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, …
News-watch Referendum survey of Radio 1 Newsbeat finds strong BBC bias towards ‘Remain’
During the EU referendum, the BBC adopted special editorial guidelines which required strict even-handed treatment of the Leave and Remain cases. News-watch has now completed a rigorous academic survey which shows conclusively that these guidelines were effectively ignored. There was heavy bias towards the Remain side in BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat, a flagship news programme which reaches millions of the …
Humphrys told Farage that Brexit is ‘literally unthinkable’
Back in August, in the backwash of the referendum result, News-watch issued a challenge (during an off-the-record lunch) to a very senior executive of the Corporation: for the BBC to make a programme that properly celebrated Nigel Farage’s achievements as a politician. The answer? None, directly, so far, but a few days later the Corporation announced the commissioning of Nigel …
BBC Radio 4 Brexit Collection: strong bias against leaving the EU
The Brexit Collection is a selection of 31 programmes and features, originally broadcast on Radio 4, and posted by the BBC on its iPlayer website. It is presumably thus thought by the Corporation to be a balanced representation of its referendum coverage. Analysis by News-watch has now shown that the Collection was, on balance, very strongly anti-Brexit. News-watch transcribed and …
Pro-EU zealot quietly dropped from Ofcom content board
Hallelujah! Quietly, a significant positive development in the broadcasting establishment may have occurred. Might it be that the government is at last waking up to that the liberal figures who occupy the key regulatory posts are a menace to Brexit? The current deluge of anti-Brexit propaganda emanating primarily from the BBC, but also from Ofcom-regulated services such as Channel 4, …
Complaints from both sides (again)
This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? The BBC must be happy today.Yesterday came Boris at the Conservative Party conference saying (accurately) that the BBC is sometimes “shamelessly anti-Brexit” before adding (doubtless to the BBC’s delight), “I think the Beeb is the single greatest and most effective ambassador for our culture and our values”.Today in strode (Sir) …
BBC News Chief James Harding shows anti-Brexit bias
James Harding, the BBC’s Director of News, has fired a broadside against those poor, misguided souls who have dared to think that the BBC’s coverage of the referendum and its aftermath have been out of kilter. His chosen medium for this homily? Why, where else but that neutral newspaper so loved by the BBC – The Guardian? For those not …
BBC Concedes Political Bias – But Only Against Corbynistas
This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? Something highly unusual and rather disconcerting happened on Radio 4’s Feedback this week. Questions about BBC bias were put and a senior BBC editor repeatedly admitted that the BBC had got things wrong. I cannot recall ever hearing such an interview before on Feedback – except over climate change, where various BBC editors have publicly confessed to …
BBC Archers trial portrays Brexit supporters as prejudiced bigots
This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? Though I’ve listened to Radio 4 every since I was in my teens I’ve never paid any attention to The Archers. For me The Archers has never been anything more than a happy opportunity to go and brew a nice cup of tea until the next programme …
Does Fairhead departure presage May action against BBC bias?
The abrupt and unexpected departure of Rona Fairhead from her post as BBC Chairman is interesting indeed. David Cameron had appointed her Chairman for the first, crucial phase of the new Charter covering the abolition of the Trustees and their replacement by a souped-up executive board – but suddenly, seemingly as a result of intervention by Theresa May, she’s toast. …