BBC Response to Latest Crisis Makes Situation Worse

Critics of the BBC have smelt blood after some of its most senior figures were forced to resign over the latest in an extraordinarily long list of bias scandals, and are gunning if not for change then for the abolition of its (taxpayer-reliant) funding model altogether.

The BBC and its allies largely have themselves to blame for this, of course.

For starters, the senior executive who defended the doctoring of Donald Trump’s January 6th, 2021, speech—in a way that made it appear as though he might have been inciting violence—when internal concerns were raised has kept his job. One newsroom insider fumed in comments to the Telegraph, which has been leading this story:

What is Jonathan [Munro, the global director of BBC News] still doing here? News needs change at the top and he should follow Deborah Turness [the now former boss of BBC News].

Other officials have also been accused of downplaying the seriousness of the editing, suggesting that lessons have very much not been learnt.

Outraged by the doctored footage, Trump said on Monday that the corporation must apologise by this Friday or he will sue it for “no less” than $1 billion (€0.86bn) in damages.

Some of the broadcaster’s supporters have even suggested that because this case revolves around Trump, it shouldn’t be taken that seriously at all. And Alan Rusbridger, the editor of Britain’s Prospect magazine, told Channel 4 on Monday that “nobody should be citing Donald Trump and his attack on the BBC as evidence that anything is wrong at the BBC … whenever he sees a credible news organisation, he tries to discredit it.”

But it is not as though this is the only scandal around the BBC’s neck, as we have long reported.

On the contrary, reports on Tuesday attacked the corporation for “ignoring” warnings about pro-transgender bias in its sports coverage.

Reform leader Nigel Farage also said this week that the fact a former Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) chief executive “is now being paid £190k [€215,000] a year as the BBC’s Nations Director … is living proof that the BBC is infected with left-wing bias right to the top.”

There is likely still much more to come.