FOR the first time in News-watch’s 27 years of monitoring the BBC, the Corporation has partially upheld a complaint about EU-Brexit coverage. ‘Partially’ is crucial in showing the contortionist nature of its accountability. The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) accepted that flagship Radio 4 Today programme breached impartiality by presenting the case for closer alignment with the European Union without acknowledging the opposing …
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 …
BBC Brexit negativity hits new low with Peter Lilley ‘reality check’ ambush
The BBC’s visceral negativity towards Brexit was displayed on Monday in an extraordinary attempted ambush by Today presenter John Humphrys and the BBC’s ‘reality check’ correspondent Chris Morris. The intended victim of this double onslaught was Peter Lilley, now Lord Lilley, and the subject was a report he had written suggesting that life outside the EU could be prosperous and …
BBC ‘hardline’ bias brackets Brexiteers with extremism
Craig Byers, of Is the BBC Biased, has astutely nailed down that the BBC’s use of ‘hardline’ in the EU debate is deeply slanted. The adjective, he spotted, was reserved especially for those who the Corporation perceived are most opposed to staying in the European Union. He also noted that its derogatory application was much broader – it boiled down …
A figleaf swept away in the torrent of anti-Brexit bias
In BBC Radio 4’s Feedback on Friday, host Roger Bolton introduced a classic edition of Corporation Complaints Stonewalling. The subject? Primarily coverage of Brexit. The message? As always, the BBC is getting it right. The full transcript is below. Element one, carefully orchestrated by Bolton, was to convey that the BBC was receiving complaints that its Brexit coverage was biased …
BBC assault on Brexit prospects continues
The third series of the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Brexit: A Guide for the Perplexed’ was broadcast on five consecutive days between 19 February and 23 February, 2018. Each programme was 12 minutes long and was presented by the BBC’s EU ‘Reality Check’ reporter, Chris Morris. Each edition dealt with the projected impact of Brexit and there were five separate …
Radio 4 Feedback programme mocks Brexit supporters
This is a guest post from Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased? Whatever reservations some of us might have about Samira Ahmed’s Newswatch and its usefulness (though I’m glad it exists and that it’s to the credit that the BBC broadcasts it), I really don’t think it can be credibly denied that its teeth are a heck of lot sharper …
Kathy Gyngell: BBC lights the red touch paper
Guest post from Kathy Gyngell – this first appeared on The Conservative Woman The BBC has just started its latest anti-UK democracy drama, Gunpowder, which plumbs new depths of brutality. One by one, it seems the barriers against barbarity are being crossed in the media, with the BBC in the vanguard. But perhaps it is no surprise when you look …