The BBC, funded, by the public, is governed by a charter that requires it to be impartial in its presentation of political issues.
It rarely is and only comes close to it during general election periods – but left-wingers who accuse it of bias are often dismissed as subjective or even ‘conspiracy theorists’, while right-wingers accuse it of left-wing bias to muddy the waters, even though the Corporation itself has admitted otherwise.
But a collaboration between author Alex Nunns and social media campaigners EL4C has put the issue beyond reasonable doubt – at least as far as the BBC’s flagship political affairs programme Sunday Politics is concerned.
Nunns spent months recording the guest mix on the programme, noting simply whether the three panel-guests the show routinely features were right-wing, left-wing or ‘centrist’.
His results were telling – but once EL4C turned the results into a short video, they explode.
The video, which only lasts just over a minute and a half, needs to be seen by everyone in this country:
Comment:
Brilliant work by Simon and his team at EL4C – and superb, patient work by Alex Nunns.
This is not merely theoretical or a matter of principle. When the BBC approached something like impartiality during last year’s General Election campaign Labour surged in the polls, making its biggest gain in vote-share since 1945 and destroying Theresa May’s majority.
Corbyn came within a whisker of forming a government and was only denied by May’s £1bn bribe to the DUP. Just imagine the impact on the political landscape if the BBC did its job – instead of the government’s – 24/7/365.
But – clearly – it does not.
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ah the governments mouth piece
#TheMinistryofTruth
Sounds to me like the BBC Response was written by Andrew Neil himself! (the man who conjured up Kinnock’s Kremlin Connection a few weeks before the GE in 1992 when he was editor of Murdoch’s Sunday Times).
The Daily Politics is, in reality, The Daily Propaganda.
In some respects I am not at all shocked that the BBC is overtly right wing as it is State owned and controlled by the Establishment I would fully expect it to be. In the same way that I wouldn’t expect to get any sense out of the Daily Telegraph or one of Murdoch’s rags I like a lot of people no longer accept that the BBC’s news output and political comment is entirely unbiased and reliable. In the BBC’s case the problem is compounded by the organisation’s arrogant obsession with what it believes is its inherent ability to exercise absolute political impartiality. The speed and consistancy with which the BBC defends and brushes off any criticism of its poliical biase is however only too telling. I am afraid that directing its audience to a few comics telling irreverent jokes about Tory politicians on programmes like HIGNFY doesn’t quite balance out the BBC’s more serious output in its current affairs and news programmes. In fact there is a more obvious quest for political “balance” in the BBC’s light entertainment output than there is on its news side.
I doubt whether the BBC will even acknowledge the existence of this recent set of findings its too interested in going around our schools and educating young people in how to spot “Fake News”. Just where that sort of activity fits in to the BBC Charter is beyond me its all a bit spooky.
ANY entity that pays the reprehensible snitch and all-round (spoilt) idiot isabel oakeshott cannot be taken seriously. I noticed that name more than anyone else’s in that video. (Oh, and the god-awful julia hearty-brouhaha’s too)
Just shows how much ‘integrity” the bbc has.
Neither my husband nor I, can make sense of the video, on either of our devices. It just sounds like a meaningless gabble. Are we missing something?
The sound is intended as background noise, the info is on screen. My eyesight isn’t great so I had to stop and start the video to read the detail as it’s condensed into a very short time.
I have to read this blog at 150% screen – the video I probably blew up to 300% or so to be able to read it.
Just another of the joys of old age (me, not you 🙂 )
Brilliant choice of music wasn’t it?
Grieg’s Peer Gynt, Suite No.1, Op.46, in the hall of the mountain king, Google said.
Every academic study of the BBC news output in recent years shows unequivocally that it is biased against Labour. There are been 4 as far as I know. Cardiff, LSE, Loughborough, and Birkbeck. I know of none that demonstrate the opposite. No-one in the BBC is capable of responding to this fact.
Glad you mentioned those academic studies. ‘like’.
This case of very obvious bias occurs not just on ‘Sunday Politics’ but on EVERY BBC programme where political guests are invited to comment, especially those made by MENTORN for the BBC.
The BBC is one of our greatest public institutions yet it is being destroyed from within by appallingly bad management who arrogantly dismiss blatant bias, bordering on corruption, with excuses as seen above. The irony is that it is the Labour Party who want to support and preserve it, whilst the Tories want to hand it over to their mates.
The BBC is not only biassed against the Labour Party but because of strong Zionist influence, it is also biassed against the Palestinians. Could the two be connected one wonders? As shown by recent events, whereas ‘Sky’ and other broadcasters referred to Prince William’s visit to the “OCCUPIED Palestinian territories”, the BBC just mentioned “Palestinian territories”.
Whenever mention is made on the BBC of settlements on Palestinian land being illegal, the BBC always adds the caveat “although Israel disputes this” whereas they very rarely add this excuse to comments about other forms of illegal activity.
When Ilan Ziv, an Israeli documentary film maker made an archeological documentary about Jerusalem for BBC4, the BBC shelved it because ‘it did not fit in with the tone of the season’ – whatever that means.
According to The Guardian, Ziv claimed an unnamed freelance hired by the BBC to reversion the film had called it “propaganda” and another had claimed it would “prop up the myth of exile ‘which we all know did not happen'”.
Does OFCOM just lack the teeth to do its job or is it complicit?
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/53287/ofcom_broadcast_code_july_2015.pdf
5.9 Presenters and reporters (with the exception of news presenters and reporters in news programmes), presenters of “personal view” or “authored” programmes or items, and chairs of discussion programmes may express their own views on matters of political or industrial controversy or matters relating to current public policy. However, alternative viewpoints must be adequately represented either in the programme, or in a series of programmes taken as a whole. Additionally, presenters must not use the advantage of regular appearances to promote their views in a way that compromises the requirement for due impartiality. Presenter phone-ins must encourage and must not exclude alternative views.
I have always recognised the bias in the BBC, to pretend that they are and have been impartial is a myth.
I believe that the BBC has damaged our democracy, remembering the part played by Robin Day and Sue Lawley who were openly hostile and even shouted down people on the left of the Labour Party. Tories were allowed to filibuster to their hearts content whilst Labour were constantly interrupted and old stored facts brought out to embarrass Labour Politicians. Some of us were well aware of this bias because we took a keen interest in the content of the debate, knowing this when we went out campaigning for Labour we produced our own information, from factual sources and the media itself and disseminated it before the elections so that it showed up the contradictions and to counter the lies and distortion, today we thankfully have social media. The only downside is that it has intensified the bias as well.
We need a public broadcasting organisation, but it has to be democratically accountable, we don’t need a board of governers appointed by the government, but elected journalists who’s credentials are beyond reproach. We also need a total clear out of the fake journalists that call themselves presenters. They all have to go, whether that also means some might be better but trapped in the corrupt system that currently exists.
Excellent points, especially about how the BBC is overseen.
The point they always make about getting attacked from both sides therefore they must be o.k. is facile and an insult to the public.
I wouldn’t say BBC is strictly pro right myself. It is socially liberal.
For me BBC is pro establishment/’ruling/Rentier class’ and pro British and western exceptionalism in social, international and economic terms.
Like ‘centrists’ it is a merger of neoliberal and neocon with a socially liberal twist. A modern imperial, neo-colonial view of the world. The public at home and in countries that do not toe the line must be persuaded, by all means possible, that the British and western ‘ruling classes’ are ‘looking after’ their best interests is for me the BBCs mission.
Partially accurate, but studies – even the BBC’s own – have shown that it swings far more behind Tory govts than it does Labour ones
Maria: “I wouldn’t say BBC is strictly pro right myself”
I hope you don’t mind me saying, you appear to have ignored all the evidence.
I haven’t ignored the evidence and qualified my statement in my comment. I don’t mind if you disagree.
We need to take into account that the tories are in power now. The BBC, therefore, is dependant on the government for funding. This is probably why the BBC is anti-Corbyn.
It’s likely to contribute, but research has shown that the BBC swings far more behind the Tories in govt than it does behind Labour in govt
“the bbc is left wing” brigade can stfu. Socially liberal maybe but economically right wing.
Hi The statement at the end describing the programme’s policy needs to stay there slightly longer, we could not read it that fast. Thanks
Thanks, will bear it in mind – but maybe pause the video?
The BBC, like the MSM generally, see the “centralists” as being left. That’s why they don’t consider themselves biased against Labour.