Bias at the Beeb
The BBC always claim that they strive to keep an unbiased stance on the news, however their understanding of ‘unbiased’ is very limited, based on legislation, and it means simply ‘politically non-partisan’. On many other issues they have no qualms about being blatantly biased, only covering favourably what they think the majority of their audience want to know, and totally ignoring or covering scornfully many other events.
This can be seen at a basic level in the hierarchy of importance with which they report the main news items - domestic events of minor significance coming well before important international items.
Back in the 1980s they were guilty together with most of the media of ignoring or belittling the gay movement, only briefly and sneeringly report 10,000-strong Pride marches and so on, while giving great prominence to a story about half-a-dozen ladies presenting a petition at Number 10 about street litter in the suburbs.
The ultimate was in 1988, when thousands marched - on an officially permitted route - down Whitehall to protest against the infamous Section 28; there was a total media blackout of this, nothing was mentioned in the news at all, even though the march exploded into a full-blown riot when some of the protesters attempted to enter Downing Street to present their grievances to Thatcher. At that time there was no gate at the entrance to the street, just a bar raised to allow cars through, and the few police manning that bar were almost overwhelmed by the crowd - I witnessed their batons being brandished, people being beaten up, dragged by the hair as reinforcements rushed in, and on the rooftops there suddenly appeared sinister figures with what looked like automatic rifles. It was the stewards who eventually calmed things down, but the march never managed to reach its intended rally in Parliament Square.
The BBC didn’t report any of this, even as a footnote. I’ve never trusted them since that day.


