The BBC was created as a universal service. Its purpose, famously defined by Lord Reith, its founding father, is to ”Inform, Educate and Entertain’.
The Corporation’s modern mission statement updates Reith’s vision: “Our mission is “to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”.”
The key phrases are ‘all audiences’ and that increasingly contentious word, impartial. In an age of division, culture wars and identity politics how can they possibly satisfy everyone with high-quality, impartial output ?
The left arrive at Broadcasting House with demands for representation. All identity groups must be represented in front of and behind the camera. However, the BBC simply cannot satisfy all of the people all of the time.
The right hammer on the BBC’s door with accusations of bias, bias, bias ! Conveniently ill-defined, bias, to them, seems to simply mean the BBC is not properly representing their right-wing views on any given subject. Be that Brexit, the Tory party, immigration, climate change, the NHS. You name it, the BBC is biased, biased, biased.
bias
noun
the action of supporting or opposing a particular person or thing in an unfair way, because of allowing personal opinions to influence your judgment
Cambridge Dictionary
An examination of the facts reveals that the BBC is rarely found to be guilty of bias.
Take a look at how many complaints of bias are actually upheld by OFCOM, the independent body charged with overseeing the BBC and its output. Very, very few. You can look them up here.
At the very least, BBC employees, journalists and presenters arrive at work every day and make an effort to produce unbiased, impartial programmes. They may not always get it right, but thank goodness they try.
The BBC also contradicts one of the right’s fundamental presumptions. It is tax funded and state run, yet it is successful, popular and produces consistenly high-quality output.
This challenges a core right-wing belief that state run enterprises are inherently inefficient and deliver poor-quality services. They despise it and want to destroy it for that very reason.
The BBC is left in an almost impossible position, having to represent all voices while defending itself from accusations of bias.
Can it survive ?
Alan Rusbridger has just written an article in Prospect Magazine about how a right-wing cabal is waging war on the principles that made the BBC great.
Well worth a read.
So yeah... 