Shortly after the election, on the day that
John Whittingdale was appointed as the minister with responsibility for the
BBC, a Telegraph leader quoted a Downing Street source as saying Whittingdale
would “sort out” the BBC. We are beginning
to see what that might mean.
The BBC has powerful enemies and chief among
them are the press barons. For decades now the newspapers they control and
their political ally the Tory Party have kept up a constant attack on the BBC, alleging
that it is a giant left-wing conspiracy. As any advertiser, PR professional or,
indeed, totalitarian government knows, if you repeat something enough times, people
will come to believe it and ignore the evidence to the contrary.
The evidence shows that the BBC is biased
towards the right.
The only substantial academic research into
BBC bias in the last decade or so was that published by Cardiff University in
2013. Its conclusion was clear – “The BBC
tends to reproduce a Conservative, pro-business version of the world, not a
left-wing, anti-business agenda.”
Robert Peston, the BBC’s Economics editor said
last year that BBC News is “completely
obsessed” by the agenda set by newspapers and too often follows the lead of
the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph – this means, of course, following a Tory
agenda.
A significant amount of prime BBC airtime is
given over to “what the papers say” and to the views of Fleet Street journalists.
At the election, over 71% of national newspapers (measured by readership)
supported Tories or UKIP. Only the Guardian and Mirror supported Labour.
In the election campaign itself, the BBC
favoured the Tories in a number of ways including
·
Excessive coverage of “threat” of a Labour-SNP
deal. This was to the exasperated fury of Labour and the Lib Dems because this
was precisely the issue that the Tories wanted the BBC to concentrate on.
·
Insufficient analysis of Tory claims such as that
Labour over-spending caused 2008 Crash or that last-minute Tory billion pound
spending pledges were properly costed
·
Failure to press and highlight the fact that
Tories £12 billion promised welfare cuts were completely unspecified
The BBC’s pro-Tory bias is part of a wider
bias, which might best be called Establishment bias. Examples of this would include
·
How little coverage there is of issues of
importance to the 13 million people living in poverty in UK
·
Lack of coverage of the highly significant issues
arising out of the Snowden revelations
·
Scant coverage of tax-dodging by the super-rich
and multinationals. (Consider the respect the BBC gives to Taxpayers Alliance
compared to UKUncut or Occupy)
·
Absurdly sycophantic coverage of the Royals
There are, I think, a number of possible
explanations for the BBC’s right wing bias.
Whereas many BBC employees may consider
themselves on the liberal left, many of those in senior positions in the BBC
are Tories. However, it is probably wrong to put too much stress on this as a cause
of bias; hopefully, these people do their professional best to put aside their
own personal political views.
More significant, I believe, is the
unconscious bias that exists at the BBC due to the fact that the relevant
people are in the main drawn from the same narrow slice of society –
middle-aged, middle-class, well-off and often privately educated and/or
Oxbridge or Russell Group university. Whereas the top rate of tax or the threat
of a Mansion Tax are of personal
interest to this group, the pressing issues facing the millions in poverty are
not.
More significant still, in my view, is the
frankly depressing way in which the BBC follows the agenda set by Fleet Street.
I have quoted Robert Peston on this above. It is, in fact, easy to observe this
happening almost every day. Jim Messina, the Tory’s US election guru has
commented on how much it is the papers who set the political agenda in the UK.
Too often the BBC seems to think that the
front pages of the newspapers reflect public opinion whereas often, on the
contrary, the papers are trying to shape
public opinion.
Douglas Beattie, a former BBC journalist, has
written – “Senior editors plough their
way through bundles of the day’s papers before ever committing themselves to
covering a story and often end up reflecting what has already been printed, not
only in the Mail, but the Times, Sun and Telegraph too.”
There also seems to be an element of what looks like a kind of bullying taking place. The press excoriates the BBC if it
dares to stray too far from what they consider an acceptable agenda.
Finally, there is the possibility that the BBC
is biased towards the Tories in order to try and appease them and so stave off
a threat from them. It is true that the Tories pose a real threat to BBC’s
continuing existence in anything like its current form, whereas Labour do not.
The Guardian has reported – “Senior Tories piled pressure on the BBC,
during the election campaign by commenting on its coverage and on its future as
it approaches negotiations over its next charter.”
A number of Labour sources have alleged that
the Tories threatened the BBC with dire consequences during the election
campaign. Nick Robinson reported that David Cameron threatened to close the BBC
down after the election. He said he was unsure whether it was a joke or a
threat but says it was “yet another bit
of pressure” on the BBC. He said that it was interpreted by BBC staff as a
veiled threat. Cameron was essentially saying “don’t forget who’s boss here.”
Over the decades the BBC’s independence and
integrity have been challenged many times and most notably by the sacking of
Alasdair Milne, the Hutton Report, the bruising 2010 settlement and now the
events since the election in May.
The Tories and the press will find may sticks
to beat the BBC with. The BBC should not allow the allegation of left wing bias
to be one of them. It is not true.
This is not to say that the BBC’s right wing
bias is acceptable. It is absolutely not.
