The sign of a balanced source is that it pisses off both the left and the right.
This is so completely wrong, politically naive and childishly simplistic that I hardly know where to begin.
Yes, many people both on the left and on the the right criticize the BBC for being biased, and this fact is commonly, and incorrectly, used as a defense from advocates of the BBC. They would say the BBC gets as many complaints about bias from Labour, SDP and the Lib Dems that they do from the Tories and Reform, therefore, they must be doing something right. This is just plain wrong. The media bias in the BBC is not so much the traditional left-right politics as it is the bigger issue - the elite metropolitan liberal bias - the progressive attitude when it comes to things like race, immigration, gender. It's that view which extends beyond the traditional right-left skew.
The evidence is quite clear that the BBC has actually admitted for years to having a liberal metropolitan elite bias, as far back as I have been able to find.
In 2007, an internal report attacked the BBC's liberal consensus - published in the Guardian no less, a clearly left-wing media outlet!!
· Study criticises 'comfort zone' in staff's thinking· Make Poverty History and Vicar of Dibley singled out
www.theguardian.com
Internal report attacks BBC's liberal consensus
Senior BBC figures have acknowledged that the corporation could suffer from "group-think" which tended towards a liberal world view and had led to certain opinions being under-represented on subjects such as Europe and immigration.
Stephen Whittle, a former controller of editorial policy, pointed to a "lack of intellectual curiosity", while former political editor Andrew Marr said there was "an innate liberal agenda".
The report, entitled From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel to reflect the move from a left-right axis to a variety of uneven and contrasting views, also warned that impartiality should not equate to political correctness or "insipid" programme-making. "Impartiality is a coat of many colours, not of a uniform beige. It must always have space for strong and passionate opinion," it said. According to the report, one unnamed senior executive said that impartiality during BBC1's Africa season, which coincided with the Make Poverty History campaign and Live 8, was "as safe as a bloodbank in the hands of Dracula".
In 2010, Mark Thompson, the former director general of the BBC, gave an interview in which he said that the BBC was guilty of massive bias to the left....
The BBC used to have a "massive bias to the left", the broadcaster's director general Mark Thompson has declared.
news.sky.com
BBC Guilty Of 'Massive Bias To The Left
...the broadcaster's director general Mark Thompson has declared.
He said staff were "quite mystified" by the rise of former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but now there was "less overt tribalism" among its journalists.
Tory commentators have long criticized the BBC for being left-wing.
Mr Thompson told the New Statesman: "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago, there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left.
In 2013, the former news director Helen Boaden said that the BBC had deep liberal bias in its coverage of immigration. Again, this is was reported in the Guardian!!
Trust finds corporation reflects range of views, but Helen Boaden says coverage was skewed when she took up role in 2004. By Josh Halliday
www.theguardian.com
BBC had 'deep liberal bias' over immigration, says former news chief
Helen Boaden, the BBC's former news director, has admitted the corporation held a "deep liberal bias" in its coverage of immigration when she took up the role in 2004.
Boaden, who is now the BBC's head of radio, made the candid admission to a BBC Trust review into the impartiality of the corporation's coverage of immigration, religion and the European Union.
She told the review, published on Wednesday, that the BBC did not take the views of lobby group Migration Watch "as seriously as it might have" when she became director of news in September 2004.
Boaden is the latest BBC executive to state publicly that the corporation had a liberal bias on controversial topics such as immigration – an accusation it routinely faces from rightwing sections of the media.
In 2011, Peter Sissons, BBC's
Question Time presenter from 1989 to 1993, and
Nine O'Clock News and
Ten O'Clock News presenter for the next 10 years spoke of the BBC's bias in his autobiography....
en.wikipedia.org
The organisation had a left-wing mindset "in its very DNA"
Following his retirement, Sissons published his 2011 autobiography When One Door Closes, in which he was highly critical of his former employer, the BBC. He argued that the organisation had a left-wing mindset "in its very DNA" and that BBC News had a bias towards New Labour, the United Nations, the European Union, environmental groups, Islam, ethnic minorities, and women. He wrote, "I am in no doubt that the majority of BBC staff vote for political parties of the Left". Sissons also highlighted the BBC's corresponding bias towards the Independent and Guardian newspapers, stating "producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover
In 2019, only six years ago, John Humphreys, respected news anchor and interviewer on the
Today program on Radio 4 also took a swipe at the
BBC's Metropolitan liberal and institutional bias. Again... from the Guardian!!
Broadcaster presented Radio 4’s Today show for 32 years, earning a reported £600,000
www.theguardian.com
John Humphreys attacks BBC's 'liberal bias' days after retiring
The broadcaster John Humphrys has launched a scathing attack on the BBC days after receiving a lavish send-off from the corporation.
Despite earning a reported £600,000 annual salary and fronting flagship Radio 4 programme, Today, for 32 years, the 76-year-old provoked scorn after fiercely criticising the employer who had granted him a back-slapping tribute when he retired on Thursday.
In his memoirs, A Day Like Today, Humphrys described what he labelled the “institutional liberal bias” at the BBC and condemned the “Kremlin”-style corporation for being out of touch.
He writes that BBC bosses were devastated by the victory of the Leave campaign, and likened their expressions following the referendum to a football fan whose team has just missed a penalty. He said: “I’m not sure the BBC as a whole ever quite had a real grasp of what was going on in Europe, or of what people in this country thought about it.”
Many of the organization's most important figures have acknowledged the liberal meropolitan bias of the BBC. Internal reviews have also acknowledged this bias. So why are we hearing from today's BBC figures that there is no bias? Of course, some will claim that these are old articles I'm quoting, or that these are all closet Tories, or just bitter & twisted old people, grumpy old men (and women) and that things are different now. NO they are not. Media bias does not happen overnight. It takes years for any kind of bias to become as systemic as it currently is in the BBC. And one of the reasons why that liberal bias exists is down to the way they hire their staff. They only employ the vast majority of their editorial staff, their journalists and their managers from a very narrow range of UK society, the metropolitan, liberal progressive elites. When you do that, you are bound to be importing their attitudes, opinions, worldviews, and yes, biases into your organization, and those attitudes are going to be reflected in their output. Its groupthink of the worst kind - the kind where the groups are so biased in their worldviews, they cannot see any other view is even possible. We see that kind of bias right across the political spectrum... from the white nationalists and white supremacists of the far right, all the way though the Corbynistas to the Trotskyites, and Antifa on the far left. The BBC actually has an LGBTQ desk which acts as a filter to supress Gender Critical views and censure journalists who write them, as well as to promote pro-trans views. They see themselves more as activists than as
journalists. They blacklisted gender critical organizations like the LGB Alliance and Sex Matters and other organizations. Journalists who wanted
to expose some of the dangers, for example, of puberty blockers were pressured not to produce those. In some cases,such as in this article a former BBC editor says she was forced out BBC because of her gender critical views.
https://archive.is/20251111000102/h...claims-forced-out-over-gender-critical-views/
BBC editor claims she was forced out over gender-critical views
A veteran BBC broadcast journalist has claimed she was forced out over her gender-critical views.
Catherine Leng, a former chief writer for BBC News, said younger specialist LGBT reporters had been able to “gatekeep” which stories on transgender issues were covered because older editors were wrongly deferring to them on such subjects.
She told The Times that when she started pitching gender-critical stories, she was allegedly stonewalled.
The BBC has been plunged into crisis after The Telegraph published a dossier detailing concerns over impartiality at the broadcaster.
These included claims the BBC published “a constant drip-feed of one-sided stories… celebrating the trans experience” while ignoring gender-critical stories.
Its obvious to anyone paying attention that the BBC is instutionally biased. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.
