It's official. The BBC is institutionally biased in favour of Europe. A report that the BBC itself commissioned, written by a balanced panel of europhiles and eurosceptics, has found that although it did not deliberately try to bend its coverage, the BBC suffered from 'certain forms of cultural and unintentional bias' so much so that 'nobody thinks the outcome is impartial'.

As the Times reports:

'The committee examined a range of BBC output and found bias spread unevenly, with Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC TV’s Politics Show highlighted for criticism...The report, commissioned to find out if complaints by eurosceptics were justified, says that BBC news suffers from an "institutional mindset" that leads to a "reluctance to question pro-EU assumptions"... It says that BBC journalists are often ignorant about how the EU works; they portray the EU largely through Westminster politics and fail to show how much of British policies originate in Brussels. It also criticises managers who appear insufficiently self-critical about standards of impartiality". The report concludes that "the BBC is getting it wrong, and our main conclusion is that urgent action is required to put this right".'

This is a devastating finding for the BBC. The one great attribute that makes the BBC different from any other broadcaster is that people trust it to be objective and impartial. Now that reputation has been blown away. For years, it has been apparent that the BBC is outrageously biased on Europe. Indeed, its general mindset as the Guardian of the airwaves means that it is similarly biased over a wide range of issues, including America, Israel, Iraq, the Conservative party, and a wide range of domestic issues. This report will put the BBC under huge pressure to adjust its set back to objectivity mode over Europe. Will it be able to, though, given the fact that because the dominance of this mindset among its journalists, presenters and production staff the BBC is virtually a closed thought system, so that although it may realise it needs to change it may not be able to recognise how to do it? And will Michael Grade, the energetic new-broom Chairman, seize the moment to institute a more general review of the Beeb's 'cultural bias' over everything else, and restore its journalistic integrity which has become so badly corrupted?

Posted by melanie at January 28, 2005