One of those insanely annoying advertisements on Radio 4 for BBC Sounds the other day was voiced by an aggressive young man: “Fake news…we’re coming to get you…NOW”. It was, as usual, crass and vulgar; it was also wrong. Because it turns out that the BBC is not only a corrective to fake news but the creator of fake news.
The editing of a speech by Donald Trump for a Panorama programme to suggest that he actually incited violence after the election in October 2024 was quite extraordinarily damaging. It was also a wilful falsehood though the US president’s estimate that it was a billion dollars’ worth of damage may be pushing it. And it could really only have been perpetrated by the kind of people who think that if Donald Trump didn’t actually use words in the way in which they were spliced together, he was the sort of person who probably meant to do so. In other words, the perpetrators of the edit had a fixed idea of Donald Trump – a totemic baddy – and they edited his remarks to fit that perception. That’s not even unconscious bias; it’s a bias in which the BBC journalists probably took pride.
As Danny Shaw, a longtime BBC reporter, observed in The Spectator, “It was not a mistake on a ‘live’ show, late at night … It was on the corporation’s flagship current affairs programme – and it related to comments from the most powerful man in the world. The only explanation is that BBC bosses were simply unable to see things in a way that was so clear to others less invested in what they were broadcasting.”
The perpetrators of the edit had a fixed idea of Trump – a totemic baddy – and they edited his remarks to fit that perception
Worse still, the falsehood was defended by the top brass. Deborah Turness, until now head of News, and her deputy, Jonathan Munro, stood by the edit. Munro is reported to have said: ‘There was no attempt to mislead the audience about the content or nature of Mr Trump’s speech before the riot at the Capitol. It’s normal practice to edit speeches into short form clips.’ Oh yes? That’s not what they’re saying now: ‘We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action,’ said Samir Shah, the BBC Chairman.
No wonder Donald Trump is angry. The only possible response is for the Corporation to eat dirt and for Tim Davie to say they misled viewers, for which they are truly sorry, and not only are he and Debs jumping, but the journalists responsible as well. That may do it.
The best chance to address BBC bias was when Sir Paul Dacre was blocked from consideration as head of Ofcom
But it won’t restore the Corporation’s reputation because this issue wasn’t an aberration; it was a symptom. And I’d say that the people who run these institutions lost the best chance to address it when Sir Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail, was blocked in 2021 from consideration as head of Ofcom, the media regulator. He was ruled out of consideration as “unappointable” even though he knows the industry inside out and takes no prisoners. The smug elite on the appointment panel have a lot to answer for.
Of course, many BBC journalists do embody the quality of impartiality and fairness that should be the guiding principle of the institution, and I know some terrific ones, though most are getting on a bit. But inhabiting a world of People Like US really is a problem. It’s not just the way that for years Radio 4 comedy shows could raise a laugh just by mentioning the Daily Mail. The report that identified the Trump edit also pointed at using Hamas as disinterested parties in programmes on Gaza and the trans issue. It’s one thing for Jeremy Bowen, a brilliant correspondent, to give both sides of the situation in the Israel-Palestine conflict; it’s another unquestioningly to use representatives of Hamas as spokesmen for the Palestinians.
There are also really serious questions about the approach of the BBC’s Arabic service to the conflict in the report; the rules that govern normal broadcasts don’t seem to apply to the same extent there. As for the trans issue, a report by an independent BBC adviser, Michael Prescott showed that the Corporation’s very own LGBT desk exercises quasi-censorhip over coverage of the trans issue. It warned that the BBC is not only risking bias in its coverage of trans issues, but is confusing viewers by failing to make it clear that transgender women are biological males, or even transgender at all.
But the really disastrous effect of bias has been in the coverage of the most important issue of the day – large scale immigration, a phenomenon which the BBC has until very recently treated as an unquestionable good, routinely treating those who question its benefits as right-wing or suspect. It is the most obvious instance of dereliction of duty by a public service broadcaster I can think of.
The BBC’s critics have used the scandal to call for the licence fee to be replaced by a subscription model which would make the BBC a much-diminished institution. This may well happen eventually but let’s be careful what we wish for. At its best a state broadcaster that holds itself to the highest standards of impartial reporting and fair coverage is a noble thing. The BBC has fallen disastrously short of those ideals but the country would still be a poorer place without it. Let’s hold the BBC to account... but save it.
