BBC's biased reporting against Republicans
I've often found that people from the US have a overly positive towards the BBC and are unaware of it's flaws. The BBC has a long history of biased reporting about republicanism, and given recent events I think it's worth discussing that a little.
I am speaking, of course, of their coverage of the British royal family. The most recent news story that bears on this is the stripping of the titles of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. There are two notable aspects of the BBC's, and the British media's more generally, coverage of this event:
The instantaneous shift in the tenor of reporting not after the reveal of additional information but from the moment he was no longer "Royal"
The sheer lack of any in depth reporting about what information his very prominent family members knew of before it became public knowledge and why they failed to decisively act until long after Andrew's association with Epstein was long in the public domain.
This reporting isn't an isolated instant but a long tradition of BBC's deference to their royals. Their monarchist bias is displayed not only in how they report about them but in what they don't report. In 2013 the anti-monarchist group Republic identified a series of negative widely covered stories about the royals that the BBC ignored:
Duchy of Cornwall accused of tax avoidance Covered by: The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Mail, Financial Times, The Daily Express BBC coverage: none
Royal finances to be investigated by public accounts committee Covered by: The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Sunday Express BBC coverage: none
Prince Charles uses intestate cash to fund own lobby groups and old public school Covered by: The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express BBC coverage: none
As Republic notes, many other critical stories that were covered in depth elsewhere by the British media received cursory coverage by the BBC while a variety of puff pieces about the royals were published.
The BBC's choice to not report negative information about the royals extends beyond specific news pieces with but from cancelling, delaying and hiding documentaries about the Royals from public view.
The most famous example of this is Cawston's documentary the Royal Family first broadcast in 1969 and then hid from view for decades after Elizabeth "requested it never be broadcast again." with the controller of BBC 2 accusing the director of “killing the monarchy”. The BBC spent the equivalent of £2.5 million pounds in today's money and then a word of displeasure from their queen was enough for them to lock it away forever. These are not the actions of an unbiased broadcaster.
Neither are these actions that can be placed far in the past. The documentary maker Kevin Sim said his 2007 documentary about Diana was never shown to avoid upsetting the royals. A documentary on Charles was delayed after pressure from the royals and as a Republic spokesman argued "The BBC has a responsibility to the public to show no fear or favour in its reporting. Prince Charles is in line to be Britain's head of state - he must be subjected to the same standards of media scrutiny as any politician"
The documentaries that are broadcast without being cancelled, delayed or locked in a vault are uncritical and "controversial and contested opinions about the monarchy's value" are treated as fact. There is, in effect, "no meaningful distinction between the corporation and the Buckingham Palace press office"
It is hard to escape the conclusion that reporting on the British royal family by the BBC isn't neutral but in most cases deferential and in some cases outright dictated by the palace.
We have not even gotten to the most contemptible display of the BBC's pro-monarchy bias - its reporting after the death of Elizabeth Windsor and on to coronation of her son Charles.
Perhaps the overly obsequious obituary could be forgiven given the circumstances. What can not be forgiven is the totality of their coverage during that period effectively being propaganda for the monarchy. As Aaronovitch writing for The Times (a right wing paper) argued:
It is quite another matter for news programmes and news sequences to conscript the viewer and listener into the ranks of fervent royalists; constantly to tell citizens what they are supposed to be thinking and feeling, while presenting a version of the truth which is completely sanitised and stripped of any awkward reality.
For example, is it really “balanced” and “impartial” to visit Northern Ireland and discover only people who thought that the royal family was wonderful? To fail, in the period around the accession, to interview a single republican who might argue that things should be done differently? To characterise any demonstration, however tiny, of a contrary view as being eccentric and illegitimate? To somehow forget that the recent history of the monarchy had had some decidedly problematic moments?
Republic again identified and criticized the BBC's bias. So far this appears rather typical of the BBC but what makes it especially contemptible is they continued their fawning over the royalty as mass arrests of protestors were taking place.
You didn't even have to be deliberately setting out to protest. If you came across a proclamation the new king and called out "who elected him?" the police would haul you away.
The Met in a rather authoritarian quote declared that “tolerance for any disruption, whether through protest or otherwise, will be low” and went on to arrest dozens of peaceful protestors.
Any respectable news organisation would have responded to these mass arrests by understanding that this state repression was a more important story than an old woman passing away and her son taking over her cushy job. The BBC instead continued to fawn over Elizabeth and Charles giving more attention to them than the people arrested for protesting.
It is instructive to consider how the BBC's coverage would have differed if these arrests happened on the coronation of another country's monarch.
Why then is the BBC biased in favour of the royalty?
Former BBC senior executive Marcus Ryder links it to demographics. He writes of how the senior BBC figures dressed up when Charles and Camillia visted but didn't days later when the elected first minister visited and that "it is exactly the demographic that most supports the continuation of the monarchy who are disproportionately in positions of editorial responsibility in our newsrooms."
Certainly, demographics play a role but in my view they are secondary to the fact that the BBC is part of the British state and naturally then tends to defend it (though it must be acknowledged that there are many brave individual journalists in the BBC who are exceptions). I do not believe that changing the editorial demographics would be enough to remove this bias. When I said that the BBC's core bias isn't party political but being in favor of the British state this is what I meant.
I imagine when some of you saw the title you expected it was going to be about a republican party given the BBC's recent libelous coverage of it's former leader. That's worth considering as well. So, let's now discuss the BBC's coverage of Sinn Féin and the Troubles.
The BBC's unionist bias during The Troubles is well documented. The British Journalism Review provides a good overview of the subject and how "stuff was censored" by those running the BBC and that "pro-unionist prejudice was embedded within the BBC from its inception".
Given the army's murder of civil rights protestors it is particularly chilling to note that the BBC framed "civil rights protests in 1969 as some kind of stalking horse for the IRA".
In 2017 the BBC financed a documentary No Stone Unturned about a massacre by a loyalist death squad who killed 6 civilians that "provided strong evidence of state collusion". You might think that this is an important story that the BBC would publish and yet:
After a falling out over editorial issues, BBC NI failed to show it. Nationalist politicians were among those who demanded to know why, when the film was being screened in cinemas and was receiving huge attention in Ireland and abroad, the BBC in NI ignored it.
The BBC continued to refuse to broadcast it in later years. The British police unlawfully spied and then detained the journalists who made the documentary and would later be forced to pay them £850,000.
The BBC while refusing to broadcast a documentary about loyalist murders and state collusion was happy to libel Gerry Adams. After The BBC repeatedly refusing to settle a case against them Adams was awarded €100,000 in damages with the BBC's legal bill estimated to be up to €5 million.
The outcome of the case was inevitable with the jury reaching its decision in a matter of hours. It is strange that anyone with even a cursory understanding of the case would have been able to guess the outcome but the BBC refused to settle and cost itself far more.
Notably when the British government were recently found to have unlawfully interned Adams - and many others - they brought in legislation to avoid paying compensation. The BBC is part of the British state and their attitude to paying republicans for violating their rights is seemingly in line with the attitude of the British state as a whole.
The BBC continued to defend it's reporting even after the court found against them. Adams stated that:
I know many, many journalists. I like to think that I get on well with most of them and I wish you well and I would uphold your right to do your job,
But the British Broadcasting Corporation upholds the ethos of the British state in Ireland and, in my view, it's out of sync in many, many fronts with the Good Friday Agreement.
Again and again we see the BBC's core bias on display: it's bias in favour of the British state. I've chosen two specific subjects here but it applies more widely.
There are countless subjects - Iraq, Corbyn, Scottish Independence, Gaza to name just a few - where the average piece of BBC reporting is going to be shaped by the BBC protecting the institutions and interests of the British state and you should always keep that in mind when evaluating their journalism
