, and is thus not independent. 

Also in Lord Grade’s in-tray related to impartiality is the Jewish bus incident on December 1 last year. A party of Jewish youths innocently celebrating Hanukkah in Oxford Street were terrorised and spat at by racist thugs. The BBC initially claimed they had evidence which showed that the attack had been at least partially provoked by an anti-Islamic insult from someone on board the bus. The Jewish community was outraged, and eventually the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit issued a highly-qualified apology of the sort routinely deployed to make issues go away. 

At this point, Ofcom stepped in – and keen to make it look as they took their regulatory responsibilities seriously – announced that they would also investigate. 

More than three months on, the Content Board has not yet published its findings. This defies belief. With the board having never yet ruled against the BBC, the suspicion is growing that that the inquiry announcement was a PR ploy to deflect criticism.

This is just a starter in the list of mammoth tasks Lord Grade will face in the coming months.

BBC ‘arrogant’ dismissal of Sunday Times

BBC ‘arrogant’ dismissal of Sunday Times

BBC Bias | | by David Keighley

The Sunday Times has a rather feeble (in analytical terms) news story today (February 20) under the heading of What’s Going on at the BBC? by media editor Rosamund Unwin which postulates that because of cuts in staffing levels (leading to poor editorial decisions), standards of BBC journalism are falling, as is evidenced by Amol Rajan’s questionably-handled interview last week of Novak Djokovic (which revealed nothing even though it was granted headline status) and the Oxford Street bus incident.

Her premise is fundamentally wrong – the ‘decline’ is actually a continuation of long-standing inherent bias and weakness – but what is interesting about the piece is the quote it attracted from the BBC. A spokesman said: “We don’t feel that highlighting a few unrelated pieces of output from across the BBC says anything meaningful about a 24-hour worldwide news operation.”

This yet another arrogant variation in the theme of that only they at the BBC know and can judge what is going on editorially. Everyone else attempting to do so is deluded.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/whats-going-on-at-the-bbc-5pv7dz9fn (£)

Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack: Surprise, surprise! Next BBC Religion Editor is yet another Muslim

Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack: Surprise, surprise! Next BBC Religion Editor is yet another Muslim

BBC Bias, Martin Bashir, Religious Affairs | | by Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack

This post by Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack originally appeared on The Conservative Woman

WHAT would any outside observer think of a company which after a ‘competitive recruitment process’ continually appointed individuals from the same socio/cultural/religious grouping? Is it possible to conclude that the company had an agenda?

The BBC, after a long delay which caused a former World Service religious affairs correspondent to question its commitment to religious broadcasting, has appointed a new Religion Editor, Aleem Maqbool. It announced that ‘following a competitive recruitment process . . . Aleem will take the lead on the BBC’s expert analysis and insight on the major themes and issues affecting different faiths in the UK and around the world’. Currently BBC News North American Correspondent, Maqbool is a journalist of considerable experience having also reported from Pakistan, Gaza/West Bank and Egypt. He is due to take up his post early this spring.

He follows the disgraced Martin Bashir who stepped down last year with serious health issues. Bashir’s decision may also have been influenced by the resurfacing of the controversy surrounding his fabrication of evidence to procure the infamous interview with Princess Diana which made his name internationally known and helped procure lucrative employment in the American media.

During his stay in the USA he was forced to resign from the cable TV channel MSNBC having made ‘ill-judged’ comments about Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and vice-presidential candidate. When even MSNBC, who are notorious for their one-sided journalism, are forced to take note of your behaviour, you must be out-on-a-limb biased.

Despite the scandals which seemed to follow him, Bashir eventually returned to the UK to work for the BBC once again. Fabricating evidence, which was known by the BBC in 1996, long before Bashir left for America in 1999, and being crudely partial were no obstacles to the BBC top brass thinking you were just the man to be Religion Editor.

Bashir had followed Aaqil Ahmed to the top job in BBC religious broadcasting. In 2009 the BBC had appointed Ahmed to what was then termed Head of Religion and Ethics. His time in charge was dogged by controversy, particularly his outspoken commitment to multicultural broadcasting and his perceived bias against Christianity. Ahmed responded to Church of England complaints about the lack of religious broadcasting by saying the C of E was ‘living in the past’. This was at a time when overall volume of programming had doubled and religious output on BBC television had fallen. A strange case of reverse empire-building.

Although our country was founded on Christian values Ahmed also thought Christianity should not be treated any differently from Islam or other religions. Mark Thompson, then Director General, only slightly disagreed. Thompson thought Islam should be treated more sensitively by the media than Christianity because Muslims are a religious minority in Britain and, as such, their faith should be given different coverage from that of more established faith groups. Ahmed left in 2016 after the BBC axed the role of Head of Religion and Ethics and replaced it with an executive team.

In 2017 the BBC promoted Fatima Salaria and put her in charge of commissioning religious output. Salaria was best known for commissioning Muslims Like Us, a reality-style show, plus a series of programmes about radicalisation. She had already faced a backlash in 2016 after giving Abdul Haqq, a convicted fraudster and former boxing champion, a platform on Muslims Like Us. Haqq, previously known as Anthony Small, was a member of the inner circle of the notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary. Before going on the programme Haqq had openly expressed support for ISIS.

Professor Anthony Glees, of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, was of the opinion that ‘if a BBC executive makes a programme that is notorious and then the BBC promotes them, it tells me that the BBC has in that area lost its moral compass’. Nevertheless the corporation, never willing to admit a mistake, defended their choice of candidate. A spokesman said: ‘People should be judged by their ability to do the job, not their religious background. Fatima was appointed as she is an extremely talented commissioner.’

There has been an undeniable decline in Christian adherence in recent years and a growth of Islam. This, however, is not as radical as the BBC appears to think. According to the Office for National Statistics, in 2011, the last census for which we have results, 59.3 per cent of the population of England and Wales still self-identified as Christian, with only 4.8 per cent identifying as Muslim, whilst in Scotland only 1.4 per cent identified as Muslim.

The last three people in charge of religious broadcasting and a commissioning editor appointed by the BBC have been British Asians, three of them Muslims and one from a Muslim family. Even in a day when only 59 per cent of the population self-identify as Christians, can we seriously believe that since 2009 there were no suitably qualified Christian candidates for these posts? In the meantime, from a Muslim population of at most 4.8 per cent, suitable candidates seem to abound.

This could be understood as the usual BBC endeavour to celebrate diversity and multiculturalism. However, there are grounds for seeing it as more than merely an attempt to make amends for perceived bias in the past by reverse bias today, mistaken though that would be. It could be seen as a deliberate expression of the scorn which those in the upper echelons of the BBC hold towards Christianity and the British values which come from it, and the promotion and normalisation of Islam.

It would appear that the BBC has a clear agenda to emphasise a small minority of society over the majority, nevertheless expecting that we should gladly continue to pay a licence fee in its support, whether we agree with such policies or not.

News-watch in Freedom of Information battle with BBC

News-watch in Freedom of Information battle with BBC

BBC Bias, News-watch | | by Andrew

News-watch is battling the Information Commissioner and the BBC about the Corporation’s refusal to release basic information about how it collects data about impartiality and the subjects of complaints made by the public about programmes.

The long drawn-out fight was the focus this week (2 February) of an appeal before a first-tier tribunal by News-watch against the Information Commissioner. A ruling on the matter is expected within 28 days.

The process began in March 2020 when News-watch requested further information about a survey contained in the BBC’s annual reports and accounts for 2018/19 showing that 52 percent of respondents to an IPSOS MORI poll commissioned by the BBC thought the Corporation provided ‘impartial news’ but only 44 percent turned to the BBC if they wanted impartial news.

The extra information requested under FoI  included the details of the brief given to IPSOS Mori, the nature of the sample who were asked and the details of how the results were collated and interpreted. This was considered by News-watch to be a matter of major public interest because such data is used by BBC as proof that its output – despite claims to the contrary – is indeed impartial.

In parallel, News-watch also asked for the release of all complaints made to the BBC from 2015 to the present about impartiality on the ground that the Corporation only makes public the topics of those which it deems fit to do so.

The BBC refused the application point bank,  principally  on the ground that it has  a derogation from the FOI Act which allows a refusal if the material involved is held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature’. News-watch appealed to the Information Commissioner against the ruling, but he broadly upheld the BBC’s stance and it was at that stage that News-watch appealed against him.

David Keighley, Managing Director of News-watch, commented:

“The BBC claims to be making efforts to be more impartial, so it is a matter of huge concern to licence-fee payers that it is so secretive about how it gauges that it is not biased, and also will not tell the public the content of the majority of complaints it receives about impartiality.

“News-watch has demonstrated that the BBC complaints process as it currently operates is not fit for purpose and stonewalls the vast majority of audience concerns. The purpose of this legal action is to force the Corporation to become more open and to stop this absurd claim that this sort of data should be confidential.”  

BBC REPORTS ENERGY BILLS CRISIS – WITHOUT MENTIONING NET ZERO

BBC REPORTS ENERGY BILLS CRISIS – WITHOUT MENTIONING NET ZERO

BBC Bias, Climate Change | | by David Keighley

Today’s lead story (February 3)  in much of the media is that Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is planning to spend billions of pounds to cushion the impact on householders of a huge rise in domestic heating charges which will take effect from April.

According to green policy watchdog Net Zero Watch, the government will make £6 billion of loans available to energy companies so that they can pass on rebates of £200 per household, cutting the average bill after the increase from £1,900 to £1,700. .

Dr John Constable, director of energy for Net Zero Watch, says that the loans are a ‘terrible idea’ that would set an undesirable and unsustainable precedent, and also not solve the underlying problem, which was that the price crisis had been caused by the government’s net zero energy policies.

He said:

“Loans to the energy companies are a simply terrible idea and show that the No. 10 operation cannot face up to the failure of the green policies which lie behind the current crisis, and are costing consumers well over £10 billion a year Even Germany has agreed to cut 25 billion Euros of renewables subsidies from energy bills in an effort to protect consumers. The Prime MInister has put Net Zero and energy company shareholders before the public interest. He will not be forgiven.”

Elsewhere,  in the Telegraph, columnist Allister Heath also makes no bones about whose fault the energy price rises are. He states:

“All of which brings us to energy policy, another case study in extreme failure. A sensible government would urgently accelerate its nuclear plans by creating a powerful agency modelled on the vaccines taskforce. As a temporary solution, such an administration would also push to extract more oil and gas, including by fracking. “Instead, a government that no longer believes in markets will now simply pretend that prices are much lower than they are. The Treasury will lend billions to energy companies to allow them to moderate price rises; customers will then pay higher bills in the future to ensure the Treasury (hopefully) recoups its money”

And how is the BBC reporting the cost-of-living crisis?  There are two main stories online, one headed ‘Millions braced as energy price rise to be revealed’,   and the second a background piece ‘I’m so cold it feels like I’m sleeping outside’.

The first story reports the speculation about the government’s energy company loans and includes comment that the money released will not be enough to make energy affordable to most households, together with a call from Labour for a windfall tax on energy suppliers such as Shell.  There’s no mention, however, that the price increases are thought to have been largely triggered by the government’s pursuit of so-called renewable energy under the net zero strategy.

The second story focuses on a 54-year old disabled black woman who is ‘desperately trying to keep her energy bills down’, and who reporter Michael Buchanan says is ‘one of millions’ set to be affected by the increased energy bills. He adds that the rise is thought – which would tip 4 million households into ‘fuel stress’ (10% of budgets spent on fuel) –  to have been caused by ‘a big increase in global wholesale prices’.

Surprise, surprise, yet again there is no mention of the impact of net zero policies.

Mail on Sunday editorial slams ‘useless’ BBC complaints process

Mail on Sunday editorial slams ‘useless’ BBC complaints process

BBC Bias, BBC Complaints Process, Ofcom | | by David Keighley

The Mail on Sunday December 26, 2021

The BBC is Silencing the viewers who should be heard

THE BBC’s existence is an attempt to answer a series of linked riddles. How can you sustain a national broadcaster to pursue the best in everything, free from commercial pressure? How can the state collect the funds for such a body, without turning it into a lapdog of the ruling party? How can such a corporation be regulated to ensure impartiality? Once, the BBC contained so many men and women who profoundly believed in its mission that this task was easier and governments worried about it less. But since the 1960s, a growing number of BBC personnel have decided these high principles do not apply to them. If nobody stops them, they turn the Corporation into a megaphone for their largely Left-wing opinions. And, increasingly, nobody does stop them. The public have noticed and so they turn to the BBC’s own complaints system in the hope of having some influence. But as we report today, that system is more or less useless. Its supposed backstop is the quango Ofcom, crammed with ex-BBC staffers and marinated in the same ideas. And the first stage of the complaints procedure itself is just a sort of spongy layer, outsourced to the service company Capita, apparently designed to soak up and ignore public discontent. As we report today, only a tiny number of complaints – roughly one in a thousand – ever reach the real complaints department, the grandly named Executive Complaints Unit. Most viewers almost certainly do not know how to get their grievances past Capita’s software. This is a mockery of the licence-payer. Whatever the right answer is to the BBC’s complaints, this is the wrong one. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is correct to be worried and should act swiftly to ensure the voice of the viewers is actually heard in the Corporation’s sequestered corridors.

 

… while broadcaster investigates less than 0.1% of its complaints

By Anna Mikhailova

DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR

THE BBC’s complaints process faces being overhauled by the Culture Secretary amid concerns too few are being treated seriously. Analysis presented to Nadine Dorries shows that out of almost half a million complaints in the year 2020-21, less than 0.1 per cent were investigated by the Corporation’s Executive Complaints Unit. It follows concerns from MPs that the BBC is ‘marking its own homework’ and needs to Stop handling complaints from viewers and listeners in-house.

The data, seen by The Mall on Sunday, shows that just 455 of 462,255 complaints were looked at by the Executive Complaints Unit in 2020/21. Of these, only 185 were escalated to the media regulator Ofcom – 0.04 per cent of the total. That year – a record number for complaints – included 23,674 about Emily Maitlis’s critical monologue about Dominic Cummings on Newsnight in May 2020. In 2019-20, 759 out of 368,377 complaints were looked at by the Executive Complaints Unit – or 0.2 per cent -while 233 were escalated to Ofcom, some 0.06 per cent.

The unit represents the second stage of the BBC’s complaints process. The first stage is out-sourced to private firm Capita. Ian Paisley, the DUP MP for North Antrim, said:

‘The figures are absolutely astounding. No other credible complaints process would justify those outcomes. There is something systemically wrong with the system that has to be changed.’

Ms Dorries is expected to look at the complaints system as part of next year’s mid-term review of the BBC’s Royal Charter. A Government source said:

‘The process needs to maintain public confidence. With so few corn-plaints being reviewed, it raises serious questions.’

The BBC said referring cases to the Executive Complaints Unit is down to complainants. However, it is up to them to tell the BBC they are unhappy with the response they received from the network. The process of referring to the unit is contained in a lengthy 52-page document that has to be downloaded from the BBC website.

Last night, the BBC refused to reveal how many complaints are handled entirely by Capita on its behalf. A spokesman said.

‘The BBC has a thorough, transparent and easy to use complaints process, We keep the process under review. This includes a public consultation held last year following which we made changes to increase transparency and the information provided to audiences.’

An Ofcom spokesman said: ‘We have consistently called for the BBC to be more transparent.’

News-watch Survey – The Nationality and Borders Bill

News-Watch Reports | | by Andrew

News-watch monitored the 18 hours of original programming broadcast by GB News between 6am and midnight on 6 July 2021 and compared its coverage of the government’s Nationality and Borders Bill on eleven of the BBC’s main television and radio programmes, along with the BBC News Channel, amounting to 27 hours and 10 minutes of BBC airtime.

The survey set out to assess whether the BBC was meeting its public purpose obligation to provide ‘a range and depth of analysis and content not widely available from other United Kingdom news providers.’