Criticism of the BBC

Criticism of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) refers to either disagreement with the BBC or evaluation, interpretation and analysis of the BBC; positive or negative.

Criticism for alleged biases have come from the British government of the day, as well as from other political groups and various media outlets.

The Hutton Inquiry

The BBC was criticised for the way in which it reported on allegations that the British government's case for war in Iraq had been "sexed-up". This last event drew severe criticism from the Hutton Inquiry, although much of the British press disputed its findings and branded it as a government whitewash.

Following the inquiry, the BBC's chairman and director general both resigned, and its vice-chairman Lord Ryder made a public apology to the government - which Norman Baker MP described as 'of such capitulation that I wanted to throw up when I heard it'.

Allegations of bias

Political Correctness

On Friday 22 September 2006 the BBC's Board of Governors held an impartiality seminar which was streamed live on the internet. The previous day the then Chairman of the Governors, Michael Grade, explained the thinking behind the seminar in an article in The Guardian newspaper. He also announced in the same article a live stream of the seminar would be available on the BBC Governor's website. The stream was only available live and was not publicised on the main BBC or BBC News websites, causing some media reports, including in The Mail on Sunday, to mistakenly claim that it was "secret". The full transcript of the seminar was released in June 2007.

In the seminar there was a hypothetical discussion including senior BBC executives about what they would allow controversial Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen to throw into a dustbin on the satirical television show Room 101. It was imagined that Baron Cohen would wish to throw into Room 101 kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Qur'an, and the Bible. There was also a hypothetical discussion about whether a Muslim BBC newsreader should be allowed to wear a headscarf.

In the seminar former BBC business editor Jeff Randall claimed that he was told by a senior news executive in the organisation that "The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it." Political correspondent Andrew Marr said that "The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias". These comments were reported in the UK national press a couple of weeks later. At the seminar Helen Boaden (Director of BBC News) said that the BBC must be impartial on the issue of multiculturalism.

The Mail on Sunday (which was not present at the seminar) claimed that a senior executive at the seminar admitted "There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it".

Helen Boaden responded to press criticism of the seminar in a post on the BBC's Editors' Blog. Peter Horrocks (Head of Television News) also blogged about the question of what was suitable attire for newsreaders in another post on the Editors Blog.

Mark Thompson (Director General of the BBC) responded to press criticism in an article in the Daily Mail as did Mark Byford (Director, Journalism) in an interview in The Sunday Telegraph.

Racism

The BBC has also been accused of racism. In a speech to the Royal Television Society, Lenny Henry said that ethnic minorities were "pitifully underserved". Jimmy McGovern in his speech to the RTS called the BBC the most racist institution in Britain. The BBC is striving for 12.5% of its staff to be from a black and minority ethnic background. This over 4 percent higher than the current percentage of ethnic minorities in the UK. However, it has been argued that much of its ethnic minority staff are cleaners, security guards and other menial labour, rather than as presenters and programme makers.

"Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century"

A report commissioned by the BBC Trust, Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century, published in June 2007, stressed that the BBC needed to take more care in being impartial. It said the BBC broke its own guidelines by screening an episode of The Vicar of Dibley which promoted the Make Poverty History campaign.. A full transcript of the impartiality seminar is included as an appendix to the report.

The Evening Standard claimed that the report showed the BBC "is out of touch with large swathes of the public and is guilty of self-censoring subjects that the corporation finds unpalatable".

Alleged Anti-Israel Bias

In the course of their "Documentary Campaign 2000-2004," Trevor Asserson, Cassie Williams and Lee Kern of BBCWatch published a series of reports The BBC And The Middle East stating in their opinion that "the BBC consistently fails to adhere to its legal obligations to produce impartial and accurate reporting."

Douglas Davis, the London correspondent of The Jerusalem Post, has accused the BBC of being anti-Israel and even antisemitic. He wrote that the BBC's coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict is "a relentless, one-dimensional portrayal of Israel as a demonic, criminal state and Israelis as brutal oppressors [which] bears all the hallmarks of a concerted campaign of vilification that, wittingly or not, has the effect of de-legitimising the Jewish state and pumping oxygen into a dark old European hatred that dared not speak its name for the past half-century." "Anglicans for Israel", the pro-Israel pressure group, have berated the BBC for apparent anti-Israel bias.

An independent panel was set up in 2006 to review the impartiality of the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The panel's assessment was that "apart from individual lapses, there was little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias." While noting a "commitment to be fair accurate and impartial" and praising much of the BBC's coverage the independent panel concluded "that BBC output does not consistently give a full and fair account of the conflict. In some ways the picture is incomplete and, in that sense, misleading."

Reflecting concerns from all sides of the conflict the panel highlighted some identifiable shortcomings and made four recommendations.

Writing in the Financial Times, Philip Stephens, one of the panellists, later accused the BBC's director-general, Mark Thompson, of misrepresenting the panel's conclusions. He further opined "My sense is that BBC news reporting has also lost a once iron-clad commitment to objectivity and a necessary respect for the democratic process. If I am right, the BBC, too, is lost." Mark Thompson published a rebuttal in the FT the next day.

On 24 May 2007 Professor Steven Weinberg, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physics cancelled a speech at Imperial College London due to the National Union of Journalists call for a boycott of Israeli products. Weinberg told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "I see in the British press and the BBC signs of a very strong anti-Israel bias - a kind of blind hostility that whatever Israel does, it is always in the wrong - so this is not an isolated action of a small group of anti-Semitic conspirators."

The Daily Telegraph criticized BBC for its coverage of the Middle East, writing: "In its international and domestic news reporting, the corporation has consistently come across as naïve and partial, rather than sensitive and unbiased. Its reporting of Israel and Palestine, in particular, tends to underplay the hate-filled Islamist ideology that inspires Hamas and other factions, while never giving Israel the benefit of the doubt."

In 2008 the BBC was accused by the pro-Israel pressure group CAMERA of falsifying reports related to the aftermath of the Mercaz HaRav massacre. The BBC later apologised for incorrectly showing footage that they had said showed one of the perpetrator's houses being demolished.

Israel/Hezbollah conflict

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict Israeli diplomatic officials boycotted BBC news programmes, refused interviews, and excluded BBC reporters from briefings because Israeli officials believed the BBC's reporting was biased, stating "the reports we see give the impression that the BBC is working on behalf of Hizbullah instead of doing fair journalism." Francesca Unsworth, head of BBC News gathering, defended the coverage in an article in the Jewish News.

The Balen Report

Main article: The Balen Report

The BBC sought to overturn a ruling by the High Court that a member of the public has the right under the Freedom of Information Act of 2000 (FOI) to see an internal report on its Middle East coverage, known as the Balen Report. The report examines BBC radio and television broadcasts covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, was compiled in 2004 by Malcolm Balen, a senior editorial adviser.

Critics of the BBC claimed that the Balen Report includes evidence of bias against Israel in news programming. For examples, on 10 October 2006, the Daily Telegraph claimed that "The BBC has spent thousands of pounds of licence payers' money trying to block the release of a report which is believed to be highly critical of its Middle East coverage. The corporation is mounting a landmark High Court action to prevent the release of The Balen Report under the Freedom of Information Act, despite the fact that BBC reporters often use the Act to pursue their journalism. The action will increase suspicions that the report, which is believed to run to 20,000 words, includes evidence of anti-Israeli bias in news programming."

It has been alleged that the corporation paid £200,000 for this legal action. The Daily Mail called the BBC's blocking a FOI request "shameful hypocrisy" in light of the corporation's previous extensive use of FOI requests in its journalism.

On Friday 27 April 2007 The High Court rejected Mr Steven Sugar's challenge to the Information Commissioner's decision.

The BBC's press release following the High Court judgement included the following statement:

"The BBC's action in this case had nothing to do with the fact that the Balen report was about the Middle East – the same approach would have been taken whatever area of news output was covered."

Regular accusations of bias have come from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. In early 2007, an independent panel was set up by the corporation's board of governors to review its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Alleged Anti-American bias

In October 2006 Chief Radio Correspondent for BBC News since 2001 and Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to "correct" it in his reports, and that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it "no moral weight".

In April 2007 Webb presented a three part series for BBC Radio 4 called "Death To America: Anti Americanism Examined" in he which challenged a common perception of the United States as an international bully and a modern day imperial power.

American conservative news commentator Bill O'Reilly has for some time now labelled the BBC as the liberal media in the UK for its "inherent liberal culture."

John Redwood's deregulation proposals

The BBC has been criticised for the way it covered Conservative MP John Redwood's policy group's deregulation proposals. Prominent political blogger Iain Dale criticised the organisation for leading news reports with the Labour Party's response to the proposals, rather than the proposals themselves, and claimed the BBC was "doing Labour's dirty work". The BBC denied the charge.

British newspaper The Sun also alleged the BBC reports showed bias, criticising the organisation for including embarrassing footage of John Redwood badly singing the Welsh national anthem from the early 1990s. The paper argued that the coverage "was a mockery of impartial journalism" and "could have been scripted by Labour ministers". The BBC later apologised, but denied showing bias.

The Secret Agent Documentary

On Thursday 15 July 2004 the BBC broadcast a documentary on the far right British National Party where an undercover reporter by the name of Jason Gwynne infiltrated the BNP by posing as a football hooligan. The programme resulted in Mark Collett and Nick Griffin, the leader of the party, being charged for inciting racial hatred in April 2005, for statements which included Griffin describing Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith," Collett describing asylum seekers as "a little bit like cockroaches" and saying "let's show these ethnics the door in 2004." Griffin and Collett were found not guilty on some charges at the first trial in January 2006, but the jury failed to reach a verdict on the others, so a retrial was ordered. At the retrial held in November 2006 all of the defendants were found not guilty on the basis that the law at the time did not consider those who follow Islam or Christianity to be a protected group with respect to racial defamation laws. Shortly after this case, British law was amended to outlaw incitement to hatred against a religious group (see Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006).

The BNP believe this was an attempt to "Discredit the British National Party as a party of opposition to the Labour government."

After the second trial, Nick Griffin described the BBC as a "Politically correct, politically biased organisation which has wasted licence-fee payers' money to bring two people in a legal, democratic, peaceful party to court over speaking nothing more than the truth."

Barbara Plett's tears

In a report of 30 October 2004, BBC reporter Barbara Plett described herself crying when a frail Yasser Arafat was evacuated to France for medical treatment, which led to "hundreds of complaints" to the BBC. Ultimately these complaints were partially upheld by the BBC Governors' Programme Complaints Committee.

Jerry Springer: The Opera

In January 2005, the BBC aired the Jerry Springer: The Opera, ultimately resulting in around 55,000 complaints to the BBC from those upset at the opera's alleged blasphemies against the Christian religion. In advance of the broadcast, which the BBC had warned "contains language and content which won't be to some tastes" mediawatch-uk's director John Beyer wrote to the Director General urging the BBC to drop the programme, saying "Licence fee payers do not expect the BBC to be pushing back boundaries of taste and decency in this way." The BBC issued a statement saying: "As a public service broadcaster, it is the BBC's role to broadcast a range of programmes that will appeal to all audiences - with very differing tastes and interests - present in the UK today." Before the broadcast, some 150 people bearing placards protested outside the BBC Television Centre in Shepherd's Bush On the Monday following the broadcast, which was watched by some two million viewers, The Times announced that BBC executives had received death threats after their addresses and telephone numbers were posted on the Christian Voice website. The Corporation had received some 35,000 complaints before the broadcast, but reported only 350 calls following the broadcast, which were split between those praising the production and those complaining about it.

One Christian group attempted to bring private criminal prosecutions for Blasphemy against the BBC, and another demanded a judicial review of the decision.

In March, 2005, the BBC's Board of Governors convened and considered the complaints, which they rejected by a majority of 4 to 1. The subsequent refusal of the BBC to reproduce the actual Muhammad cartoons in its coverage of the controversy concerning them convinced many that the BBC follows an unstated policy of freely broadcasting defamation of Christianity which it would not allow in the case of any other religion. NewsWatch: Finding the right balance, BBC 3 February 2006 NewsWatch: BBC's dilemma over cartoons, BBC 3 February 2006 Muslim jokes 'scare' BBC - Elton, BBC 2 April 2008

Editing of Wikipedia

In August 2007, searches on Wikipedia Scanner revealed that many edits to Wikipedia had been made from IP addresses assigned to the BBC, including one vandalising the article on US President George W. Bush by changing his middle name from "Walker" to "Wanker". The BBC ran a story about edits made by the Central Intelligence Agency, which also mentioned edits from the networks of the US Democratic Party and the Vatican, but not those of the BBC. The organisation was criticized as hypocritical by its own readers, as well as other journalists for not including its own edits in the story. The BBC defended its story by arguing it was about the CIA, and not whitewashing in general. A note was later added at the end of the article acknowledging that BBC computers had been used to edit Wikipedia, but not mentioning the content of the controversial edits.There is no evidence that the edits were part of an official policy of the BBC, but resulted from the use of its computers by disaffected staff or others.

Climate change

The BBC has been criticised for bias in its coverage of the global warming debate. Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman argues that the corporation's correspondents "travel the globe to tell the audience of the dangers of climate change while leaving a vapour trail which will make the problem even worse", and "the BBC's coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago".

At the 2007 Edinburgh Television Festival Peter Horrocks (Head of TV News) and Peter Barron (Editor, Newsnight), said that the BBC should not campaign on the issue of climate change. They criticised proposed plans for a BBC Comic Relief style day of programmes around climate change. Mr Horrocks was quoted as saying: "I absolutely don't think we should do that because it's not impartial. It's not our job to lead people and proselytise about it."

Peter Barron was quoted as adding: "It is absolutely not the BBC's job to save the planet. I think there are a lot of people who think that, but it must be stopped."

Peter Horrocks later outlined the BBC's position on the BBC Editors Blog ("No Line").

The plans for a day of programmes about environmental issues were abandoned in September 2007. A BBC spokesperson said this was "absolutely not" because of concerns about impartiality.

Cleaning up of "moral standards"

The National Viewers' and Listeners' Association was formed in 1965 by Mary Whitehouse to "clean up" the BBC, claiming that it "was responsible for the moral collapse in the country". The late Mary Whitehouse's line was pursued by her and her supporters for many years to no very great effect.

'London-centrism'

On 1 November 2007 it was reported that Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, criticised the BBC as too London-centric, paying less attention to news stories outside of the capital.

Funding

Main article: Television licensing in the United Kingdom

The fact that the BBC's domestic services are funded by television licence fees is criticised by its competitors and others on a number of grounds.

BBC Russia

On 17-8-2007 it was reported that FM broadcast of the BBC's Russian language service in Russia would be dropped, leaving only medium and short wave broadcasts in Russia. Financial organisation Finam, which owns the FM radio service now dropping the BBC Russia broadcasts, through its spokesman Igor Ermachenkov, said that "Any media which is government-financed is propaganda - it's a fact, it's not negative". A spokesman, for the BBC responded: "Although the BBC is funded by the UK government... a fundamental principle of its constitution and its regulatory regime is that it is editorially independent of the UK government." Reports put the development in the context of criticism of the Russian government for curbing media freedom and strained UK-Russian relations. Reporters Without Borders condemned the move as censorship.

Wales and Scotland coverage controversy

In August 2007 Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price highlighted what he perceived as a lack of a Welsh focus on BBC news broadcasts. Price threatened to withhold future television licence fees in response to a lack of thorough news coverage of Wales, echoing a BBC Audience Council for Wales July report citing public frustration over how the Welsh Assembly is characterized in national media. Plaid AM Bethan Jenkins agreed with Price and called for responsibility for broadcasting to be devolved to the Welsh Assembly, voicing similar calls from Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond. Criticism of the BBC's news coverage for Wales and Scotland since devolution prompted debate of possibly providing evening news broadcasts with specific focus for both countries.

Historic

Criticism of the policy of impartiality and objectivity are made by observers such as John Pilger who contextualises the actual implementation of policy against the literal meaning, he states:

The BBC began in 1922, just before the corporate press began in America. Its founder was Lord John Reith, who believed that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism. In the same year the British establishment was under siege. The unions had called a general strike and the Tories were terrified that a revolution was on the way. The new BBC came to their rescue. In high secrecy, Lord Reith wrote anti-union speeches for the Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and broadcast them to the nation, while refusing to allow the labor leaders to put their side until the strike was over. So, a pattern was set. Impartiality was a principle certainly: a principle to be suspended whenever the establishment was under threat. And that principle has been upheld ever since.

See also

• BBC controversies
• Media Balance
• Media Lens