BBC immigration coverage affected by 'liberal bias'

[Dedworth]

Report claims that corporation was 'slow' to react to public concern on key issues


The BBC has failed to highlight public concerns about issues like immigration and the EU because it had a "deep liberal bias", a new report claims.

The review, commissioned by the BBC Trust and led by former ITV boss Stuart Prebble, studied the corporation's impartiality when covering certain subjects. Although it offered a "broad and impressive" range of views, "the BBC was slow to reflect the weight of concern in the wider community about issues arising from immigration".

And it was a comment from Helen Boaden (above), the BBC's former director of news, that has dominated the headlines. The report reveals that Boaden, who took up her role in 2004, believed "there had been a problem in the BBC's coverage of immigration".

The report adds: "She was aware, she told us, of a 'deep liberal bias' in the way that the BBC approached the topic."

According to The Guardian: "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."

The corporation's attitude "prevented it from accurately reflecting public views on immigration", claims the Daily Mail. The paper also flags up a comment from former Today programme reporter Robin Aitken, who said the BBC suffered from a "fundamental niceness".

The Times reports that Prebble said the BBC should "make concerted efforts to monitor currents of opinion among the wider community".

The newspaper added: "His report was based partly on research commissioned from Cardiff University, which found that the number of stories on immigration did not appear to reflect the level of public concern on the issue."

The Evening Standard notes that the BBC was "too reliant on interviews with mainstream Westminster politicians".

The paper explained: "The over-dependence on the 'Westminster Village' meant that important but 'uncomfortable' topics, particularly the impact of immigration, did not receive the coverage that they merit."

The Daily Express called it a "damning report" and said it showed the BBC had "failed to spot the rise of support for the UK leaving the European Union and had too closely followed the agenda set by politicians". ·

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/tv-radio/53951/bbc-immigration-coverage-affected-liberal-bias#ixzz2Y000owiI

How true Biased Broadcasting Company - well done The Week Magazine for a good article. The report smacks of the hand wringers and apologists who infest the BBC- I wouldn't talk in terms of liberal bias - extreme left wing is closer to the truth

[andy222]

They are very biased Ded I totally agree. That makes me laugh on their website. (Have you say). If you submit something and I do not mean abusive language or anything like that. If they dont like it they block it.

[bigmarco]

Well at least they stick to celebrating Christian festivals throughout the year unlike the mob on channel 4.
The Beeb is far from perfect but it's good far outweighs it's bad IMO.

[grahamw48]

As anyone with half a brain already knew.

Shame immigration of undesirables is a one-way valve though. :NoNo:

[Dedworth]

Good article by Nigel Farage here :-

'Bloated elite' at BBC biased on immigration, says Nigel Farage

The BBC is run by a "bloated elite" who believe people opposed to immigration and the European Union are "nasty" and deserve to be "harried and bullied" on air, Nigel Farage has said.

In an article for The Telegraph, the Ukip leader said the only experience the average manager at the BBC has of immigration is "a cheap au pair, cleaner and a fascinating little restaurant down the road".

Mr Farage's intervention comes after Helen Boaden, the director of radio at the BBC, admitted that the corporation suffered from a "deep liberal bias".

She made the comments in a report by Stuart Prebble, a former ITV executive, who found that the corporation had been "slow" to reflect increasing opposition to immigration and the European Union.

A separate Home Office report published yesterday found that an asylum seekers, refugees and low-skilled immigrants have caused overcrowding, fueled community tensions and put pressure on the health service.

On the subject of immigration, Mr Farage said: "They cover themselves by this idea that they are nice, and other people who differ, who believe that migration has gone to far, are in some way nasty.

"Is it nasty to think that the sheer volume of people arriving on our shores and impacting upon our services, jobs, wages is wrong? Is it nasty to think that people should have been consulted before their communities were altered out of all recognition?

"Is it really unpleasant to worry that next year London alone will be shy of 100,000 primary school places and we are expecting to build homes on 1,500 square miles of countryside due in a large part, according to the Government to inward migrant flows?"

He raised concerns that on Europe, he has become a "BBC totem" and is used as an excuse by the corporation for failing to reflect wider public opposition.

He said: "Opinion poll after opinion poll puts those who would wish to leave the EU with a higher proportion than those who would stay, and yet if one was to watch the BBC one could easily get the impression it was just me. I am the get out clause. 'Well we had Nigel on' they will trumpet."

He said that the BBC's bias against those opposed to Europe and immigrants permeated both its news coverage and drama.

He said: "And the bias in coverage isn’t just in the amount of time spent on different points of view. It’s the way in which the subjects are addressed. Those with an opposing view to the BBC mindset are harried and bullied on air, whilst others are often smooched through their interviews.

"And of course it isn’t just in news coverage. In popular drama, those who oppose mass migration are bigots, stupid, physically ugly, those on the other side are sensitive, beautiful, intelligent. It goes on and on.

He said that the root cause of the problem lies in the background of BBC staff. He said: "The problem is now, as it has been for decades a simple one, and one acknowledged in this report, as it has been in all the other previous reports, the BBC draws its staff by and large from a single well.

"That the great Euro panjandrum and paradigm of the bloated elite, Lord Patten sits atop the pile and is the one who has in the final reckoning to rule as to whether the BBC is impartial rather says it all."

The Prebble report found that the BBC conducted fewer interviews with Ukip last year than it did in 2007, despite the significant electoral gains it has made since then.

The corporation declined to comment on Mr Farage's article. It said that the Prebble report, which cost £175,000 to produce, had provided some "interesting insights" but claimed that on the whole its coverage was "broad and impressive".

Even Justin Webb, one of the corporation's most senior correspondents, expressed surprise at how lightly the corporation had been treated.

He said in an interview with Mr Prebble this morning. He said: "That is a very mild admonishment which will not please those in the papers particularly who criticise the BBC.

"But you are absolutely clear that the BBC has got to do nothing more than have a little look at what it does occasionally, and actually fundamentally it's doing the right thing?"

Mr Farage's comments come after the Home Office report found that half of people in Britain live in areas where there are high levels of immigration.

The report found that immigrants were likely to lead to longer waiting times at GP surgeries, be involved in anti-social behaviour and create pest control issues because of overcrowding.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10159325/Bloated-elite-at-BBC-biased-on-immigration-says-Nigel-Farage.html

[grahamw48]

Excellent report...thanks for bringing my attention to it. :xxgrinning--00xx3:

In the meantime, Brits with 'traditional' views will be ignored or castigated.

Heads will be buried in the sand until civil unrest rears its ugly head, as it has done in all countries where people from Islamic religions in particular have set up shop. :NoNo:

All of this could have been prevented. :mad: