Anti-Brexit group Britain Stronger in Europe has started its propaganda push with a £1.5m leaflet drop. It focuses – with hackneyed predictability – on threats that outside the Single Market, three million UK jobs will be at risk. News-watch research shows that for years, BBC presenters and reporters have been allowing Europhiles to get away with these totally unfounded claims …
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 …
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 …
Kathy Gyngell: How would the BBC cope if it didn’t have Hezza to fuel Tory Europe splits?
The BBC’s approach to EU coverage is pretty much on the lines of a word association game. EU – Conservative Party – split – europhiles – Michael Heseltine – Ken Clarke – reasonable – superior – prime time. Eurosceptics – extreme – xenophobic – inferior – marginalise – diss – interrupt. Labour – unified – no story – splits – never – Tony …
BBC News chief defends General Election coverage against bias claims
James Harding, the director of BBC news, gave this speech in which he sought to defend the Corporation’s General Election coverage to the spring conference of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer on June 2. News-watch is preparing a full response to the sweeping generalisations he made about lack of bias. It will be posted imminently, and will be …
Al Murray campaign in Thanet against Farage ‘backed by BBC’
Al Murray, the pub landlord, clearly wanted – to put it politely – to pour cold ale all over Nigel Farage’s South Thanet campaign when he decided back in January to stand against him. His boast was that the country needed a leader who could wave a pint around and invent common sense solutions. Some of it was good old-fashioned …
Kathy Gyngell: In the BBC’s Alice in Wonderland world, criticism by MPs compromises its impartiality
Biased Today, biased yesterday and biased tomorrow, the BBC has much to answer for over its uncritical and inadequate EU coverage. More than any other news outlet the BBC shapes and moulds public opinion. Over the years, it has inspired an unwarranted public confidence in the EU. It has been responsible for conveying a sense of the inevitability and necessity of British membership Had it …
Springshot: The Great European Disaster Movie
Scratch the surface of almost any BBC statement about ‘impartiality’ or ‘bias’ and you unearth a rather an unpleasant smell. The BBC says no EU money was used in the making of its Sunday night pro-EU extravaganza The Great European Disaster Movie, which depicted in ludicrous, extremist terms the total disintegration of civil society across the continent, if, God forbid, …
Bias by Omission as Romania and Bulgaria Influx Rises
Happy New Year – it’s the anniversary of when, courtesy of the EU’s Free Movement of Peoples directive, restrictions were lifted on the numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians entering the UK. Latest figures released by the Oxford Migration Observatory show that 250,000 are now here and 47,000 arrived during 2014. That’s equivalent to a city the size of Wolverhampton – …
Is the BBC Biased?
The answer is that on one particular subject – the coverage of EU affairs – it most definitely is. For 15 long years, News-watch has been investigating. Our reports deploy the most robust analytical methodology and demonstrate that, for example, over the treatment of withdrawal from the EU, the Corporation’s coverage is outrageously limited and skewed. The latest report, focusing …