#BBCswitchoff: The Myth of Media Impartiality

One of the most surprising camps among critics of the BBC are the activist Left, many of whom think that the BBC is biased towards the Conservative Party and slanted against Jeremy Corbyn.  On reflection, they do have a point.  It makes sense that the BBC would give more favourable coverage to the neo-Blairite and pro-Zionist Theresa May and her government than is warranted, while at the same time looking unfavourably on Jeremy Corbyn's putatively anti-Zionist Labour Party.  But then some of the bias has gone the other way at times.  For one thing, there has in the past been favourable coverage of Jeremy Corbyn by the BBC.  For another, there is the fact that Zionists have in the past excoriated the BBC over their coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict.  We could go on listing the incongruities, but won't.

The BBC Switch-off campaign of the last few days, mainly concentrated in Scotland, was started by the Left.  It has included a Twitter trend and also an outdoor demonstration.  RT covered it and it does seem to have caused the BBC some public embarrassment.  Predictably, our state broadcaster has declined to cover the demonstration or the campaign itself, which called on people to stop watching the BBC at 6 p.m. on Thursday 9th. August 2018 - 6 p.m. being the usual time of broadcast for BBC One's daily flagship news programme.  It seems the aim of the campaign has been to protest (among things) the BBC's bias against all the usual Leftist shibboleths, including Jeremy Corbyn and the NHS, also to challenge what the Left see as bias pro-Zionist coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and furthermore to highlight a neo-liberal agenda on foreign affairs that many Leftists attribute to the BBC.  These complaints are not without justification, but one thing we have noted is that very many supporters of the BBC Switch-off campaign are Scottish Nationalists (in fact normally members of the SNP).  Among such people, our impression is that the concern with the BBC is less about specific biases, and more that the British Broadcasting Corporation does not cater to the interests and concerns of Scotland.

No doubt many of these campaigners are simply playing the political game and putting pressure on the BBC in the hope the broadcaster will dance to their tune.  Their objection to bias is purely partial and self-serving: they are not concerned with upholding the principle of impartiality, they simply want the BBC to be biased towards them rather than the other side of whatever is the dispute or controversy. Of course, some anti-bias campaigners are genuinely naive and muddle-headed and actually think that the BBC can somehow be studiously impartial.

Whatever, the BBC's famed 'impartiality' has to be seen for what it is: a fig leaf for vested interests to hide behind.  Professional impartiality is a myth, not just at the BBC but throughout media.  Therefore, if we allow the BBC to go on, we are allowing the perpetuation of a deceit on the public, many of whom still implicitly trust that the BBC is fair and impartial.  

Broadcasters and the media cannot be impartial.  They can, however, be balanced.  They can present both and multiple sides of an argument.  The BBC often does not even achieve balance, and when it does at least offer notional balance in features and discussions, it tries to make out that this is evidence of practical impartiality.  It isn't.  Balance and impartiality are not at all the same thing.  Impartiality is an ideal that can never be fully achieved, and in the case of the BBC (like most other media organisations) is only paid lip service to.  Balance is more of a realistic goal, but even that depends to a large extent on having competitive media, some of whom will actively strive for institutional balance in what they do, others of whom will be openly slanted on the basis that balance is embodied in the availability to viewers and listeners of a multiplicity of outlets.  The state can help by ensuring there is genuine media plurality and choice, so that viewers and listeners are able to receive information from different sources and weigh things up.  How might the state achieve this?  Easy - by doing one simple thing.  The state needs to get out of media and broadcasting and start treating us like adults.

Our solution is simple: abolish the BBC, end state involvement in information, and allow the disciplines of the free market to bring fuller transparency and balance into media and broadcasting.

The State, Statism and Leftism

Conservative- and patriotic-minded people often think that if only they can capture the state machinery, it can be made to work in the national interest.  This does not follow.  The state itself is Leftist by nature, and 'statism' (i.e. the habitual or dogmatic reliance on the state to solve problems) always leads to the imposition of Leftist agendas.  

Margaret Thatcher came to understand this quite late in her career, and on becoming leader of the Conservative Party, set about trying to ‘roll back the state’.  The organised opposition to ‘Thatcherism’ came from the Labour Party, trade unions, the BBC,  local government, civil servants, academia, large companies, charities, and similar, not to mention opposition from 'wet' Tories within the Conservative Party itself.  Those forces remain in place today, and if anything, have been greatly strengthened.  They are the Left.  They are the people who rely for payment of their wages on enforced deductions from your wages: i.e. taxes.  They all work for the state or other public bodies, or in the case of charities and the corporate business sector, for organisations subsidised by the taxpayer.  Their opposition to Thatcher was virulent, bitter and at times violent, on a scale perhaps never before seen against a government of modern times.  The reason for this was not really because of Thatcher's policies as such.  In fact, virtually all post-War governments, both Labour and Conservative, had implemented similar policies (albeit not to such an ambitious or sweeping extent); rather, it was because Thatcher explicitly proposed to attack, undermine, and where possible, systematically dismantle, the very basis of the Left's power in Britain.

Thatcher's friends and allies were, variously, the entrepreneurial lower middle-class, most of the provincial Tory Party, much of the ordinary working class - especially in the south of England - and socially-conservative and patriotic elements within the Labour Party, who realised the Left was descending into lunacy.  Thus, the battle lines back then were quite similar to those that exist today over Brexit.  Thatcher failed in her objectives and, if anything, the reach of the state expanded under her governments.  One problem with Margaret Thatcher was that she had been formed politically under the post-War social-democratic consensus.  Her melodramatic Damascene conversion to Austrian economics and Gladstonian liberalism was her scientific intellect attempting to find a sufficiently-powerful antidote to her essentially leftist leanings, but she could not entirely shake-off those formative influences and was not sufficiently ruthless in dealing with the Left.  Nevertheless, 'Thatcherism' is a term coined in a British context for a style of government that goes against social-democratic policies in that it minimises state intervention; supports a concomitant contraction of the state; encourages economic liberalism, government spending cuts, tax cuts, deregulation, privatisation and flexible labour markets; and that pursues a patriotic stance at home and abroad.

We are not Thatcherites - in fact, we are not even supporters of the Conservative Party - and we have different motivations to Thatcher for attacking the Left, but we agree with her method.  In order to defeat the Left, we must dismantle the state – we think the BBC is a good starting point.  It is the centre of the Left’s power in this country.

Ours is not an argument against the state per se.  That is an entirely other subject and a different debate.  For us, the point is that the state, if it exists, must be minimal, and must - so far as is possible – work broadly in the interests of the indigenous population.  We believe the two things go together: a larger state bureaucracy means more Leftism, a lesser need for self-reliance among the population, a large number of intrusive and inefficient state-run or state-subsidised services that are available not just to the indigenous British but to all-comers; whereas, a smaller state bureaucracy, means less Leftism, a greater need for self-reliance among the population, but more focused and efficient essential services directed to the needs of the indigenous British people and no other.  We want the latter, not the former.  For that to happen in Britain, we must have a Ground Zero Revolution in which the state bureaucracy, and other similar bureaus such as those in local government and large companies, are dismantled under process of law.  This is true radicalism: a return to the roots of good governance founded in communities, families and individuals, instead of reliance on large impersonal entities that are funded at the point of a gun.  This blog focuses on the BBC, but from time-to-time we may touch on the other lines of attack and how radical reform can be achieved.

To be clear, it is not that we are uncaring right-wing free marketeers who want to remove social safety nets.  Quite the opposite: we want to see a system built around the needs and interests of the British people.  We think that requires a restoration of tradition, family, community, autonomy and responsibility, in which a minimal state agrees to provide safety nets on the understanding that people learn to stand on their own two feet and take responsibility for themselves, their families and their local communities.

What could replace the BBC?  We want to see public broadcasting replaced with plurality.  There is choice already, but not enough.  Most broadcasting is bland and conformist, and we think the existence of the BBC has something to do with this.  The private sector will fill the void to a large extent, but local communities and conscientious individuals could organise their own broadcasting stations, covering issues that matter to them instead of having concerns and issues imposed on them.  With digital technology, this is now possible.  The BBC itself cannot contribute to a pluralistic and democratic media environment.  It was founded as a paternalistic broadcaster, at arm’s length from the state, intended to inform, entertain and educate – and this was perfectly admirable and laudable for its time - but as society changed, the BBC lost its way and has gradually become a maternalistic general purpose busy-body agency of the state, smothering and stifling everybody, and telling everybody what is good for them.