Can We Trust the BBC?

At first I thought that this was a book written by a disgruntled ex-employee who wanted a platform to have a `pop' at their old employer. Reading further it became obvious to me that this was defiantly not the case at all. I found the style and pace of the book to be really quite pleasant, the use of and relevance of referenced examples was excellent.

As a result I am paying more attention to how the BBC's news articles / programmes are introduced, who they are presented by, and ultimately if I notice bias. (which I do far too often). Don't get me wrong, I love the BBC, I love the fact that it is free from direct advertising, that it is recognised around the world as a quality assurance mark. What I did not know was quite how much responsibility the BBC has for some of our nations staunches politically correct attitudes, which can, and often do fly in the face of good old common sense.

This book alludes to the wider national problem of `leftist' attitudes and behaviour being subtly served at breakfast, lunch, and dinnertime for national consumption. There are a few other books that explore this potential blindsiding of the public by the "lib-leftist", namely `What's Left?" Nick Cohen, "Londonistan" M. Phillips, and "While Europe Slept" Bruce Bawer.

On the off chance the above portrays a right wing or general anti-left stand point, at the last General Election I voted for `Iraq Not In My Name' party (Shipley West). I like to think my political allegiance is to common sense!!.

Excellent (9/9 people found this helpful)

This is a short book, but very succinct in describing how the BBC has tended towards a single worldview, and how that view can lead the public rather than follow it.

There is much evidence of bias, for example the comparison of the BBC's headlining of Tory ministers' and MPs' affairs with the equivalent of inside pages for Robin Cook leaving his wife, followed by an account of the Governors' rejection of the author's complaints of bias, apparently accepting but not publishing BBC executives' arguments that there was no bias.

The subtle psychology of the suppression of dissent within the corporation is interestingly put, not that it can be particularly obscure that in a large organisation, those with dissenting opinions have to be careful (I suppose the important distinction is that this organisation's business is news, fact, opinion, etc., so such suppression would be worse than for others.)

A chapter with anonymous remarks from BBC journalists backs up these discussions. Of course you have to decide whether the anonymity means the remarks are merely disgruntled, or really because their owners don't dare articulate them.

There is an excellent chapter, remarked on by another reviewer, about the Panorama about the Phillipines and the Catholic church -"Sex and the Holy City", which seems to be an extreme example of bias, running to outright invention, and the author's conservative argument against this is fantastic. You can still see a large "Your Comments" page about this on the BBC's website, showing how appalled many viewers were with the church. What's interesting about that page is that the viewers would probably not have felt so strongly had they read an equivalent report in the press, because the Guardian (or the Daily Mail for that matter) do not promise balance and impartiality. In other words viewers trust the BBC and listen and watch uncritically.

Which was to me the main point to come out - I would love to watch different, openly biased programmes and channels, the way I can read the Guardian and Daily Telegraph.

Another book on the subject very well worth reading, is "Scrap the BBC!" by Richard D North.

Institutional BBC Bias (10/11 people found this helpful)

A brilliant read which gives chapter and verse (and more) to what many licence payers feared. Proof that the BBC has been undermined from within and should have been privatised with the other nationalised industries - and still should be. Pro EU, anti British attitudes are illustrated time and time again. I agree with the reviewer who thinks a copy should be given with every licence which supports the 30,000 people employed by this frightening propaganda machine.

Yes (8/38 people found this helpful)

A book of bias, written for the biased, who for some reason think it would be better to pay four times the cost of the license fee to get TV full of adverts, movies and American style trashy news. Of course the BBC isn't perfect, nothing is, but for a couple of quid a week, the license fee is one of the best bargains you can get. Don't forget, the BBC is not just TV, it's national and local radio, the World Service which is the trusted source of news all round the world including the Middle East, and of course the proms, orchestras, support for the arts and charities etc etc... You should be proud of it. Oh, and I note Robin Aitken was on R4 just the other week talking about Gordon Brown's imminent Premiership. He seemed to be enjoying it.

obvious (8/26 people found this helpful)

If you're a person who has any capacity for independent critical thought you won't find anything in this book you haven't worked out for yourself. After expecting an insightful and intellectually challenging expose of media bias, I'm quite annoyed to find I now own a book aimed more at the level of readers of the Daily Mail. The only things going for this book are its readability and the fact that's its short, so you can virtually skim read it in about two hours. If you need to have it spelled for you out that the bbc has a left-wing bias to its news coverage or that it handled the David Kelly affair badly, maybe this is for you. Otherwise, don't bother.

Robin Aitken

Reader Reviews:

I now watch the BBC News 24 with much more `salt' than I ever did before. (9/10 people found this helpful)

Excellent (9/9 people found this helpful)

Institutional BBC Bias (10/11 people found this helpful)

Yes (8/38 people found this helpful)

obvious (8/26 people found this helpful)

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