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BBC Staff: Yes, We Are Biased
"Impartiality summit" reveals deep bias among stars and executives
A leaked account of a high-level summit on the BBC's impartiality shows that the broadcaster's top professionals allow their left-leaning sympathies to govern the Beeb's output.
According to the Daily Mail, which jumped on the leaked report with understandable glee, BBC staff:
- Would allow a Bible to be chucked in a bin on a comedy show, but never the Koran
- Promote an anti-American agenda
- Are dedicated to the promotion of multiculturalism
Furthermore, it was reported that the BBC's "diversity tsar" Mary Fitzpatrick is keen on allowing veiled women to read the news.
There is an admission among senior staff that the BBC's staff have allowed their personal agendas to dominate the broadcaster's output. Speaking after the summit, one insider said "There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness."
Political commentator and former political editor Andrew Marr added, "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."
This might be the first leak of internal soul-searching in the BBC following criticism of its biases, but individual journalists and producers have spoken about the prejudices of their colleagues in the past. Rod Liddle has written on the BBC's pro-EU bias, while recently former BBC business editor Jeff Randall reported on how he was instructed to remove his Union Jack cufflinks before appearing on air, as they were deemed to be too close to something a National Front supporter would wear.
Randall's response was colourful and not suitable for publication on a family blog.
