Why Freedom for BBC Staff to Voice their Views Would End Institutional Bias

Thanks to an ancient personal connection, I found myself a few years ago at a gathering which featured several prominent BBC persons, including the then Director General Mark Thompson. Most of them must have been horrified that I���d been let in at all. He must have thought I was stalking him, as we���d also shared the same train that morning and the previous day.

 

The encounter enabled me (for once) to finish off the argument (which we���d started on the train but not had time to conclude). My point about BBC impartiality as that it was a fraud.

 

There were two reasons for this.

 

One, neutrality between the main political parties, is poorly enforced and in any case is nothing like enough. The BBC, in my view,  has a power-worshipping tendency to suck up to, and ignore the problems of,  the party it judges to be on the current winning side (the Tories just now, New Labour from 1994 to about 2008) . Likewise it explores with great vigour the splits and other problems of the party it judges to be the loser (currently New Labour, for many years before, the Tories).

 

Anyone with a memory can recall that in 1997 it was the other way round.

 

 

 

Neutrality is just as vital (though totally absent) on the many cultural, moral and social issues which divide the country ��� immigration, man-made global warming, punishment versus rehabilitation, legalisation of drugs, sexual politics, the European Union, etc. 

 

It is, by the way, the party which is seen as most reliably on the liberal, Blairite side of these questions which generally receives the BBC���s favour.  The less Blairite Labour is, the crueller the BBC is to Labour.

 

This partiality is shown mainly by favours to the chosen party - by respectful interviews, respectful coverage of major speeches, conferences and policy announcements, kind camera angles, and above all by an absence of stories about splits or disagreements, which can always be found if you look for them, and given prominence if you choose to do so.

 

Once the Tory Party had purged itself of conservative elements on the cultural, moral and environmental front, and chosen a leader who could be portrayed as a ���moderniser��� , it became acceptable in New Broadcasting House and was allowed to compete in the 2010 election on at least equal terms with New Labour. In 2015, Ed Miliband was judged unBlairite(and so doomed). 

 

As the BBC���s editorial staff and presenters are overwhelmingly of the liberal consensus regardless of what party they profess to support (the BBC is careful to employ a few nominal Tories to whom it can point when attacked on this matter) this is where the enforcement of impartiality must take place. But it doesn���t.

 

Mr Thompson had been batting back all my points with skilled smoothness until I finally got him (I think enough time  has passed for me to reveal this not especially private moment, especially as he is no longer in charge of the BBC) . His final line of defence had been the normal ���Devil���s  Advocate��� argument.  I had pointed out that bias was not actually shown by BBC staff suddenly shrieking ���Vote Labour!��� in the midst of programmes. It was shown (once guests and subjects had been selected to suit that bias and to define the axis of any argument)  in the readiness of news and current affairs presenters to show their partiality through oblique, indirect actions.

 

I cited tone of voice, the asking of such questions as ���are you seriously suggesting that���?���, the selective identification of think tanks as ���right-wing��� when left-wing equivalents were not so identified, the interruption of one guest not matched by interruption of the other,  the giving of the last word to one side, always, the use of verbs such as ���claim��� and ���insist��� when a truly impartial person would be restricted to ���say���. I also think I may have mentioned the use of the word ���investment��� to describe government spending, a usage adopted by Gordon Brown in 1997 and immediately copied by BBC presenters who didn���t seem to realise that it was a departure from neutrality.

 

He ascribed all such things to presenters being ���the devil���s advocate��� - adopting, for the sake of argument, positions they did not hold. I said it was remarkable how much better they were at being ���devil���s advocate��� for left-wing devils than for right-wing ones.

 

Then I said that the problem was most clearly shown not by what his staff would do but by what we both knew they wouldn���t do.

 

I asked him to name a single one of his presenters who could subject an opponent of the death penalty (I cited the loveable Clive Stafford-Smith, my favourite abolitionist) to a truly hostile, merciless (devilish?) probing interview.

 

There was a brief silence while he sucked his teeth. I can���t think of any either.

 

I now reckon I should have pressed the attack home and asked him if they had anyone who could give a similar hard time to an advocate of the man-made global warming position, or to an advocate of abortion on demand.

 

The truth is, the BBC as an institution believes such issues were long ago closed, and are the moral equivalent of racial bigotry. It could not be hostile or probing to any holder of the ���correct��� opinions on these issues. That is why I say it is institutionally biased

 

When I suggested, as I did here...

https://www.opendemocracy.net/100ideasforthebbc/staff-voice-opinions/ (you can if you wish vote for my idea, and/or for several others, if you visit this interesting site)

....that BBC staff should be allowed and encouraged to voice their true opinions, I did so because I was sure (I still am) that if they did so the Corporation���s institutional bias would then be revealed in all its coruscating glory. The total absence of anyone with views similar to mine from any position of influence or prominence would be impossible to conceal. And the Corporation, whose Charter and reliance on a poll tax oblige it to maintain impartiality on issues of public controversy, would be compelled to reform this. As it is, the public maintenance of *formal* impartiality, which is meaningless in practice, actually protects it from such reform.