This week the Department for Media Culture and Sport unveiled its interim review of the BBC Charter, and to call it a “wet squib” would be to dangerously overstate it. There is nothing — absolutely nothing — in these proposals that would do anything to give people complaining about bias at the BBC any redress. Instead, the review will strengthen a convenient internal mechanism whose purpose is to protect the BBC's reputation; After this, the Corporation will be able to confidently act within its own ideological framework, without worrying about complaints.
BBC critics, like myself, have been waiting a long time for this review; it was due to be published last May. What I and others had hoped was that complaints about bias in BBC reporting would be scrutinized by an independent panel entirely outside the Corporation, which would bring a truly independent perspective to the proceedings. But what came out of DCMS was the weakest of remedies: the BBC board will now be «legally bound to oversee the complaints procedure» (whatever that means) and Ofcom will now oversee the BBC's online offerings and its social media channels.
Big deal. The BBC could hardly have wished for a better result. Once again, the Conservative government has sold the pass in a way that ensures the BBC remains true to its left-liberal worldview without having to worry about a rigid complaints procedure.
Last spring, in anticipation of the publication of the review, I wrote in these pages a detailed analysis of my own complaint about the BBC's political bias leading up to the 2019 general election. I won't repeat the details again (too tedious!), but suffice it to say that the BBC and Ofcom considered this complaint almost four years ago, eventually dismissing it on a technicality because it was made somewhat late. several days late. My complaint was based on close monitoring of the BBC's main news outlets in the lead-up to the election period. The resulting statistics clearly indicated a striking bias against Brexit (and therefore against the Tories under Boris Johnson).
There are a few important things to note about this episode. First, Ofcom stepped in and was remarkably toothless, spinelessly agreeing to the BBC's objections. The essence of my complaint was not officially considered. Secondly, I complained about systemic bias. This was not a one-off complaint — for example when someone complains about bad language (the BBC is sometimes content to rule against itself in such matters) — this was about an underlying, consistent and persistent political bias in many programmes over many years weeks The BBC said it does not accept complaints of this type; under the new rules it won’t happen anyway. If this is a step forward, then I don't understand how to do it.
I published the BBC's midterm review this morning
I agree with reforms to the BBC that will increase public confidence in its impartiality and improve the experience for viewers making complaints ⤵️ pic.twitter.com /ugrnKh5ul7
— Lucy Frazer (@lucyfrazermp) January 22, 2024
It is entirely possible — as News-Watch UK has demonstrated — to take BBC material over a period of time and subject it to proper analysis. In its simplest form, this could mean that on any given issue, you count the minutes allotted to the pro and con sides and see if each gets a fair hearing. If you do this on any number of topics — Brexit, climate change, Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump, etc. — you will find that the BBC's coverage falls far short of the 50/50 split that should be the goal of «impartiality». Instead, the Corporation always supports whatever «progressive» politics dictates. So it's anti-Brexit, pro-climate catastrophist, pro-BLM, and anti-Trump.
Does it matter? Some pundits argue that since the BBC has always been left-leaning; it is simply a fact of national life to which we have adapted. They say even if the BBC is biased, it hasn't stopped the country from voting Tory. This is true, but it misses a key point: as Dominic Cummings rightly pointed out 20 years ago, the BBC is against everything true Conservatives believe. Cummings described BBC reform as one of the important goals of any Conservative administration, and here we are coming to the end of a long period in which the Tories were in government and absolutely nothing was done to challenge the outrageous ideological injustice of the BBC.
The BBC is important because it shapes our entire political discourse. For decades, he prepared the nation to embrace its priorities, regardless of what ordinary citizens might feel or think. Our politicians have shown humiliation in the face of the BBC's disapproval and are all too eager to dance to its tune. The corporation has imposed progressive ideas on feminism, sexuality, gender, race and a host of other important topics on the country. In doing so, he clearly failed to live up to his credo of impartiality; The idea of BBC impartiality is bogus and bogus, and now another Tory administration has failed to make it a reality.
BBC Director General Tim Davie Photo: Richard Kendal/RTS
In my article last spring I wrote: “…this mid-term review is the last chance that the Tory government will have to force meaningful reform on the Corporation. The Tories have been in government for 13 years and the BBC continues to exist, completely unreformed, completely opposed to everything the Conservatives hold dear and important. What a missed opportunity it will be if the Tories end their time in power without doing anything significant to correct the long-standing scandal of political bias at our National Broadcasting Company, which so brazenly promotes the cause of the progressive left-liberal.»
I should have known. that it is better not to hope for anything big from the Tory government. As it stands, the mid-term review of the BBC Charter adds to a growing list of Tory leadership failures to do anything remotely conservative.
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