The BBC Trust recently embarked on an eight-week consultation on draft Editorial Guidelines for its coverage of the EU in/out referendum. This is News-watch’s submission. The proposed guidelines are here. Preamble News-watch has been monitoring the BBC’s EU-related output for 16 years. Detailed research based on systematic analysis of relevant BBC programming using established academic principles has shown that …
BBC Brexit programme shows strong pro-EU bias
With the campaigns to secure exit the EU now launched, the BBC knows its EU coverage is under unprecedented scrutiny. Before Christmas, Rona Fairhead, the BBC Trust chairman, appeared before the Commons European Scrutiny Committee and swore blind that systems were in place to ensure impartiality in the run-up to the EU referendum. And – pigs maybe do fly! – …
BBC lays down the law on climate alarm coverage
Outrageous. That is the only way to describe respectably the latest impartiality ruling by the BBC Trust. This band of climate change crusaders – led by the Trust’s Richard Ayre, chair of the Editorial Standards Committee (ESC) – have ruled that a show that was a light-hearted dig at climate fanaticism by the Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts on Radio 4 …
Craig Byers: BBC comedy, the EU and BBC bias
This week’s Feedback featured a clip from the first episode of the 47th series of Radio 4’s eternally somewhat-less-than-side-splitting Now Show – a comedic ‘team rant’ in favour of the EU and against critics of the EU. Unlike the recent ‘rants’ from Andrew Neil and Emily Maitlis, this particular rant was absolutely nothing new. And I’m not just talking about the …
Are BBC procedures for measuring impartiality fit for purpose?
David Cameron is gearing up this week for another attempt at telling us that leaving the EU will be disastrous for the UK and to outline more of his ‘renegotiations’. Meanwhile, under far less media scrutiny, the House of Lords has been debating much more crucial work: whether special steps should be taken to ensure that the BBC is impartial …
BBC NEWS CHIEFS CLAIM THAT MONITORING FOR POLITICAL BIAS ‘IS VERY UNHELPFUL’
This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? One of the big BBC-related stories of the past week has been the appearance of Lord Hall, James Harding and David Jordan at parliament’s European Scrutiny Committee discussing the BBC’s policies in the light of the upcoming EU referendum. Two parts of the discussion have dominated the …
BBC apology over Quentin Letts’ climate change programme ‘is the stifling of free speech’
Once in a blue moon…? Hold the front page… because the BBC complaints department has actually apologised to someone. Not, of course, to the battalions of folk who have been saying for years that coverage of topics such as feminism, multiculturalism, the EU and immigration is beyond the pale. The response to them – as News-watch chronicles in its submission …
News-watch calls for scrapping of ‘biased’ BBC complaints system
News-watch has told culture minister John Whittingdale’s review of the BBC that the current BBC complaints system is not fit for purpose. The 10,000 word submission argues that it should be replaced by scrutiny through a completely independent body. It provides comprehensive evidence – from News-watch’s own experience of submitting complaints – that the Trustees, who police BBC impartiality and …
BBC PLUMBS NEW DEPTHS OF CLIMATE ALARMISM IN EMMA THOMPSON ‘INTERVIEW’
An interview on Newsnight of the actress and Labour-supporter Emma Thompson has taken the BBC’s handling of climate alarmism to new depths of shoddy and biased journalism. Under the editorship of ex-Guardian man Ian Katz, this type of celebrity interview – in which the subject is given virtual carte blanche to put across highly questionable leftist views – has become …
NEWS-WATCH SURVEY: MASSIVE BIAS BY OMISSION OF EU ISSUES IN BBC GENERAL ELECTION COVERAGE
Analysis by News-watch of the BBC’s EU-related general election coverage in selected flagship news programmes reveals massive bias by omission. There was a failure to explain in any depth the EU-related policies of the main parties, despite the fact that the United Kingdom’s future relationship with the EU were a central part of election manifestos. For example, questioning of David …