Criticism of the BBC

Historically, there has been criticism of the BBC for various policies or perceived biases since its inception and more recently over its coverage of events in the Middle East and the alleged "sexing up" of the case for war in Iraq in which the BBC was heavily criticised by the Hutton Inquiry, although the latter charge was much disputed by the British press.

Impartiality Seminar

On Friday 22nd 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. The seminar was misreported by the UK national press a few weeks later.

The Mail on Sunday 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".

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.

At the seminar Helen Boaden (Director of BBC News) said that the BBC must be impartial on the issue of multiculturalism. She responded to press criticism on the BBC's Editors Blog.

BBC News

The BBC is required by its charter to be free from both political and commercial influence and answer only to its viewers and listeners. Nevertheless, the BBC's political objectivity is sometimes questioned. For instance, The Daily Telegraph (3 Aug 2005) carried a letter from the KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky, referring to it as "The Red Service". Books have been written on the subject including anti-BBC works like Truth Betrayed by W J West and The Truth Twisters by Richard Deacon.

The BBC is regularly accused by the government of the day of bias in favour of the opposition and, by the opposition, of bias in favour of the government. Similarly, during times of war, the BBC is often accused by the UK government, or by strong supporters of British military campaigns, of being overly sympathetic to the view of the enemy. This gave rise, in 1991 during the first Gulf War, to the satirical name "Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation". Conversely, some of those who style themselves anti-establishment in the United Kingdom or who oppose foreign wars have accused the BBC of pro-establishment bias or of refusing to give an outlet to "anti-war" voices. Some have argued that a current of anti-BBC thinking exists in many parts of the political spectrum and that, since the BBC's theoretical impartiality means they will broadcast many views and opinions, people will see the bias they wish to see. This argument is buttressed by the fact that the BBC is frequently accused of bias by all opinions in a dispute.

Prominent BBC appointments are constantly assessed by the British media and political establishment for signs of political bias. The appointment of Greg Dyke as Director-General was highlighted by press sources because Dyke was a Labour Party member and former activist, as well as a friend of Tony Blair. The BBC's current Political Editor, Nick Robinson, was some years ago a chairman of the Young Conservatives and has, as a result, attracted informal criticism from the current Labour government, but his predecessor Andrew Marr faced similar claims from the right because he was editor of the liberal leaning Independent newspaper before his own appointment in 2000.

In 2003, editor Charles Moore launched a "Beebwatch" campaign to regularly analyse what the paper saw as liberal/left-leaning bias. Particular charges by the Telegraph were that the organisation was anti-American, pro-Palestinian and pro-European Union. A 2005 independent report commissioned by the organisation itself found the BBC to be suffering from an "institutional mindset" that led to "a reluctance to question pro-EU assumptions".

Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall has 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 has 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".

Despite these criticisms, many still regard the BBC as a trusted and politically neutral news source across the globe, and in some areas the BBC World Service radio is the only available free media.

Hutton Inquiry

Main article: Hutton Inquiry

BBC News was at the centre of one the largest political controversies in recent years. Three BBC News reports (Andrew Gilligan's on Today, Gavin Hewitt's on The Ten O'Clock News and another on Newsnight) quoted an anonymous source that stated the British government (particularly the Prime Minister's office) had embellished the September Dossier with misleading exaggerations of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

The Government angrily denounced the reports and accused the corporation of poor journalism. In subsequent weeks the corporation stood by the report, saying that it had a reliable source. Following intense media speculation, David Kelly was finally named in the press as the source for Gilligan's story on 9 July 2003. Kelly was found dead, by suicide, in a field close to his home early on 18 July. An inquiry led by Lord Hutton was announced by the British government the following day to investigate the circumstances leading to Kelly's death, concluding that "Dr. Kelly took his own life."

In his report on January 28 2004, Lord Hutton concluded that Gilligan's original accusation was "unfounded" and the BBC's editorial and management processes were "defective". In particular, it specifically criticised the chain of management that caused the BBC to defend its story. The BBC Director of News, Richard Sambrook, the report said, had accepted Gilligan's word that his story was accurate rather than checking Gilligan's records more thoroughly.

Davies had then told the BBC Board of Governors that he was happy with the story and told the Prime Minister that a satisfactory internal inquiry had taken place. The Board of Governors, under BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies' guidance, accepted that further investigation of the Government's complaints were unnecessary.

Due to the level of criticism of the corporation in the Hutton report, Davies resigned on the day of publication. BBC News faced an important test, reporting on itself with the publication of the report, but by common consent managed this both independently and impartially. Davies' resignation was followed by the resignation of Director General Greg Dyke the following day, and the resignation of Gilligan on January 30. While doubtless a traumatic experience for the corporation, an ICM poll in April 2003 indicated that it had sustained its position as the best and most trusted provider of news.

Israel/Palestine conflict

BBC News has often been accused of 'systematic anti-Israel bias'.

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 delegitimizing the Jewish state and pumping oxygen into a dark old European hatred that dared not speak its name for the past half-century."

On 10 October, 2006, Chris Hastings and Beth Jones of the Telegraph revealed 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."

In its own defense, the BBC carried out a survey on its coverage of Israel/Palestine in April 2006, which concluded that there was no deliberate or systematic bias, but that coverage sometimes gives an incomplete picture which may mislead viewers and affect their understanding of the situation, but that its use of the allegedly "neutral" term "militant" for the more stronger, but more precise term "terrorist" was unnecessarily provocative. The commission's report suggested that the BBC's news reporting was not sufficiently covering the suffering of Palestinian civilians, and was too focused on the Israeli perspective of events.

Many such accusations came from pro-Israeli groups. For instance, honestreporting.co.uk, a leading critic of the BBC is funded by the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah. Similarly, Anglicans for Israel have berated the BBC for apparent anti-Israel bias.

Martin Walker of United Press International was sceptical of the independent inquiry in an opinion piece published in The Times. He believed the report was flawed for two reasons. Firstly, because the time-period over which it conducted (August 2005 to January 2006) surrounded the Israeli withdrawl from Gaza and Ariel Sharon's stroke, he believed the Israeli side should naturally get more positive coverage. Secondly the report only looked at the BBC's domestic coverage, and thus excluded output on the BBC World Service and BBC World.

Israel/Hezbollah conflict

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict the BBC was reported in Israel to have been biased in favour of Hezbollah. Some Jewish sources defended the BBC coverage - Francesca Unsworth, head of BBC news gathering, did so in Jewish News, attracting approbrium from anti-Israeli sources. Pro-Israel analysts like Tom Gross, of honestreporting.co.uk, alleged that the BBC was hopelessly anti-Israeli and pro-Hezbollah. The BBC themselves strongly contested this allegation.

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".

The view of foreign governments

BBC News reporters and broadcasts are now and have in the past been banned in several countries primarily for reporting which has been unfavourable to the ruling government. For example, correspondents were banned by the former apartheid régime of South Africa.

The BBC is currently banned in Zimbabwe after the government objected to BBC reports on their land seizures policy which had been widely criticised by other organisations.

Other cases have included Uzbekistan, China and Pakistan.

See also

• BBC controversies