COMPARE AND CONTRAST....
TOMMYROT
It seems from the Daily Mail today that Mark Thompson - perhaps stung byJeremy Hunt's comments earlier in the week - is accepting that the BBC may have been a tad biased in its past coverage of the EU and immigration. Of course, everything is perfect now, and he even has the temerity to claim that the corporation has played a role in making immigration policy tougher. Over the six years that Mr Thompson has been director general of the BBC, I have been indirectly involved in a succession of very detailed reports that have chronicled in depth a sustained BBC bias in the coverage of (among other things)immigration and EU affairs. So I know a little bit about the background of his latest utterances. Each of these reports examined on a systematic, academic basis the ouput of hundreds of BBC news programmes (focusing esepcially on Today and other main news titles)and they have shown that: ***With the EU, there has been deliberate under-representation of those who oppose the EU project (so-called sceptics and withdrawalists)and an equally systematic ridiculing of those "sceptics" as being the equivalent of flat-earthers or BNP supporters. At the same time, there has been a massive under-reporting of the negative side of the EU, for example its budgetary waste and corruption, it's manic drive to create new laws in every spehere of our lives, and its ecoloonery. ***With immigration, those who opposed unlimited immigration in line with new Labour zeal were regularly portrayed as BNP, foaming-in-the-mouth, right-wing nutcases. Their reasoned arguments for control of numbers were seriously under-reported, distorted or ignored. Dozens of detailed examples of this were provided. Over the years, the BBC's reponse to almost every one of these reports has been to stick its collective fingers in its ears, blow a massive raspberry and ignore the findings. Those who compiled the reports were called (usually behind their backs, but sometimes to their faces) right-wing zealots, incompetent bigots, anal retentive idiots, and on one occasion, one was the subject of an outright slanderous lie told in the Houses of Parliament by a senior BBC editorial figure. In short, the BBC mostly ignored the findings. On one occasion, this did not happen. Michael Grade, when he was chairman of the BBC, got riled about the sustained criticism about EU coverage and he ordered a full inquiry. This was carried out by Lord Wilson of Dinton, the former cabinet secretary, and it was damning. It found systematic bias by ommission and warned that the corporation must ensure that all sides in the EU debate must be properly aired and treated with due respect. The response was predictable window-dressing; Mark Mardell was appointed EU editor (and promptly went native), but nothing changed. Exactly the same EU bias has remained to the present day. Mr Thompson's remarks yesterday therefore, have to be taken with a massive pinch of salt. Pressure is clearly being exerted from some quarter or another (Hunt's lot?), and the director general is leading with his chin (to a very small extent) with the aim of batting the real issues involved well and truly into the long grass. Any idea that the BBC has any conception of the rotten, stinking morrass of bias in which it is mired, is easily dispelled by deputy DG Mark Byford's latest interview with Ray Snoddy this morning on the ludicrously-mistitled Newswatch. Mr Byford tells us (with a very straight face)that every one of his BBC news staff works to his or her utmost in pursuit of "impartiality". What utter tommyrot.
Posts
