I have been a BBC junkie since I was ten. Now it feels like a bad marriage, I must leave.

The questions the BBC must answer on impartiality

The institution I have loved all my life has let me down – here’s why

My father took no interest in his kids. My brother and sister were 11 and 10 when I showed up, adding more strain to my mum’s already over-burdened life. She did three jobs and all the childcare.

But when I turned 10, Papa decided to get me into world affairs, his one big passion. I would sit with him at 6pm every day, listen to the BBC news and talk about the main bits. That daily BBC feed made me into a news junkie, and a lifetime defender of Aunty. That bond is fraying.

Other Britons, who, like me, trusted and valued the BBC, are also falling away. There have always been rabid BBC haters on the right. But the left and centre counterbalanced that lunacy. Now that steadfast constituency is routinely dismayed by BBC news and current affairs.

Its music, arts, cultural and drama output is phenomenal. But David Attenborough or Strictly Come Dancing can’t offset the damage that is done by the BBC’s factual output.

We are taken for granted; the BBC’s attention is elsewhere. This echoes this Labour Government’s disdain for its stalwart base. Neither “strategy” is sustainable.

At present, Channel 4 is displaying the courage and journalistic integrity the BBC used to have. Maybe its bosses don’t care. But public service broadcasters, funded directly by the population, need to be consciously reaching those on the right as well as the centre and left. That is evidently not happening.

In my view, the rules of impartiality and fairness are now applied partially and unfairly. There is an unseemly eagerness to keep in with populists and other factions – at a time when the world is on fire and needs an ethical, reliable media source more than ever.

Here are issues that have raised serious concerns about the corporation’s current news values. I don’t know if they are all valid. Director General Tim Davie and the BBC’s top team need to respond to them properly. If they don’t, they are taking its most devoted audiences for donkeys.

First, Gaza, which is being systematically ravaged, its people brought to their knees, or turned to dust. A report by the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring (CMM) was launched on Tuesday. Researchers analysed nearly 38,000 pieces of BBC content relating to the Israel-Gaza war and concluded that Israeli deaths are given 33 times more coverage per fatality, and allegations of genocide were consistently shut down.

During the 12-month analysis period, 42,010 Palestinians and 1,246 Israelis were killed – a ratio of 34:1. While the BBC pressed a total of 38 interviewees to condemn the 7 October Hamas attacks, equivalent questioning to condemn Israel’s actions took place zero times.

The CMM study also found serious double standards in BBC reporting on Gaza in comparison to its coverage of Ukraine. It provided Israeli military justifications in 75 per cent of cases compared with 17 per cent of cases for Russian actions. The study questions the public service broadcaster’s adherence to obligations set out in the Royal Charter of upholding “British values of accuracy, impartiality and fairness”.  Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former director of communications, and Tory peer Baroness Warsi have written some of the commentary for the report.

What is the BBC going to do about these findings? What changes, if any, will be made? So far, it’s produced generic, mealy words. In a statement, it said: “We agree that language is vitally important, but we have some questions about what appears to be a reliance on AI to analyse it in this report, and we do not think that due impartiality can be measured by counting words. We make our own, independent editorial decisions, and we reject any suggestion otherwise.” It also promised to “consider the report carefully and study its findings in detail”. Not good enough.

Next, plans to savagely cut back news and current affairs jobs, which in October saw HARDtalk and the BBC Asian Network’s bespoke news service axed, and more job cuts to come. Why? Don’t fob us off. Real answers, please.

Finally, Adam Bienkov of Byline Times claims to have minutes of a meeting of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee this March. He alleges: “BBC News CEO Deborah Turness gave a presentation in which she discussed plans to alter ‘story selection’ and ‘other types of output, such as drama’ in order to win the trust of Reform voters.”

I don’t recall a similar mission to get the trust of Jeremy Corbyn supporters. Again, how can the BBC claim to be impartial if its secret mission is to please and placate the popular right? The BBC says: “Editorial Guidelines require that we must take account of the different political parties with electoral support across the UK to achieve due impartiality.”

For 65 years, in spite of feeling let down, at times, incandescent with some of its coverage, I have kept faith with the BBC. Now, I realise it’s a bit like hanging on to a bad marriage until you just can’t. I just can’t any more.

This article was originally published by iNews 

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