BBC Bias Digest is now a key, regularly updated feature of the News-watch website, and a central focus of our efforts. To try and hold the BBC to account in the public interest To facilitate reform in its governance. Each day, we are combing newspapers and the web for stories about the BBC relevant to its Charter obligation to deliver …
Deluded BBC’s mission to mislead
New BBC director general Tim Davie, who cut his professional teeth marketing Pepsi-Cola, was appointed last week to head a £5billion-a-year media empire with a guaranteed income and a news operation which is the largest of its kind in the world. Here is an early item for his in-tray. The BBC’s annual plan for 2020/21 – required by Ofcom as part …
Justice closes its eyes to BBC bias
It is very disappointing to have to report that three judges (two in the High Court, one in the Court of Appeal) have thwarted David Keighley’s application for judicial review to challenge the impartiality of the BBC. Very frustratingly, they have acted without calling a full oral hearing to consider evidence put forward by David and his legal team, relying …
Shock news: BBC-dominated Ofcom backs the BBC
The 2017 BBC Charter bestowed for the first time supervisory regulatory powers on Ofcom, which had previously been in charge of only the independent sector. Its first review of BBC news and current affairs performance shows that this has achieved nothing except to confirm that the broadcasting ‘establishment’ is deeply biased and complacent, and that there is an urgent need …
BBC censures presenters – but not very much
Two rulings have been made in the past ten days by the BBC’s editorial complaints unit (ECU) against Corporation presenters. Both the offending broadcasts, one an attack on Donald Trump, the other the ‘sneering’ handling of an interview with Rod Liddle about Brexit, took place in July. This is hold the front page territory. Usually, the unit dismisses everything thrown …
Humphrys ‘was biased in handling of EU issues’
Kathy Gyngell clearly highlighted on The Conservative Woman blog yesterday the hypocrisy of John Humphrys revealed in his forthcoming memoirs, being serialised in the Daily Mail. Today she discusses further evidence of his double standards, this time over the Iraq Dossier affair. How could he have continued to work on BBC Radio 4’s Today – drawing massive pay from the …
When will Team Boris wake up to BBC bias?
ACCORDING to weekend press reports, Boris Johnson’s director of communications Lee Cain has had a lightbulb moment. He has told Downing Street staff that appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme is a ‘waste of time’. Well, golly gosh. An old saying about a pikestaff rushes to mind. In reality, it is hard to believe that the Johnson administration wants …
Appeal: Help us stop BBC bias!
Act now! A £30,000 crowd-funding appeal is being launched today in an effort to #stopBBCbias. All donations gratefully received! Details of how to contribute are below. For 20 years – since the European elections of 1999 – News-watch has been monitoring the BBC reporting of EU affairs to analyse whether it is meeting its Charter and Public Purposes requirement to …
BBC Push European Elections Remain ‘Victory’ Claim
How very predictable. The BBC have never treated Nigel Farage or his core message seriously. During the European elections of 1999, when he was spokesman for the fledgling UKIP, they virtually ignored the party’s plans for withdrawal and gave far more airtime to the pro-Euro Conservative party. In all the years in between, they ignored as much as they could …
BBC stone-walls Mark Mardell EU history bias
On March 29 last year, one year before non-Brexit day, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a day-long series of programmes called Britain at the Crossroads which the Corporation’s PR hype said was designed to examine the steps towards Brexit. At its heart was the first of a multi-part series presented by Mark Mardell called Brexit: A Love Story? which purported to …