Posted on 05/17/2005 1:01:10 PM PDT by quidnunc
Fairness, impartiality and objectivity are the essence of public service broadcast journalism. This understanding is enshrined in the BBC’s charter and provides a key justification for the licence fee.
Now, however, an explosive insider’s account threatens to blow this cosy assumption clean out of the water as a fraud upon the public. Robin Aitken, who spent his entire career as a BBC journalist, has written a book accusing the BBC of institutionalised leftism.
This is by no means the first time such an accusation has been levelled, but generally such critics have been dismissed as parti-pris. This is why Aitken’s book, ‘Taking Sides: Bias at the BBC’, is so significant.
For 25 years he chalked up solid experience across the board as a BBC reporter, covering some of the biggest stories of the day. In other words, he is BBC man through and through. So when someone like this lifts the lid on newsroom culture, it carries weight. And his message is that BBC journalism is as bent as a corkscrew.
-snip-
With a few honourable exceptions, the BBC views every issue through the prism of left-wing, secular, anti-western thinking. It is the Guardian of the air. It has a knee-jerk antipathy to America, the free market, big business, religion, British institutions, the Conservative party and Israel; it supports the human rights culture, the Palestinians, Irish republicanism, European integration, multiculturalism and a liberal attitude towards drugs and a host of social issues.
Every day, its relentless bias rolls across the airwaves to shape the assumptions of our society. Who can be surprised at Britain’s current anti-Americanism when the BBC starts from the premise that President Bush is a dangerous extremist?
Thus it describes Republicans opposed to his controversial UN nominee John Bolton as ‘moderate’. On News 24 the other night, after scenes of ecstatic Georgians praising President Bush for supporting their quest for freedom, the presenter declared that America was interested in Georgia only in order to grab its oil.
Who can be surprised at Britain’s visceral hatred of Israel when, having all but ignored such atrocities as the two decades of genocide in southern Sudan or the systematic Muslim persecution of Christians worldwide, the BBC obsessively transmits a twisted view of the Arab war against the Jewish state which presents genocidal Hamas terrorists as heroic freedom fighters and Israeli attempts at self-defence as unwarranted aggression?
-snip-
In 25 years as a BBC correspondent, Robin Aitken covered terrorism in Northern Ireland, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the Monica Lewinsky scandal; he was also a specialist economics correspondent of the Today programme during the Iraq crisis.
He is a famously dogged television and radio reporter — yet for many years, he kept quiet about a story he did not know how to break. “I considered leaking it to newspapers, but I would have felt like a traitor,” he says. The story involved political and cultural bias. “There is a centre-Left consensus within the BBC which colours its entire output and undermines its solemn pact with the public to present the news impartially,” says Aitken.
Only now having taken a redundancy package from the BBC, is he ready to make his case publicly. He has written a book provisionally entitled Taking Sides: Bias at the BBC, that he says will provide detailed examples of distorted coverage. It will be the first expose of bias by an ex-BBC man.
-snip-
Why did BBC journalists feel so strongly about Iraq? “They cannot bear President Bush because he’s a Republican and an evangelical Christian. The sight of a Labour Prime Minister going into battle alongside such a man was more than many BBC people could stomach.”
Dislike of Republicans is close to being a BBC article of faith, say Aitken. “I remember being in the Washington office during the Lewinsky affair and saying that I rather sympathised with the Republicans. I think it would have gone down better if I’d confessed to being a paedophile.”
-snip-
Aitken believes that the BBC is the most powerful cultural force in the country — and, therefore, that its bias has a profound and sometime malign effect on public life.
-snip-
(Damien Thompson in The Telegraph, May 14, 2005)
To Read This Article Click Here
Biased media? I'm shocked at the suggestion sir! Shocked!
I've watched the BBC World News for fifteen years now, and all I can say is that I'm glad someone with credibility from within is bringing this to light.
All you have to do is listen to BBC or read the transcripts, and it's crystal clear that they are congenital leftists, admirers of terrorism, and viciously antisemitic.
This is Hugh! Bias at the Beeb...I'm stuned!!!!
Seriesly.
Yeah, like this is going to wake them up. The problem is leftist already know exactly what the BBC is, but in their warped vision of the world, whacky leftist ideas represent the truth and everyone who disagrees is just ignorant.
"There is a centre-Left consensus within the BBC"
There is a centre-left consensus in the country, so it would hardly be a great suprise to find that reflected in the staff of any employer. I've yet to be convinced that any of the rabid anti-BBC crowd actually desire 'unbiased' reporting, if such a thing were even possible, which it clearly isn't. My view, as I've stated before is that the BBC does a pretty good job in the main of allowing all viewpoints to be expressed.
This book looks like it might be an interesting read though. I'll keep an open mind, doubt that some others will...
Tell Aitken not to worry, a time will come when the Englishman stops trusting the MSM and starts thinking for himself, just as has happened to the common man here, in the states. (This will never happen in Canada, though.)
BBCWorldNews is moderate compared to BBC News for the home audience
they tame it a bit for the international audience
at least the Beebs has Tim Sebastien, wonder what his take is, the Hardtalk guy, Matthews don't know Hardball, he needs to take notes from Tim Sebastien of BBC Hardtalk, he's a true pitbull
Your thoughts?
Imcompetence! During the Gulf War the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment (at most 800 Marines) tore up three brigades of the Iraqi army including an armored regiment. Thats about 25 to one odds.
Their daughters couldn't do any worse.
bump
My goodness, man, are you a masochist?
My thoughts are this are the same as when this kind of nonsense has been posted before. It's no more fair to take the BBC as an example of British opinion as it is to take the Alphabet networks as an example of American opinion.
Our dear friend quidnunc is an anti-British bigot and will do anything to make Americans think more badly of Britain.
Regards, Ivan
I only think "more badly" of Brits who defend the BBC.
Their bias is indefensible, and the fact that the US "alphabet" media is biased does not exculpate the BBC. As the article points out the BBC has worldwide credibility and thus is quite dangerous. It has a lot of viewers in the Arab and Muslim world, many more than Newsweek for instance.
If you were paying attention you would notice that their is no dearth of criticism on FR of the US MSM. Why do you hold the BBC to be immune?
Now unless you have something to say on topic of the thread, instead of making the poster your topic, as is your pattern, I suggest you get off the thread.
When a thread is posted on the quidnunc topic I'll be sure to ping you.
When and where did I defend the BBC? I have never done so - I've said they're full of left wing idiots. What I'm pointing out is as follows - it's thoroughly wrong to take the BBC as an indictment of an entire country. I would be completely wrong if I took what ABC / CBS / NBC as much of an example of what America thinks. You are just as wrong by deliberately misconstruing what the BBC says and does as an example of what Britain thinks. In that respect, America and Britain are the same - there is a leftist media elite. But I don't see you calling your country all sorts of ridiculous things as a result.
As the article points out the BBC has worldwide credibility and thus is quite dangerous.
No more than CNN International. You ever seen that?
As for your comment about viewers in the Arab world, I don't take that seriously, particularly when they have Al Jazeera, and CNN Arabic (the last time I checked). Put up numbers (and believe me, it had better be a credible source) or shut up.
In any event, your post is a smear. You are lying about my opinions, and you're are persisting in defending the indefensible - deliberate, venal, anti-British bigotry.
Ivan
The BBC's power is waning. We're winning, and here we have a very popular British newspaper decrying what's left of their bias.
Mad Ivan was pinged to this thread by ELS in post # 11. He has as much right to voice his opinion here as you do. IMO, he is a top-notch conservative FReeper.
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