BBC Impartiality: Myth and Reality

The BBC bias argument is the proverbial fish in a barrel shoot.  A five-year old could make the case and give Jeremy Paxman a run for his money.  We could go on forever and ever and ever and ever with the examples.  Every day, almost, brings a new outrage in which some presenter or other flagrantly reveals that his own private political and social biases would not be out of place at an editorial meeting of Pravda, or paradoxically, at a board meeting of Dragons' Den.  The bias is an eclectic mix of Leftism, cringy plastic commercialism and metropolitanism. 

But the basic problem with the ‘bias’ complaint is that it reflects a naïve trust in institutions that is no longer warranted.  It's a bit like a grown-up lodging an earnest complaint concerning boyhood lies about Santa Claus.  It’s too late.  We're not in the 1940s anymore.  The cat is out of the bag.  It's clear that the BBC fails to be unbiased not because it wants to be biased, but because - in common with all other media organisations - it can't be any other.  The BBC is just as partial and dishonest as everybody else.  Thus, it’s not enough to complain about so-called ‘BBC bias’.  That's tilting at windmills.  The BBC itself exists on the basis of a false prospectus, and reforming it will only make matters worse, even if the reforms are thought-through and well-intentioned.  And anyway, reform has been tried before and whenever it has been tried, there have always been assurances that bias would be tackled and minimised and standards would improve.  It never happens because it can't.  The BBC must go.

Nevertheless, let's look more closely at the bias issue.  It is an issue, and bias is at the centre of our concerns, but our approach to the problem is distinct.  We offer a more subtle (and, we would like to think, more sophisticated) argument, which goes like this:

1. First, the Platonic objective of impartiality is impossible.  It is specified in the BBC's public mission, but it is idealistic and the BBC manifestly fails to achieve it.  The BBC is not an elite media.  It is biased and pervasively dishonest, like all media organisations are.  Better to acknowledge this and deal with reality than carry on pretending that Britain can somehow have a noble broadcasting aristocracy that is above partiality and partisanship.  We imagine even the Queen sometimes struggles to remain impartial, even though that is her duty.  That she manages to give even just an appearance of impartiality at all is probably down to the fact that little is expected of her in terms of controversial decision-making.  The BBC's very existence is predicated on its claim to impartiality, or at least a claim that it aspires to the ideal: it's a broadcasting ethic that runs through the entire organisation, yet it's a giant, bare-faced Big Lie.  Enough!  Arguments and complaints about bias are loved by the BBC because they divert attention to more useless reform and engagement with their complaints process, and away from the real solution: The inexorable logic is for abolition of the BBC.

2. A lot of what people think is BBC bias actually strictly isn’t.  First, there’s the simple Devil’s advocate duty that every journalist arguably has.  Related to this, it's perfectly legitimate for BBC journalists and broadcasters to want to hold the attention of viewers and listeners with a big amount of aggression and controversy.  Jeremy Paxman's interviews were both illuminating and entertaining and he frequently played Devils' advocate in order to challenge his guests.

3. There’s also the need for functional biases in maintaining balance.  For example, if a defender of the tobacco industry goes on Newsnight to dispute the causes of lung cancer, you’d expect the Newsnight interviewer to give him quite a hard time - not because the Newsnight interviewer disagrees with him necessarily, but because of a need for balance in the debate and to reflect wider concerns in society.  

4. The problem however with functional biases is how you decide to be balanced, which in turn is a subjective decision - and not always a conscious decision, sometimes more a result of an institutional culture.  This is where we come to the root of what we think is the real problem with the BBC's so-called 'bias', which is mostly not a 'bias problem' at all, but more a problem of how the BBC institutionally decides to be 'balanced'.  The BBC is still imbued in a Reithian paternalistic mindset.  Its serious journalists believe that part of their duty is to "educate, inform..." the viewing and listening public. That's all well and good, but the problem is that a kindly, detached, cultured sort of paternalism can easily become a stifling, suffocating maternalism.  Aunty knows best!  Educating and informing the public can easily become "improving and indoctrinating" the public in whatever the BBC as an institutional culture thinks is the 'right' set of views, which in the case of the BBC and the wider Establishment will normally be whatever is politically-correct.  This is a classic Actonite slippage: you start with the best of intentions, and before you know it, you end up with a Monster on your hands.  

To amplify the point, let's see if we can find a recent example of 'BBC maternalism' in action:

"They were sieg heiling, they were unfurling pictures of Hitler. They were very professional in their imagery and what they produced."

King's College's Rajan Basra talks about the now proscribed group National Action.@rajanbasra | #newsnight pic.twitter.com/yKIDmuOQLn

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) August 17, 2018

Aunty Beeb, imbued with Leftists and an Aunty Knows Best attitude, assumes that the majority of the rest of the country are Leftists too, and thinks that 'balance' means presenting the 'right' sort of opinions: in this case, Hitler and [neo-]Nazism are 'evil'.  That is not to deny that Newsnight features such as the above are the result of BBC bias in and of itself - they are - nor is it to deny that the bias is deliberate propaganda - it's that too - but we think the following comment from Twitter is closer to the mark in explaining the Left's motivations:

Hard to escape the conclusion that many in the Western left have declared a self-flattering war on neo-Nazism precisely as a distraction from the real problems facing Western society today, to which they have no answers, and are uncomfortable even with the questions - B O'Neil

— Stewart McOwan (@SLMcOwan) August 18, 2018

Mr McOwan hits the nail on the head, so to speak: Newsnight, for instance, are well-aware of the problems in British society, especially in England, and have (we must say, to their credit) run a series of features on the social issues of northern England.  These features are worth watching - they demonstrate poignantly the potential of the BBC when it gives the Leftist/PC agenda a rest - but it is too little too late.  If Reithian paternalism has been corrupted into maternalism, this is only due to wider changes in society and a broader Establishment agenda.  The BBC clearly has an overriding agenda against the white British.  It is an enemy bureaucracy and must be stopped.

5. We think balance is a more realistic goal than impartiality, but the BBC can't even achieve this.  This is partly because the goals of impartiality and balance are often in practical conflict and are sometimes paradoxical to each other.  To achieve balance requires the state to get out of broadcasting, while assuring a minimalist regulatory framework within which a plural media can function.

6. An additional point is that the corruption of BBC paternalism into maternalism has affected and influenced the British media generally.  As an example, consider the following clips from the commercial radio station, LBC, in which the caller raises understandable concerns about an alien minority in British society.  The presenter, Tom Swarbrick, also works for the BBC.  Swarbrick accuses the caller of Islamophobia and proceeds to lecture to him in the manner of a schoolmistress:

Our Mission and Objective

We are the Campaign To Abolish The BBC.  

Our objective:

WE DEMAND THE ABOLITION OF THE BBC.

Most anti-BBC campaigners concentrate on the TV licence.  While we completely understand this approach and we agree that the TV licence system is outrageous, we believe that reforming the BBC's funding will ultimately not be enough. The BBC itself must be abolished.

Why Should The BBC Be Abolished?

The reasons are both political and operational. The BBC is a malignancy in our national life. It is a hotbed of Leftism, and anti-patriotic thought and sentiment, and is openly subversive.  Quite apart from this, there is no longer any need for a state-owned 'public service broadcaster' in Britain (even on a commercial basis).  We now live in the digital age, where there is choice and innovation and even ordinary people can set up their own digital channels on the web and attract thousands of viewers and subscribers. The BBC will reply that, in a pluralistic Information Society where there is a multiplicity of different media, it should remain as a guardian of impartiality, but the BBC is hopelessly biased. The guardian should be the free market that already exists and that can thrive without the BBC monolith.  Parliament should revoke the Charter, dissolve the Corporation, then sell-off its assets to the private sector. Its staff should be expected to seek employment in the commercial world.

Why Anti-TV Licence Campaigns Are Strategically-Flawed

To be clear, we are not suggesting people should continue to pay the TV licence.  Quite the opposite: we endorse civil resistance and we openly support and agree with anybody who refuses to pay it.  Anti-TV licence campaigners, whether avoiders or evaders, have our sympathy and support.  They are persuing an effective tactic that could, if it gains ground, put considerable financial pressure on the BBC.

Our point, however, is that there is a need for an overarching strategy.  We think that without this, campaigns to end the TV licence alone, while perfectly understandable and satisfying in their own way, may ultimately prove to be counter-productive - and may even strengthen the BBC's position in the end.  Those who rest on proposals to end the TV licence system tend to think that commercialising the BBC through advertising or subscription viewing, or a combination of these, will either reform its internal culture or, if not that, then will at least mean that the general public are not forced to fund its output.  They tend to assume that the BBC can, in effect, become another Channel Four: a commercially-operated, nominally-public broadcasting body.  

With due respect, our view is that this is the wrong approach in strategic terms for the following reasons:

1. The BBC needs to be looked upon as an enemy bureaucracy.  It is a base of employment, cultural struggle and moral and financial support, etc., for the Left in Britain, and perhaps always has been.  For that reason alone, it is important that the BBC as an organisation in and of itself is attacked, brought down and destroyed for good, not just reformed.

2. Strategically focusing on the TV licence system is the wrong approach because simply demanding that the BBC reform itself financially puts the initiative with the political and media elites, who can then come up with a new funding model that satisfies those who object to the TV licence system.  The result will most likely be a continuation of the BBC in its present form, possibly even funded out of general taxation.  If that happens, it will be a complete humiliation and defeat for anti-TV licence campaigners as we will all be in a worse position than before; but even if an entirely commercial funding model is found and agreed, the BBC's future will then be assured and all the problems it causes will continue.

3. The example of Channel Four proves that the model of notional public ownership combined with commercial operation will not work. Channel Four is a left-liberal backwater, its output mostly fringe, but it still has some effect on the national culture.  Likewise, the BBC's dangerous tendencies will only continue, even if commercialised.  It is also worth noting that the BBC is already part-commercialised, but that seems to have had no effect on its poisonous culture and ethos.  If the BBC is fully-commercialised and marketised, it will retain its place at the centre of British civic life and as part of the Establishment, and will continue to damage the country and public debate.

4. The vision of a 'commercial BBC' is inherently paradoxical.  A broad-spectrum public service broadcaster cannot also be a commercial broadcaster, as advertising and viewership pressures will ultimately take priority in broadcasting decisions, to the detriment of its putative public mission.  Channel Four only succeeds because it is allowed to cater to a niche audience.  No doubt a Commercial BBC would re-structure and adjust itself to audience capture, which would then raise questions about how it will also fulfill its manifest public mission.  You may ask: Why should this be a problem?  Whatever else they may be, the BBC Board and its executives are politically-adept and will find ways to reconcile the conflicted mission of a 'commercialised' public service broadcaster.  Consequently, a Commercial BBC will potentially be even more powerful and abusive than it is today.  The BBC Board and executives will be able to defend their funding model as entirely commercial, and therefore unassailable, while also using their public status to subvert British life still further. Not that we're suggesting the BBC fulfills its public mission as it is, and it must also be acknowledged that the BBC has pandered to viewer whims for a very long time (the Points of View programme was/is an example of this), but that only reinforces our point that a Commercial BBC posing as a public service broadcaster - with all the dignity and credibility this implies - would be harmful to British public life.