Remember when the BBC was a trusted source of news? Remember when it was world-renowned as a neutral, objective outlet that set the global standard for good reporting? Sadly, it’s been a while since this was the case. Today, the BBC is more akin to a propaganda apparatus than a news broadcaster—a blow made even worse by the fact that it’s funded by the British taxpayer.
The latest scandal revolves around a dossier, compiled last month by Michael Prescott, former adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee (EGSC), and recently seen by the Telegraph. One of the most egregious examples of bias highlighted in the report is that of a Panorama documentary aired last year, shortly before the U.S. presidential elections. The programme featured a speech by now-President Donald Trump appearing to encourage the January 6th Capitol Hill riot in 2021. In the footage, it looks like Trump tells his supporters, “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.” In reality, this sequence was created by splicing clips together, combining footage from the beginning of a speech with something Trump said almost an hour later. He had actually encouraged people “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
The dossier describes the video as having been “mangled” in order to make Trump “‘say’ things [he] never actually said,” and, as a result, “completely misled” viewers. This deception was apparently raised to BBC managers, but they “refused to accept there had been a breach of standards.” Prescott warned BBC chairman Samir Shah that the Panorama documentary was setting a “very, very dangerous precedent,” but he received no response. Indeed, Prescott sent the dossier to the BBC Board because repeated warnings to the EGSC were “dismissed or ignored.”
The Panorama documentary is by no means the only example of the BBC’s shocking bias. In the run-up to last year’s U.S. election, the state broadcaster falsely reported that Trump was encouraging violence against his Republican critic, Liz Cheney. BBC News presenters claimed that he “wants people to shoot Liz Cheney in the face” and that he said, “Liz Cheney should face a firing squad.” This can only be chalked up to a deliberate misunderstanding of Trump’s actual words. In November last year, he criticised Cheney for being a “radical war hawk” and suggested, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her … Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.” His point being not that he wanted to put Cheney in front of a firing squad, but simply that “they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building.” This very simple argument was apparently lost on the BBC and its North America editor, Sarah Smith, who accused Trump of “ratcheting up the violent rhetoric” and of suggesting “that one of his political opponents should face guns, have them trained on her face.”
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Prescott’s dossier reportedly also includes evidence that the BBC has been engaging in “effective censorship” in its coverage of the transgender debate and that its BBC Arabic service was biased in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Specifically, the broadcaster apparently chose to “minimise Israeli suffering” in order to “paint Israel as the aggressor.” In June last year, the BBC published two articles about mass graves being discovered at the Al-Nasa and Al-Shifa hospitals in Gaza. The reporting strongly suggested that the Israeli Defence Forces had committed war crimes at the site, despite evidence existing to the contrary. According to the dossier, it was far more likely that the graves were dug by Palestinians and that the bodies found there were the remains of people who had died before the IDF had even arrived. Prescott argues that this was not an innocent mistake. He writes that any allegation made against Israel was routinely “raced to air” without proper fact-checking, either out of carelessness or “a desire always to believe the worst about Israel.”
Nor did the BBC adequately vet its reporters in Gaza. Prescott’s memo revealed that BBC Arabic was regularly platforming pro-Hamas and antisemitic journalists. One reporter, who was featured on the channel hundreds of times, once wrote on Facebook that he wanted Jews to be burned “as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.” Another regular BBC Arabic reporter praised a Palestinian gunman who murdered four Israeli civilians and a police officer as a “hero.” A third reporter, who described Israelis as less than human and Jews as “devils,” appeared on BBC Arabic no less than 500 times and was featured on the channel as recently as this April. This was previously reported in the Telegraph earlier this year, prompting the BBC to downplay the journalists’ role, calling them “eyewitnesses” and stressing that “these are not BBC members of staff or part of the BBC’s reporting team.” But the fact that these men often appeared wearing bulletproof vests emblazoned with the word ‘PRESS’ makes it understandable that audiences would have made this assumption. The BBC did effectively treat these reporters as staff.
What on Earth happened to the BBC? It once had a global reputation for honest, accurate, sophisticated reporting. Now hardly a week goes by without one scandal or another hitting the Beeb. Whether it’s leaving out crucial details about anti-migration protests, giving airtime to people who think men can breastfeed, or dedicating article upon article to drag queens of various kinds, the trend is unmistakable. This new dossier simply confirms what many of us already knew—that the BBC has been taken over by activists. It fed audiences fake news about Trump. It helped to spread Hamas’s propaganda. It took sides in the trans debate—something we’ll hear more about once the Telegraph releases further excerpts from the memo. And all the while, it presented itself as a guardian of the truth. Its BBC Verify fact-checking service had the gall to lecture us about supposed conspiracy theories and disinformation, even as it peddled blatant falsehoods and misleading claims.
Clearly, none of these were one-off mistakes. Prescott’s dossier points to a broader pattern of sloppy and outright disingenuous journalism. It can no longer be in doubt that the days of an impartial, trustworthy BBC are over. Its ideological capture is now complete.
The Demise of the BBC
Conservative politician Jeremy Hunt (C) gives an interview outside the BBC studios in central London on July 10, 2022.
Justin TALLIS / AFP
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Remember when the BBC was a trusted source of news? Remember when it was world-renowned as a neutral, objective outlet that set the global standard for good reporting? Sadly, it’s been a while since this was the case. Today, the BBC is more akin to a propaganda apparatus than a news broadcaster—a blow made even worse by the fact that it’s funded by the British taxpayer.
The latest scandal revolves around a dossier, compiled last month by Michael Prescott, former adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee (EGSC), and recently seen by the Telegraph. One of the most egregious examples of bias highlighted in the report is that of a Panorama documentary aired last year, shortly before the U.S. presidential elections. The programme featured a speech by now-President Donald Trump appearing to encourage the January 6th Capitol Hill riot in 2021. In the footage, it looks like Trump tells his supporters, “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.” In reality, this sequence was created by splicing clips together, combining footage from the beginning of a speech with something Trump said almost an hour later. He had actually encouraged people “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
The dossier describes the video as having been “mangled” in order to make Trump “‘say’ things [he] never actually said,” and, as a result, “completely misled” viewers. This deception was apparently raised to BBC managers, but they “refused to accept there had been a breach of standards.” Prescott warned BBC chairman Samir Shah that the Panorama documentary was setting a “very, very dangerous precedent,” but he received no response. Indeed, Prescott sent the dossier to the BBC Board because repeated warnings to the EGSC were “dismissed or ignored.”
The Panorama documentary is by no means the only example of the BBC’s shocking bias. In the run-up to last year’s U.S. election, the state broadcaster falsely reported that Trump was encouraging violence against his Republican critic, Liz Cheney. BBC News presenters claimed that he “wants people to shoot Liz Cheney in the face” and that he said, “Liz Cheney should face a firing squad.” This can only be chalked up to a deliberate misunderstanding of Trump’s actual words. In November last year, he criticised Cheney for being a “radical war hawk” and suggested, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her … Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.” His point being not that he wanted to put Cheney in front of a firing squad, but simply that “they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building.” This very simple argument was apparently lost on the BBC and its North America editor, Sarah Smith, who accused Trump of “ratcheting up the violent rhetoric” and of suggesting “that one of his political opponents should face guns, have them trained on her face.”
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Prescott’s dossier reportedly also includes evidence that the BBC has been engaging in “effective censorship” in its coverage of the transgender debate and that its BBC Arabic service was biased in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Specifically, the broadcaster apparently chose to “minimise Israeli suffering” in order to “paint Israel as the aggressor.” In June last year, the BBC published two articles about mass graves being discovered at the Al-Nasa and Al-Shifa hospitals in Gaza. The reporting strongly suggested that the Israeli Defence Forces had committed war crimes at the site, despite evidence existing to the contrary. According to the dossier, it was far more likely that the graves were dug by Palestinians and that the bodies found there were the remains of people who had died before the IDF had even arrived. Prescott argues that this was not an innocent mistake. He writes that any allegation made against Israel was routinely “raced to air” without proper fact-checking, either out of carelessness or “a desire always to believe the worst about Israel.”
Nor did the BBC adequately vet its reporters in Gaza. Prescott’s memo revealed that BBC Arabic was regularly platforming pro-Hamas and antisemitic journalists. One reporter, who was featured on the channel hundreds of times, once wrote on Facebook that he wanted Jews to be burned “as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.” Another regular BBC Arabic reporter praised a Palestinian gunman who murdered four Israeli civilians and a police officer as a “hero.” A third reporter, who described Israelis as less than human and Jews as “devils,” appeared on BBC Arabic no less than 500 times and was featured on the channel as recently as this April. This was previously reported in the Telegraph earlier this year, prompting the BBC to downplay the journalists’ role, calling them “eyewitnesses” and stressing that “these are not BBC members of staff or part of the BBC’s reporting team.” But the fact that these men often appeared wearing bulletproof vests emblazoned with the word ‘PRESS’ makes it understandable that audiences would have made this assumption. The BBC did effectively treat these reporters as staff.
What on Earth happened to the BBC? It once had a global reputation for honest, accurate, sophisticated reporting. Now hardly a week goes by without one scandal or another hitting the Beeb. Whether it’s leaving out crucial details about anti-migration protests, giving airtime to people who think men can breastfeed, or dedicating article upon article to drag queens of various kinds, the trend is unmistakable. This new dossier simply confirms what many of us already knew—that the BBC has been taken over by activists. It fed audiences fake news about Trump. It helped to spread Hamas’s propaganda. It took sides in the trans debate—something we’ll hear more about once the Telegraph releases further excerpts from the memo. And all the while, it presented itself as a guardian of the truth. Its BBC Verify fact-checking service had the gall to lecture us about supposed conspiracy theories and disinformation, even as it peddled blatant falsehoods and misleading claims.
Clearly, none of these were one-off mistakes. Prescott’s dossier points to a broader pattern of sloppy and outright disingenuous journalism. It can no longer be in doubt that the days of an impartial, trustworthy BBC are over. Its ideological capture is now complete.
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