More lazy BBC bashing from the Mail:
It's business as usual at the biased Beeb as the new director-general prepares to take overRead more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... z1yAN8tk5hQuote:
For years there have been numerous complaints about the overt Left-wing bias of the BBC's news coverage.
Indeed, the Corporation's soon-to-quit director-general, Mark Thompson, has admitted that it had been guilty of a 'massive' Left-wing bias in the past and that there had been a 'struggle' to achieve impartiality.
But a new report based on analysis by an independent think-tank of all the BBC's TV output over the past five years suggests the reasons are deep-seated.
The New Culture Forum says: 'The assumptions of programme-makers are frequently sufficiently apparent . . . to alienate viewers and listeners with a more conservative outlook on life.'
The report's author Dennis Sewell, who worked in BBC news for 22 years, concluded: 'Insufficient care is taken to avoid coming across to audiences on the Centre-Right as preachy, politically correct and sanctimonious, and to avoid appearing to establish the Left-liberal consensus position as the "norm".
'Polemical, political drama and comedy continue to be monopolised by Left-of-Centre writers and performers.'
The report also accuses the BBC of being over-solicitous towards Islam — in marked contrast to its treatment of Christianity. The Forum, whose patrons include Education Secretary Michael Gove, singles out the drama Frankie's Story, which portrayed British soldiers in Afghanistan as thugs. It was described by Gulf War veteran Colonel Tim Collins as 'a stab in the back' for the military.
On the other hand, the BBC rejected a comedy about Islamist bombers (called Four Lions) for fear of offending Muslims. Yet it broadcast a documentary that treated an Islamist as a moderate despite the fact he called for homosexuals to be killed.
The think-tank report concludes: 'Taken together, these tendencies risk generating a perception of the BBC as institutionally Left-Liberal in its output, as well as in the mindset of most of its staff.'
The new BBC director-general will have an overflowing in-tray when he or she starts work later this year, but eradicating institutional political and cultural bias will be a priority.