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The British Broadcasting Corporation (

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

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) took its present form on 1 January 1927 when John Reith became its first Director-General. Reith stated that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism in broadcasting. Allegations that the corporation lacks impartial and

objective Objective may refer to: * Objective (optics), an element in a camera or microscope * ''The Objective'', a 2008 science fiction horror film * Objective pronoun, a personal pronoun that is used as a grammatical object * Objective Productions, a Brit ...

journalism are regularly made by observers on both the left and the right of the

political spectrum A political spectrum is a system to characterize and classify different political positions in relation to one another. These positions sit upon one or more geometric axes that represent independent political dimensions. The expressions politi ...

. Another key area of criticism is the mandatory licence fee, as commercial competitors argue that means of financing to be unfair and to result in limiting their ability to compete with the BBC. Also, accusations of waste or over-staffing occasionally prompt comments from politicians and the other media.

20th century

Thatcher government

Accusations of a left-wing bias were often made against the corporation by members of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

's 1980s Conservative government. Norman Tebbit called the BBC the "Stateless Person's Broadcasting Corporation" because of what he regarded as its unpatriotic coverage of the Falklands War, and Conservative MP

Peter Bruinvels Peter Nigel Edward Bruinvels (born 30 March 1950) is a governor of the Church Commissioners and former Conservative MP. Homophobia As an MP in 1986, Bruinvels was opposed to equal rights for the LGBT community and was a strong supporter of ...

called it the "

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

Broadcasting Corporation". Steve Barnett wrote in ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'' in 2001 that in 1983, Stuart Young, the "accountant and brother of one of Thatcher's staunchest cabinet allies", David Young, was appointed as BBC chairman. After him, in 1986, came

Marmaduke Hussey Marmaduke James Hussey, Baron Hussey of North Bradley (29 August 1923 – 27 December 2006), known as Duke Hussey, was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the BBC from 1986 to 1996, serving two terms in that role. Education and career The so ...

, a "brother-in-law of another Cabinet Minister.... According to the then-Tory party chairman, Norman Tebbit, Hussey was appointed 'to get in there and sort the place out'". Controversies continued with the likes of the '' Nationwide'' general election special with Thatcher in 1983, a '' Panorama'' documentary called

Maggie's Militant Tendency This article outlines, in chronological order, the various controversies surrounding or involving the BBC. Early years 1926 General Strike In 1926, the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) called a General Strike to prevent wage r ...

, the ''Real Lives'' interview with

Martin McGuinness James Martin Pacelli McGuinness ( ga, Séamus Máirtín Pacelli Mag Aonghusa; 23 May 1950 – 21 March 2017) was an Irish republican politician and statesman from Sinn Féin and a leader within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) during ...

, the BBC's coverage of the US 1986 Bombing of Libya and the Zircon affair. In 1987, the Director-General of the BBC, Alasdair Milne, was forced to resign. Thatcher later said: "I have fought three elections against the BBC and don't want to fight another against it". In 2006, Tebbit said: "The BBC was always against Lady Thatcher". Mark Thompson, the Director General of the BBC, said in 2010, "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago s a production trainee, in 1979 there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left. The organisation did struggle then with impartiality".

21st century

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

forms a major department of the corporation, and receives many complaints of bias. The

Tufton Street Tufton Street is a road in Westminster, London, located just outside of the Westminster Abbey precinct. Built by its namesake Sir Richard Tufton during the 17th century, today it hosts a number of right-leaning lobby groups and thinktanks. As a ...

-based

Centre for Policy Studies The Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) is a think tank and pressure group in the United Kingdom. Its goal is to promote coherent and practical policies based on its founding principles of: free markets, "small state," low tax, national independ ...

(a free market orientated think tank) stated, "Since at least the mid-1980s, the Corporation has often been criticised for a perceived bias against those on the centre-right of politics". Similar allegations have been made by past and present employees such as

Antony Jay Sir Antony Rupert Jay, (20 April 1930 – 21 August 2016) was an English writer, broadcaster, producer and director. With Jonathan Lynn, he co-wrote the British political comedies '' Yes Minister'' and ''Yes, Prime Minister'' (1980–88). He al ...

, North American editor Justin Webb, former editor of the ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'' programme

Rod Liddle Roderick E. Liddle (born 1 April 1960) is an English journalist and an associate editor of ''The Spectator''. He was an editor of BBC Radio 4's ''Today'' programme. His published works include ''Too Beautiful for You'' (2003), ''Love Will Destr ...

, former correspondent Robin Aitken and

Peter Sissons Peter George Sissons (17 July 1942 – 1 October 2019) was an English journalist and broadcaster. He was a newscaster for ITN, providing bulletins on ITV and Channel 4, before becoming the presenter of the BBC's ''Question Time'' between 1989 ...

, a former news presenter. The former political editor

Andrew Marr Andrew William Stevenson Marr (born 31 July 1959) is a British journalist and broadcaster. Beginning his career as a political commentator, he subsequently edited '' The Independent'' newspaper from 1996 to 1998 and was political editor of BBC ...

argued in 2006 that the liberal bias of the BBC is the product of the types of people that it employs and so is cultural, not political. In 2011,

Peter Oborne Peter Alan Oborne (; born 11 July 1957) is a British journalist and broadcaster. He is the former chief political commentator of ''The Daily Telegraph'', from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of ''The Rise of Political Lying'', ''Th ...

wrote in his '' Daily Telegraph'' blog, "Rather than representing the nation as a whole, it

he BBC He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

has become a vital resource – and sometimes attack weapon – for a narrow, arrogant Left-Liberal elite". In recent years,

has criticised the BBC for exhibiting a bias in favour of the Conservatives. Speaking to journalists at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch in 2009,

Jeremy Hunt Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (born 1 November 1966) is a British politician who has served as Chancellor of the Exchequer since 14 October 2022. He previously served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport ...

, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, claimed that BBC News needed more people from the centre-right: "I wish they would go and actively look for some Conservatives to be part of their news-gathering team, because they have acknowledged that one of their problems is that people who want to work at the Corporation tend to be from the centre-left. That's why they have this issue with what Andrew Marr called an innate liberal bias". Other commentators have taken the opposite view and criticised the BBC for being part of

The Establishment ''The Establishment'' is a term used to describe a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization. It may comprise a closed social group that selects its own members, or entrenched elite structures in specific institution ...

. In 2009,

Mehdi Hasan Mehdi Raza Hasan (born July 1979) is a British-American political journalist, broadcaster and author of Indian descent. Hasan has been the host of ''The Mehdi Hasan Show'' on Peacock since October 2020 and on MSNBC since February 2021. In 2 ...

wrote in the ''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British Political magazine, political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney Webb, Sidney and Beatrice ...

'' that the BBC was biased "towards power and privilege, tradition and orthodoxy". He said that the view that the BBC was biased to the left, which he said had been "internalised even by liberals and leftists", "is a calculated and cynical move by the right to cow the corporation into submission". Giving as examples

Andrew Neil Andrew Ferguson Neil (born 21 May 1949) is a Scottish former journalist and broadcaster who is chairman of ''The Spectator'' and presenter of '' The Andrew Neil Show'' on Channel 4. He was editor of ''The Sunday Times'' from 1983 to 1994. He f ...

, Nick Robinson,

Robbie Gibb Sir Robbie Paul Gibb (born September 1964) is a British public relations professional, political advisor and broadcast journalist. Robbie Gibb, brother of Conservative MP Nick Gibb, was the head of the BBC's political programme output before l ...

and

Guto Harri Guto Harri (; born 8 July 1966) is a Welsh broadcaster, writer and strategic communications consultant. He most recently served as Downing Street Director of Communications, having been appointed by Boris Johnson in February 2022. Harri spent ...

he wrote that the rightwing backgrounds of "various prominent BBC employees have been curiously unexamined in the row over "bias" ". In 2014, ''The Guardian'' columnist

Owen Jones Owen Jones (born 8 August 1984) is a British newspaper columnist, political commentator, journalist, author, and left-wing activist. He writes a column for ''The Guardian'' and contributes to the ''New Statesman'' and '' Tribune.'' He has two ...

wrote that "research actually suggests the BBC's output is biased towards establishment and rightwing sources" and that the BBC is "stacked full of rightwingers", mentioning by name chairman of the BBC Trust Chris Patten (former chair of Conservative Party and government minister), political editor Nick Robinson, Thea Rogers, Andrew Neil, Neil's editor Robbie Gibb and Kamal Ahmed. A study by Cardiff University academics, which was funded by the

BBC Trust The BBC Trust was the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) between 2007 and 2017. It was operationally independent of BBC management and external bodies, and its stated aim was to make decisions in the best interests of ...

, was published in August 2013 and examined the BBC's coverage of a broad range of issues. One of the findings was the dominance of party political sources; in coverage of immigration, the EU and religion, they accounted for 49.4% of all source appearances in 2007 and 54.8% in 2012. The data also showed that the Conservative Party received significantly more airtime than the Labour Party. In 2012, Conservative leader and then Prime Minister David Cameron outnumbered Labour leader

Ed Miliband Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliban ...

in appearances by a factor of nearly four to one (53 to 15), and governing Conservative cabinet members and ministers outnumbered their Labour counterparts by more than four to one (67 to 15). A former Director General of the BBC,

Greg Dyke Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a British media executive, football administrator, journalist, and broadcaster. Since the 1960s, Dyke has had a long career in the UK in print and then broadcast journalism. He is credited with introducing ' ...

, criticised the BBC as part of a "Westminster conspiracy" to maintain the British political system. Before to the 2019 general election, the BBC was criticised for biased coverage that favoured the ruling Conservative Party. For instance, issue was taken with a clip used from a ''BBC Question Time'' leader's special episode in which the part showing audience laughter at Prime Minister

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...

's response to a certain question was edited out. BBC officials addressed the issue and admitted their mistake. Furthermore, the BBC was accused of subjecting

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...

and

Jo Swinson Joanne Kate Swinson (born 5 February 1980) is a former British Liberal Democrat politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 22 July to 13 December 2019. She was the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position, as well ...

to a gruelling interview by

but not requiring Johnson to go through the same and of arranging it beforehand. ''The Guardian'' columnist Owen Jones also took issue with the BBC rescinding its policy of not letting Johnson be interviewed by Marr unless he went through one with Neil. The BBC defended its decision to waive the requirement by citing national interest amidst a terror attack in London on 29 November 2019. Some commentators, such as

, have argued that there is a culture of "client journalism" which has flourished in recent years due to a closeness between the BBC and the ruling Conservative Party, which has led to their bias in favour of the establishment. For example, from 2008 to 2017,

was head of the BBC Westminster and therefore in charge of the BBC's political programming. His brother,

Nick Gibb Nicolas John Gibb (born 3 September 1960) is a British politician serving as Minister of State for Schools since October 2022, having previously held the office from 2010 to 2012 and again from 2015 to 2021. He has served at the Department for ...

, is a Conservative MP and Minister for Schools, and Robbie Gibb took a job with

Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cabi ...

as Director of Communications immediately after resigning from the BBC. The incoming Director-General as of September 2020,

Tim Davie Timothy Douglas Davie (born 25 April 1967 in Croydon, London) is the current and seventeenth Director-General of the BBC. He succeeded Tony Hall in the role on 1 September 2020. Davie was formerly the chief executive officer of BBC Studios. ...

, is a former Conservative Party councilor. In addition, the new Chairman of the BBC, Richard Sharp, has donated over £400,000 to the Conservative Party since 2001. Among journalists, BBC Political Editor

Laura Kuenssberg Laura Juliet Kuenssberg (born 8 August 1976) is a British journalist who currently presents the BBC's flagship Sunday morning politics show. She succeeded Nick Robinson as political editor of BBC News in July 2015, and was the first woman to ...

and ITV Political Editor

Robert Peston Robert James Kenneth Peston (born 25 April 1960) is an English journalist, presenter, and author. He is the political editor of ITV News and host of the weekly political discussion show ''Peston'' (previously ''Peston on Sunday''). From 2006 u ...

have also been criticized for perceived "client journalism", as well as uncritically repeating stories from anonymous government sources as news, which later transpired to be false.

Racism

The BBC has also been accused of racism. In a speech to the Royal Television Society in 2008,

Lenny Henry Sir Lenworth George Henry (born 29 August 1958) is a British actor, comedian, singer, television presenter and writer. Henry gained success as a stand-up comedian and impressionist in the late 1970s and early 1980s, culminating in '' The Le ...

said that ethnic minorities were "pitifully underserved" in television comedy and that little had changed at senior levels in terms of ethnic representation during his 32 years in television.

Jimmy McGovern James Stanley McGovern (born September 1949) is an English screenwriter and producer. He is best known for creating the drama series '' Cracker'' (1993–1995), for which he received two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. He als ...

, in a 2007 interview, called the BBC "one of the most racist institutions in England". In 2001, BBC Director-General Greg Dyke said that the BBC was "hideously white" and acknowledged difficulties with "race relations". He acknowledged that it was having difficulties in retaining minority staff and outlined plans towards solving those problems.

Rageh Omaar Rageh Omaar (; so, Raage Oomaar; ar, راجح أومار; born 19 July 1967) is a Somali-born British journalist and writer. He was a BBC world affairs correspondent, where he made his name reporting from Iraq. In September 2006, he moved to ...

, the Somali-born British journalist and former BBC war correspondent who reported the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, called BBC a "white man's club" after he resigned to join Al-Jazeera in 2006. Later, in 2007, while being interviewed by Hannah Pool of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', he accused the BBC of

classism Class discrimination, also known as classism, is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes, behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper class at the expense ...

too. The BBC, which is legally obliged to be an equal opportunities employer, had a 2012 target for 12.5% of its staff to be from a black or minority ethnic background (12% at 31 January 2009). The BBC's buildings are largely based in urban areas with a more diverse demography than the country as a whole (30% ethnic minority population in London and about 15% in the Manchester/Salford area), and the 12.5% figure is over 4% higher than the current percentage of ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom as a whole. However, many of its ethnic minority members of staff have been argued to be cleaners and security guards, not presenters and programme makers. ''

'' reported, "The BBC has pledged to increase the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people on air by more than 40% over the next three years and almost double the number of senior managers from those groups who work at the corporation by 2020". Indarjit Singh, the chief of Britain's Network of Sikh Organisations, criticised the

BBC Asian Network BBC Asian Network is a British Asian radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station's target audience is people "with an interest in British Asian lifestyles", especially British Asians between the ages of 18 and 34. The station has ...

, a radio station intended for an audience of South Asian origin: "Stations like BBC Asian Network do little to encourage integration and social cohesion because they allow communities to ghettoise themselves". In September 2019, the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit upheld a complaint that television presenter Naga Munchetty breached their editorial guidelines in her criticism of racist comments made by US President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

about four US representatives. That decision was criticised by the BBC's black and ethnic minority (BAME) network, and 44 British actors, broadcasters and journalists of BAME origin wrote a letter to ask for the BBC to reconsider its decision. Ofcom initiated a parallel assessment of the decision. Her fellow cohost, Dan Walker, was also named in the initial complaint, but no action was taken by the BBC against him since the complainant's follow-up complaint focused solely on Munchetty. In response, Tony Hall, the

Director-General of the BBC The director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation is chief executive and (from 1994) editor-in-chief of the BBC. The position was formerly appointed by the Board of Governors of the BBC (for the period of 1927 to 2007) and then t ...

, intervened and reversed the decision to uphold the complaint on 30 September. In July 2020, a BBC reporter used the word ''

nigger In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cases ...

'' in a report on the attack of a 21-year-old NHS worker and musician known as K-Dogg while reporting on what the assailants said during the attack. This led to complaints to the BBC about why it didn't bleep that word out or say "the N-word". It also led to questions about why a

white person White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as ...

was even allowed to say that word. A few days later, the BBC also received criticism after airing the offensive language used by historian Lucy Worsley when quoting former American president

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

, on her documentary ''American History's Biggest Fibs'' which aired on BBC Two on 1 August 2020. The documentary first aired on BBC Four in 2019. The BBC has defended the use of the word ''nigger'' in response on 4 August 2020, saying it wanted to report the word allegedly used in the attack of K-Dogg, and this decision was supported by the family of the victim, but the corporation accepted that it did cause offence. On 8 August, Sideman, real name David Whitely, said he had decided to leave BBC Radio 1Xtra because of the use of the racial slur and the defence of it. The next day, 9 August, the BBC apologised over the use of ''nigger'' and said a mistake was made. Its director general Tony Hall said he now accepts the corporation should've taken a different approach.

Homophobia

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' reported the findings of a

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

study in March 2006, which accused the BBC of being "institutionally homophobic" towards "lesbian and gays, references to them, or related issues". The Leeds researchers found that out of 168 hours of programming, only 38 minutes (0.4%) dealt with gay and lesbian issues, and that 32 minutes (80%) was deemed negative. Focus groups used in the study accused the BBC of being the worst broadcaster in terms of gay and lesbian issues and their portrayal of the LGBT community. In 2015, the BBC was criticised for shortlisting boxer

Tyson Fury Tyson Luke Fury (born 12 August 1988) is an English professional boxer. He is a two-time world heavyweight champion, having held the WBC title since defeating Deontay Wilder in 2020, and '' The Ring'' magazine title from 2020 to August 202 ...

for Sports Personality of the Year, despite the controversial remarks that he had made on homosexuality, women and abortion. A BBC Northern Ireland journalist, Andy West, resigned from the BBC after he was suspended for publicly criticising the decision.

Transphobia

The BBC has been accused of being institutionally transphobic by politicians, journalists and the LGBT community. In June 2020, a letter to expressing "serious concerns" about BBC coverage of

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

issues was sent to BBC News editor director Kamal Ahmed. The letter was signed by 150 people including MPs

Crispin Blunt Crispin Jeremy Rupert Blunt (born 15 July 1960) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Reigate since 1997. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Prisons and ...

Kirsty Blackman Kirsty Ann Blackman (; born 20 March 1986) is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberdeen North since 2015. Blackman was re-elected in 2017 and 2019 and currently serves as the SNP Spokes ...

and Stewart McDonald. The letter complained that the BBC had engaged in "institutional discrimination" and had mishandled its obligation to balanced reporting in its coverage of stories about transgender issues. It claimed that BBC coverage included contributions from inappropriately hostile sources in a way that was not in keeping with the BBC's coverage of issues affecting other minority groups and that "anti-trans journalists (...) are given free rein to take potshots at trans people". In October 2020, the BBC issued updated impartiality rules to its News staff which were criticised for treating LGBT+ rights issues as political matters on which BBC journalists and staff should not publicly take issues when acting in a personal capacity. Staff were also told that attending

Pride Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as "reasonable self-esteem" or "confidence and satisfaction in oneself". A healthy amount of pride is good, however, pride sometimes is used interchangeably with "conceit" or "arrogance" (among other words) w ...

events and supporting transgender rights could break impartiality requirements.

Gay Times ''Gay Times'' (stylized in all caps), also known as ''Gay Times Magazine'' and as ''GT'', is a UK-based LGBTQ+ media brand established in 1975. Originally a magazine for gay and bisexual men, the company now includes content for the LGBTQ+ comm ...

claimed that this cast LGBT+ identities as intrinsically political and called the guidelines "transphobia in sheep's clothing". The BBC has also been criticised for allowing contributors to

misgender Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger to ...

transgender people without challenge and for removing all transgender support groups from its Advice Line pages. In October 2021, an article published by

under the title " 'We're being pressured into sex by some trans women'" received substantial criticism as transphobic by the LGBT community, transgender-related charities, journalists, and BBC staff. Particular focus was put on the use of one source: cisgender lesbian adult film star Lily Cade, who the BBC had been informed prior to publication had been accused of multiple sexual assaults, and days after the article was published Cade wrote a blog post calling for the "lynching" of specific trans women. An open letter urging retraction gathered 20,000 signatures, while multiple protests took place outside BBC offices. Although the BBC article claims that several prominent transgender women were contacted for the story and "none of them wanted to speak to" the BBC journalist Caroline Lowbridge, transgender adult performer Chelsea Poe stated that this is "completely untrue", and that the interview she had with the journalist was excluded from the story, a claim supported by ''

PinkNews ''PinkNews'' is a UK-based online newspaper marketed to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community ( LGBT) in the UK and worldwide. It was founded by Benjamin Cohen in 2005. It closely follows political progress on LGBT rights a ...

''s review of correspondence between Poe and Lowbridge, as well as a BBC source who said that Poe's interview was excluded due to an editorial decision that it lacked relevance.

''Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century''

A report commissioned by the BBC Trust, ''Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century'', published in June 2007, stressed that the BBC needed to take more care in being impartial. It said the BBC had broken its own guidelines by screening an episode of ''

The Vicar of Dibley ''The Vicar of Dibley'' is a British sitcom which originally ran on BBC One from 10 November 1994 to 1 January 2007. It is set in a fictional small Oxfordshire village called Dibley, which is assigned a female vicar following the 1992 changes ...

'' that promoted the

Make Poverty History Make Poverty History are organizations in a number of countries, which focus on issues relating to 8th Millennium Development Goal such as aid, trade and justice. They generally form a coalition of aid and development agencies which work togethe ...

campaign. The bias was explained as the result of the BBC's liberal culture. A transcript of the impartiality seminar is included as a separately published appendix to the report available via the BBC Trust. After press reports emerged that BBC employees had edited the Wikipedia article's coverage of the report, the BBC issued new guidelines banning BBC staff from "sanitising" Wikipedia articles about the BBC.

Immigration and European Union

In 2005, two independent reports deemed the BBC's coverage of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

to be rather inadequate and one of the reports noted a "cultural and unintentional bias". In July 2013, a report commissioned by the BBC Trust found that the organisation had been slow to reflect widespread public concerns about

immigration to the United Kingdom Since 1945, immigration to the United Kingdom, controlled by British immigration law and to an extent by British nationality law, has been significant, in particular from the Republic of Ireland and from the former British Empire, especially ...

and shifts in public attitudes towards the

. The report, by Stuart Prebble, stated that Helen Boaden, the former director of

, had said that when she arrived at the organisation, there had been a "deep liberal bias" in the handling of immigration issues. It also stated that, within the BBC, "the agenda of debate is probably too driven by the views of politicians" but that "overall the breadth of opinion reflected by the BBC on this subject is broad and impressive, and no persuasive evidence was found that significant areas of opinion are not given due weight today". It also stated that the BBC was "slow to give appropriate prominence to the growing weight of opinion opposing UK membership of the EU, but in more recent times has achieved a better balance". In contrast, in 2018, former BBC (now ITV) journalist

accused the organisation of not being "confident enough" in pointing out false arguments during the campaign and of giving a

false balance False balance, also bothsidesism, is a media bias in which journalists present an issue as being more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the evidence supports. Journalists may present evidence and arguments out of proportion to the act ...

of impartiality. Peston said that the organisation "put people on with diametrically opposed views and didn't give their viewers and listeners any help in assessing which one was the loony and which one was the genius.... Impartial journalism is not giving equal airtime to two people one of whom says the world is flat and the other one says the world is round".

Political correctness

Speaking at the China Exchange in

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

, the former BBC employee

Jeremy Clarkson Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English broadcaster, journalist, game show host and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for the motoring programmes '' Top Gear'' and '' The Grand Tour'' alongside R ...

recalled when he was accused of being racist by the corporation: "Political correctness is tiresome. We really suffered from it terribly at the Beeb.... I remember being called in to see Danny Cohen... he said, 'I understand you have a new dog and you have called it Didier Dogba. It is racist'". In an interview with the ''Radio Times'', Clarkson said, "It's become so up itself, suffocating the life out of everything with its nonsense need to be politically correct". In October 2019,

Indarjit Singh Indarjit Singh, Baron Singh of Wimbledon (born 17 September 1932), sometimes transliterated Inderjit Singh, is a British journalist and broadcaster, a prominent British Indian active in Sikh and interfaith activities, and a member of the ...

left ''

Thought for the Day ''Thought for the Day'' is a daily scripted slot on the ''Today'' programme on BBC Radio 4 offering "reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news", broadcast at around 7:45 each Monday to Saturday morning. Nowadays lastin ...

'' on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

and accused the BBC of "a misplaced sense of political correctness". An item commemorating a guru of the Sikh faith who had been executed for opposing the forced conversion of

Hindus Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

to Islam in India in the 17th century had been prevented from being broadcast by the BBC "because it might offend Muslims" although it contained no criticism of Islam. In a November 2020 episode of ''

Jeremy Vine Jeremy Guy Vine (born 17 May 1965) is an English television and radio personality, presenter, broadcaster and journalist. He is best known as the host of his BBC Radio 2 lunchtime programme which presents news, views, interviews with live guest ...

'', activist

Femi Oluwole Femi Oluwole (born 17 March 1990) is a British political activist and co-founder of the pro-European Union advocacy group Our Future Our Choice (OFOC). He has appeared as an activist and commentator on British television. He has written for '' ...

questioned why BBC presenters were still permitted to wear

remembrance poppies A remembrance poppy is an artificial flower worn in some countries to commemorate their military personnel who died in war. Remembrance poppies are produced by veterans' associations, who exchange the poppies for charitable donations used to gi ...

, following new impartiality guidance warning against " virtue signalling, no matter how worthy the cause", which had previously prevented staff from expressing support for

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police br ...

and

LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, ...

Allegations of bias

South Asia

The journalist

Christopher Booker Christopher John Penrice Booker (7 October 1937 – 3 July 2019) was an English journalist and author. He was a founder and first editor of the satire, satirical magazine ''Private Eye'' in 1961. From 1990 onward he was a columnist for ''The Su ...

has criticised the BBC for its coverage of India-related matters. He concludes that the BBC's efforts to reinforce stereotypes of South Asians has been directly responsible for damaging the image of India and encouraging racist incidents against Indians, such as the Leipzig University internship controversy. In 2009, presenter Adil Ray had espoused that Sikhs should not always carry their

kirpan The kirpan is a curved, single-edged dagger or knife carried by Sikhs. Traditionally, it was a full-sized sword but modern Sikhs have reduced the length to that of a dagger or knife due to modern considerations based on societal and legal chang ...

, a ceremonial dagger and key item of their faith. The BBC rejected the charge but deleted the show from its website. Writing for the 2008 edition of the peer-reviewed ''Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'', Alasdair Pinkerton analysed the coverage of India by the BBC from India's 1947 independence from British rule to 2008. Pinkerton observed a tumultuous history involving allegations of anti-India bias in the BBC's reportage, particularly during the Cold War, and concluded that the BBC's coverage of South Asian geopolitics and economics showed a pervasive and hostile anti-India bias because of the BBC's alleged

imperialist Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...

and

neocolonialist Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony). Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, gl ...

stance. In 2008, the BBC was criticised for referring to the men who carried out the

November 2008 Mumbai attacks The 2008 Mumbai attacks (also referred to as 26/11, pronounced "twenty six eleven") were a series of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist terrorist organisation from Pakistan, ...

as "gunmen", rather than "terrorists," used to describe the attacks in UK. In protest against the use of the word "gunmen" by the BBC, journalist M.J. Akbar refused to take part in an interview after the Mumbai attacks and criticised the BBC's reportage of the incident. In 2011, the Cable Operators Association of Pakistan (COAP) accused BBC World News of "anti-Pakistan propaganda" and banned it, after it aired a documentary which accused Pakistan of failing to meet its commitments in the war on terror. BBC condemned the ban as an attack on its editorial independence and many Pakistanis criticized the ban as a violation of freedom of speech; while COAP responded that it was not legally obliged to allow foreign channels. Later, Pakistani PM

Yousuf Raza Gilani Yusuf Raza Gilani (Urdu: ; born 9 June 1952), is a Pakistani politician who served as 18th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 25 March 2008, until his retroactive disqualification and ouster by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on 26 April 2012. He ...

called for more freedom of speech in Pakistan and that he wanted BBC to operate in Pakistan. It alleged the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

to have had stormed a sacred Muslim shrine, the tomb of Sheikh Noor-u-din Noorani in

Charari Sharief Charar-i-Sharief (variously spelled Chrar-e-Sharif, Charari Shareef, etc.) (, known as Tsrar-i-Sharif () in Kashmiri, is a town and a notified area committee in Budgam district in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India. The t ...

and retracted the claim only after strong criticism. A 2016 report from the BBC accused India of funding Pakistan's

Muttahida Qaumi Movement Muttahida Qaumi Movement (abbreviated MQM) is a name currently claimed by two competing Pakistani political factions: * Muttahida Qaumi Movement – London, a political faction managed from the UK * Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan Muttah ...

and providing weapons and training to its militants, citing the statements of various Pakistani sources, including officials and a senior Karachi police officer. The report was rejected by both the Indian government and the MQM, and others, such as journalists Barkha Dutt. A 2017 study stated that the BBC story received considerable media attention in Pakistan, while it was downplayed by the media in India. In 2019, the BBC (along with

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was esta ...

and Al-Jazeera) reported that large scale protests had broken out in Indian Kashmir in response to the

revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir On 5 August 2019, the Parliament of India voted in favour of a resolution tabled by Home Minister Amit Shah to revoke the temporary special status, or autonomy, granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir—a region ...

. The Indian government initially criticized these reports of being "fabricated", but later acknowledged the protests did take place. A 2019 BBC report accused the Pakistan army of committing human rights abuses during Pakistan's war on terror in the

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, ...

province. The Pakistani armed forces rejected the report, and the Pakistani Ministry of Information registered a complaint with the British office of communications. In 2021, a BBC interview with political scientist

Christine Fair Carol Christine Fair (born 1968) is an American political scientist. She is an associate professor in the Security Studies Program within the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Her work is primarily focused on ...

was interrupted and Fair dismissed by News presenter

Philippa Thomas Philippa Thomas (born 22 November 1965) is a television newsreader and journalist, both domestic and foreign, at the BBC and a chief news presenter at BBC World News, presenting evening bulletins on BBC News Channel and BBC World News. She is ...

when Fair began to elaborate on links between

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

and the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...

. This invited further accusations of pro-Pakistan bias on the part of the BBC on social media.

Criticism of BBC reporting on Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Criticism of the BBC's

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

coverage, especially related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, from supporters of both Israel and the Palestinians led the BBC to commission an investigation and report from a senior broadcast journalist and senior editorial advisor Malcolm Balen that was referred to as the Balen Report and completed in 2004. The BBC's refusal to release the report under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 resulted in a long-running and ongoing legal case. The BBC eventually overturned a ruling by the Information Tribunal that rejected the BBC's refusal to release the Balen Report to Steven Sugar, a member of the public, under the Freedom of Information Act on the grounds that it was held for the purposes of journalism. The report examines BBC radio and television broadcasts covering the Arab–Israeli conflict. On 10 October 2006, ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' claimed, "The BBC has spent thousands of pounds of licence payers' money trying to block the release of a report which is believed to be highly critical of its Middle East coverage. The corporation is mounting a landmark High Court action to prevent the release of The Balen Report under the Freedom of Information Act, despite the fact that BBC reporters often use the Act to pursue their journalism. The action will increase suspicions that the report, which is believed to run to 20,000 words, includes evidence of anti-Israeli bias in news programming". ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' reported in March 2007 that "critics of the BBC" were interested in knowing if the Balen Report "includes evidence of bias against Israel in news programming". After the 2004 report, the BBC appointed a committee chosen by the Governors and referred to by the BBC as an "independent panel report" to write a report for publication, which was completed in 2006. Chaired by the

British Board of Film Classification The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of f ...

president, Sir

Quentin Thomas Sir Quentin Jeremy Thomas (born 1 August 1944) is a retired British civil servant, and former president of the British Board of Film Classification. He attended the Perse School in Cambridge and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was a c ...

, the committee found that "apart from individual lapses, there was little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias" in the BBC's reporting of the Middle East. However, its coverage had been "inconsistent", "not always providing a complete picture" and "misleading", and the BBC had failed to report adequately the hardships of Palestinians living under the occupation. Reflecting concerns from all sides of the conflict, the committee highlighted certain identifiable shortcomings and made four recommendations, including the provision of a stronger editorial "guiding hand". Of the report's findings regarding the dearth of BBC reporting of the difficulties faced by the Palestinians,

Richard Ingrams Richard Reid Ingrams (born 19 August 1937 in Chelsea, London) is an English journalist, a co-founder and second editor of the British satirical magazine ''Private Eye'', and founding editor of '' The Oldie'' magazine. He left the latter job at ...

wrote in ''The Independent'', "No sensible person could quarrel with that judgement". Martin Walker, then the editor of

United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20t ...

, agreed that the report implied favouritism towards Israel but said that the suggestion "produced mocking guffaws in my newsroom" and went on to list a number of episodes of what he thought was the BBC's clear pro-Palestinian bias. Writing in '' Prospect'' magazine, the Conservative MP Michael Gove wrote that the report was neither independent nor objective. A former BBC Middle East correspondent, Tim Llewellyn, wrote in 2004 that the BBC's coverage allowed Israel's view of the conflict to dominate, as was demonstrated by research conducted by the Glasgow Media Group. Douglas Davis, the London correspondent of ''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper ...

'', has accused the BBC of being anti-Israel. He wrote that the BBC's coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict was a "portrayal of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

as a demonic, criminal state and Israelis as brutal oppressors" and resembled a "campaign of vilification" that had delegitimised the State of Israel.Davis, Douglas. "Hatred in the air: the BBC, Israel and Anti-Semitism". in: Iganski, Paul & Kosmin, Barry. (eds) ''A New Anti-Semitism? Debating Judeophobia in 21st century Britain''. Profile Books, 2003, p. 130. " Anglicans for Israel", the pro-Israel pressure group, berated the BBC for apparent anti-Israel bias. ''The Daily Telegraph'' has criticised the BBC for its coverage of the Middle East; in 2007, it wrote, "In its international and domestic news reporting, the corporation has consistently come across as naïve and partial, rather than sensitive and unbiased. Its reporting of Israel and Palestine, in particular, tends to underplay the hate-filled Islamist ideology that inspires Hamas and other factions, while never giving Israel the benefit of the doubt". In April 2004,

Natan Sharansky Natan Sharansky ( he, נתן שרנסקי; russian: Ната́н Щара́нский; uk, Натан Щаранський, born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky on 20 January 1948); uk, Анатолій Борисович Щаранський, ...

, Israel's Minister for Diaspora Affairs, wrote to the BBC to accuse its Middle East correspondent, Orla Guerin, as having a "deep-seated bias against Israel" after her description of the Israeli army's handling of the arrest of

Hussam Abdo Hussam Muhammad Bilal Abdo (Arabic: حسام محمد بلال عبده; born 24 February 1990) is a Palestinian from the Masahiya area of Nablus, who, as a teenager, made international headlines on 24 March 2004, when he entered the Hawara Check ...

, who was captured with explosives strapped to his chest, as "cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes". In March 2006, a report on the Arab-Israeli conflict on the BBC's online service was criticised in a BBC Governors Report as unbalanced and creating a biased impression. The article's account of

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (S/RES/242) was adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on November 22, 1967, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War. It was adopted under Chapter VI of the UN Charter. The resolution was spons ...

in 1967 concerning the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...

between Israel and a coalition of Egypt, Jordan and Syria "suggested the UN called for Israel's unilateral withdrawal from territories seized during the six-day war, when in fact, it called for a negotiated 'land for peace' settlement between Israel and 'every state in the area'. The committee considered that by selecting only references to Israel, the article had breached editorial standards on both accuracy and impartiality". During the 2006 Lebanon War, Israeli diplomatic officials boycotted BBC news programmes, refused interviews and excluded reporters from briefings because Israeli officials believed the BBC's reporting was biased: "the reports we see give the impression that the BBC is working on behalf of Hezbollah instead of doing fair journalism".

Fran Unsworth Francesca Mary Unsworth (born 29 December 1957) is a British journalist and media executive. Since January 2018 she has been Director, News & Current Affairs for BBC News. She was appointed in succession to James Harding. Before then she ser ...

, the head of BBC News gathering, defended the coverage in an article for ''Jewish News.com''. On 7 March 2008, the news anchor Geeta Guru-Murthy clarified significant errors in the BBC's coverage of the Mercaz HaRav massacre that had been exposed by media monitor

Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is an American non-profit pro-Israel media-monitoring, research and membership organization. According to its website, CAMERA is "devoted to promoting accurate and balanced ...

. The correspondent Nick Miles had informed viewers that "hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his he perpetrator'sfamily home". That was not the case, and other broadcasters showed the east Jerusalem home to be intact and the family commemorating its son's actions. On 14 March 2008, the BBC accepted that in an article on its website of an IDF operation that stated, "The Israeli air force said it was targeting a rocket firing team.... UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned Israel's attacks on Palestinian civilians, calling them inappropriate and disproportionate", it should have made reference to what Ban Ki-Moon said about Palestinian rocket attacks as well as to the excessive use of force by Israel. The article was also amended to remove the reference of Israeli 'attacks on civilians' as Ban's attributed comments were made weeks earlier to the UN Security Council and not in reference to that particular attack. In fact, he had never used such terminology. The BBC received intense criticism in January 2009 for its decision not to broadcast a television appeal by aid agencies on behalf of the people of Gaza during the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict, on the grounds that it could compromise the BBC's journalistic impartiality. A number of protesters asserted that it showed pro-Israeli bias, and some analysts suggested that the BBC's decision in the matter derived from its concern to avoid anti-Israeli bias, as analysed in the Balen Report. Parties criticising the decision, included

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

archbishops, British government ministers and even some BBC employees. More than 11,000 complaints were filed in a three-day span. The BBC's director general, Mark Thompson, explained that the BBC had a duty to cover the Gaza dispute in a "balanced, objective way" and was concerned about endorsing something that could "suggest the backing one side". Politicians such as

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, ...

broke the BBC's ban on the appeal and broadcast the Gaza appeal on BBC News: "If the BBC won't broadcast the appeal, then I'm going to do it myself". He added that "no one orking for the broadcasteragrees with what the BBC has done". When Peter Oborne and James Jones investigated the BBC's refusal to screen the appeal, they said they found it "almost impossible to get anyone to come on the record". They were told by organisations

Disasters Emergency Committee The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is an umbrella group of UK charities which coordinates and launches collective appeals to raise funds to provide emergency aid and rapid relief to people caught up in disasters and humanitarian crises aroun ...

, Amnesty International, Oxfam,

Christian Aid Christian Aid is the relief and development agency of 41 Christian (Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox) churches in the UK and Ireland, and works to support sustainable development, eradicate poverty, support civil society and provide disaster ...

Save the Children Fund The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...

and the Catholic agency

CAFOD The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) is an international development charity and the official aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. It aims to tackle poverty globally. Through local Catholic Church and secular pa ...

that the topic was "too sensitive". Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, protested the BBC's decision by cancelling interviews scheduled with the company; El-Baradei claimed the refusal to air the aid appeal "violates the rules of basic human decency which are there to help vulnerable people irrespective of who is right or wrong". The BBC's chief operating officer, Caroline Thomson, affirmed the need to broadcast "without affecting and impinging on the audience's perception of our impartiality" and that in this case, it was a "real issue". In response to perceived falsehoods and distortions in a BBC One ''Panorama'' documentary, 'A Walk in the Park', transmitted in January 2010, the British journalist

Melanie Phillips Melanie Phillips (born 4 June 1951) is a British journalist, author, and public commentator. She began her career writing for ''The Guardian'' and ''New Statesman''. During the 1990s, she came to identify with ideas more associated with the righ ...

wrote an open letter in the news magazine ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'' to the Secretary of State for Culture, Jeremy Hunt, to accusing the BBC of "flagrantly biased reporting of Israel" and to urge the BBC to confront the "prejudice and inertia which are combining to turn its reporting on Israel into crude pro-Arab propaganda, and thus risk destroying the integrity of an institution". In 2010, the BBC was accused of pro-Israel bias in its documentary about the

Gaza flotilla raid The Gaza flotilla raid was a military operation by Israel against six civilian ships of the " Gaza Freedom Flotilla" on 31 May 2010 in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. Nine activists and no Israelis were killed on one ship dur ...

. The BBC documentary concluded that Israeli forces had faced a violent premeditated attack by a group of hardcore activists, who intended to orchestrate a political act to put pressure on Israel. The programme was criticised as "biased" by critics of Israel, and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign questioned why the IDF boarded the ship at night if it had peaceful intentions. The eyewitness Ken O'Keefe accused the BBC of distorting the capture, medical treatment and ultimate release of three Israeli commandos into a story of heroic self-rescuing commandos. Anthony Lawson produced a 15-minute video detailing the BBC's alleged bias. In March 2011, the MP Louise Bagshawe criticised the inaccuracies and omissions in BBC's coverage of the

Itamar attack The Itamar attack, * * also called the Itamar massacre, was a terrorist attack on an Israeli family in the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank that took place on 11 March 2011, in which five members of the same family were murdere ...

and questioned the BBC's decision not to broadcast the incident on television and barely on radio and its apparent bias against Israel. In his July 2012 testimony to the Parliament, the outgoing Director-General of the BBC Mark Thompson admitted that BBC "got it wrong". A BBC Editorial Standards Findings issued in July 2011 found that a broadcast on Today on 27 September 2010 that stated, "At midnight last night, the moratorium on Israelis building new settlements in the West Bank came to an end. It had lasted for ten months" and had breached the accuracy guideline in respect of the requirement to present output "in clear, precise language", as in fact the moratorium on building new settlements had been in existence since the early 1990s and remained in place. In December 2011, the BBC caused further controversy after censoring the word "Palestine" from a song played on BBC Radio 1Xtra. More controversy was caused in April 2012 when the BBC broadcast news of 2,500 Palestinian prisoners who were on hunger strike, with very little overall coverage. This resulted in two protests outside the BBC buildings in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

and in London. During the 2012 Summer Olympics's country profiles pages, the BBC listed "East Jerusalem" as the capital of Palestine and did not list a capital at all for Israel. Also, while all other country profile pages featured a representation the country's flag, the Israeli page featured a picture of an Israeli soldier confronting another man, supposedly a Palestinian. After public outrage and a letter from Israeli government spokesperson

Mark Regev Mark Regev ( he, מארק רגב; born 1960) is a former Israeli diplomat and civil servant who is currently the chair of the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations at Reichman University. Between June 2020 and April 2021, he ser ...

, the BBC listed a "Seat of Government" for Israel in Jerusalem but added that most foreign embassies "are in Tel Aviv". It made a parallel change to the listing for "Palestine" by listing "East Jerusalem" as the "Intended seat of government". The picture of the Israeli soldier was removed as well and replaced with the Israeli flag. In a response to a reader's criticism on the issue, the BBC replied that the complaints that prompted the changes were "generated by online lobby activity". The BBC was also noted for having no coverage about the campaign for the IOC to commemorate the 11 killed Israeli athletes from the

Munich massacre The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack carried out during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, by eight members of the Palestinian militant organization Black September, who infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two member ...

in the 1972 Summer Olympics, which was met with repeated refusal by IOC President

Jacques Rogge Jacques Jean Marie Rogge, Count Rogge (, ; 2 May 1942 – 29 August 2021) was a Belgian sports administrator and physician who served as the eighth President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 2001 to 2013. In 2013, Rogge bec ...

, despite the issue receiving much press by other major news networks. According to the poll conducted by Jewish Policy Research on more than 4,000 respondents, nearly 80% of British Jews believes that BBC is biased against Israel. Only 14% of British Jews believes that BBC coverage of Israel is "balanced". In 2013, the BBC scheduled to broadcast a documentary film, ''Jerusalem: an Archaeological Mystery Story'', but pulled the film "off the schedule at the last minute." The film "theorizes that many Jews did not leave Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple, and that many modern-day Palestinians may be in part descended from those Jews". Simon Plosker of HonestReporting believed that the decision was made to avoid offending people who are ideologically opposed to Israel by broadcasting a documentary about Jewish history in the region. The BBC's explanation for the sudden schedule change was that the film did not fit with the theme of the season, which was archaeology. In 2014, an op-ed in ''

'' by Raphael Cohen-Almagor criticised BBC for avoiding the word "terrorism" in connection with violent acts or groups of people considered by various governments or intergovernmental organisations to be terrorists. Cohen-Almagor wrote: "Instead of adhering to one principled definition of terrorism and then employing it across the board, the BBC prefers to sit on the fence, so as to say that it is impossible to differentiate between terrorists and 'freedom fighters', that one person's terrorist might be another's 'freedom fighter'". The same year, protesters presented an open letter from the Palestinian Solidarity Foundation,

Stop the War Coalition The Stop the War Coalition (StWC), informally known simply as Stop the War, is a British group established on 21 September 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, to campaign against what it believes are unjust wars. The Coalition has c ...

, the

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuc ...

and other groups to Lord Hall, Director General of the BBC. The letter accused the broadcaster of presenting Israeli attacks on Gaza as a result of rocket fire from

Hamas Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam ...

without giving any other context. The letter was signed by notable individuals, such as

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

John Pilger John Richard Pilger (; born 9 October 1939) is an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. He has been mainly based in Britain since 1962. He was also once visiting professor at Cornell University in New York. Pilge ...

and

Ken Loach Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is a British film director and screenwriter. His socially critical directing style and socialist ideals are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty ('' Poor Cow'', 1967), homelessn ...

. In 2015, Fraser Steel, the head of the Editorial Complaints Unit of the BBC, upheld complaints that it had breached impartiality guidelines in an interview with

Moshe Ya'alon Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon ( he, משה יעלון; born Moshe Smilansky on 24 June 1950) is an Israeli politician and former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, who also served as Israel's Defense Minister under Benjamin Netanyahu from 2013 ...

, the Israeli defence minister. Ya'alon claimed on the ''Today'' programme that Palestinians "enjoy already political independence" and "have their own political system, government, parliament, municipalities and so forth" and that Israel had no desire "to govern them whatsoever". The

Palestine Solidarity Campaign The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is an activist organisation in England and Wales. It was incorporated in the UK in 2004 as Palestine Solidarity Campaign Ltd. They officially support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement ...

objected to these claims: "Palestinians don't have political independence. They live under occupation and, in Gaza, under siege". The filmmaker and activist Ken Loach sent a letter via the Campaign: "You understand, I'm sure, that this interview is a serious breach of the requirement for impartiality. Unlike all other ''Today'' interviews, the minister was allowed to speak without challenge. Why?" After the

June 2017 Jerusalem attack On 16 June 2017, two Palestinian men opened fire on Israeli police officers in the Old City of Jerusalem, injuring four of them. An additional attacker stabbed a policewoman, she was critically injured, and later died in hospital. All three a ...

, the BBC reported, "Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem". However, those Palestinians had actually been the assailants in the attack, which ended when the three were shot and killed by law enforcement officers. After being inundated with complaints, BBC News changed the online headline.

Hutton Inquiry: Whitewashed reporting of Iraq invasion

The BBC was criticised for its coverage of the events before the 2003

invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...

. The controversy over what it described as the "sexing up" of the case for war in Iraq by the government led to the BBC being heavily criticised by the

Hutton Inquiry The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the controversial circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, a biological warfare expert and ...

, although this finding was much disputed by the British press, who branded it as a government

whitewash Whitewash, or calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, or lime paint is a type of paint made from slaked lime (calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2) or chalk calcium carbonate, (CaCO3), sometimes known as "whiting". Various other additives are sometimes used. ...

. The BBC's chairman and its director general resigned after the inquiry, and Vice-Chairman Lord Ryder made a public apology to the government, which the Liberal Democrat

Norman Baker Norman John Baker (born 26 July 1957) is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lewes in East Sussex from the 1997 general election until his defeat in 2015. In May 2010 he was appointed ...

MP described as "of such capitulation that I wanted to throw up when I heard it".

Shallow and sensationalist reporting on Arab Spring

In June 2012, the BBC admitted making "major errors" in its coverage of the unrest. In an 89-page report, 9 pages were devoted to the BBC's coverage of

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

and included admissions that the BBC had "underplayed the sectarian aspect of the conflict" and "not adequately convey the viewpoint of supporters of the monarchy" by "

ailing Ailing may refer to: * ailing in health, see ail (health) * Ailing (Chinese name) (♀; given name; aka ''Ai-ling''), several Chinese female given names * Charles Ailing Gifford (♂; 1860–1937) U.S. architect * Ailing Dojčin (♂) culture h ...

to mention attempts by Crown Prince"

Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa ( ar, سلمان بن حمد آل خليفة; born 21 October 1969) is the Crown prince and the Prime Minister of Bahrain. He is also the deputy supreme commander of the Bahrain Defence Force. Early life and educa ...

to "establish dialogue with the opposition". The report added that "the government appears to have made a good-faith effort to de-escalate the crisis", particularly while the BBC's coverage of the unrest dropped substantially, and many people had complained that their coverage was "utterly one-sided".

Anti-American bias

In October 2006, the Chief Radio Correspondent for BBC News since 2001 and

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

, correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that Deputy Director-General

Mark Byford Mark Julian Byford (born 13 June 1958) was Deputy Director-General of the BBC and head of BBC journalism from 2004 to 2011. He chaired the BBC Journalism Board and was a member of the BBC Executive Board for thirteen years. His responsibilities ...

had secretly agreed to help him to "correct" it in his reports and that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it "no moral weight". In April 2007, Webb presented a three-part series for BBC Radio 4, ''Death to America: Anti Americanism Examined'', in which he challenged a common perception of the United States as an international bully and a modern imperial power. The conservative American news commentator Bill O'Reilly repeatedly sought to draw attention to what he calls the BBC's "inherent

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

culture".

Anti-Catholic bias

Hostility towards the Catholic Church

Prominent Catholic leaders have criticised the BBC for having an anti-Catholic bias and showing hostility towards the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. The BBC has also been criticised for recycling old news and for "insensitivity" and bad timing when it decided to broadcast the programmes ''Kenyon Confronts'' and ''Sex and the Holy City'' around the same time as

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

's 25th anniversary and the beatification of

Mother Teresa Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, MC (; 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), better known as Mother Teresa ( sq, Nënë Tereza), was an Indian-Albanian Catholic nun who, in 1950, founded the Missionaries of Charity. Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu () was ...

. In 2003, the BBC had planned ''

Popetown ''Popetown'' is a French-British adult animated sitcom, billed by its producers as "''Father Ted'' meets ''South Park''". The series was internationally controversial, and was not screened by BBC Three, the channel which commissioned it. Outli ...

'', a ten-part cartoon series which "featured an infantile Pope ..bouncing around the Vatican on a pogostick". The plans were shelved after it evoked intense outrage and criticism from Catholic Christians.

''Jerry Springer: The Opera''

In January 2005, the BBC aired '' Jerry Springer: The Opera'', ultimately resulting in around 55,000 complaints to the BBC from those upset at the opera's alleged blasphemies against Christianity. In advance of the broadcast, which the BBC had warned "contains language and content which won't be to some tastes", but mediawatch-uk's director, John Beyer, wrote to the Director General to urge the BBC to drop the programme: "Licence fee payers do not expect the BBC to be pushing back boundaries of taste and decency in this way". The BBC issued a statement: "As a public service broadcaster, it is the BBC's role to broadcast a range of programmes that will appeal to all audiences – with very differing tastes and interests – present in the UK today". Before the broadcast, some 150 people bearing placards had protested outside the

BBC Television Centre Television Centre (TVC) is a building complex in White City, West London, that was the headquarters of BBC Television between 1960 and 2013. After a refurbishment, the complex reopened in 2017 with three studios in use for TV production, opera ...

in Shepherd's Bush. On the Monday after the broadcast, which was watched by some two million viewers, ''

'' announced that BBC executives had received death threats after their addresses and telephone numbers had been posted on the Christian Voice website. The BBC had received some 35,000 complaints before the broadcast but reported only 350 calls following the broadcast, which were split between those praising the production and those complaining about it. One Christian group attempted to bring private criminal prosecutions for blasphemy against the BBC, and another demanded a

judicial review Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incomp ...

of the decision. In March 2005, the

Board of Governors of the BBC The Board of Governors of the BBC was the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It consisted of twelve people who together regulated the BBC and represented the interests of the public. It existed from 1927 until it was replace ...

convened and considered the complaints, which were rejected by 4 to 1.

Pro-Muslim bias

Blaspheming other faiths but refusing to publish Muhammad cartoons

Subsequent to anti-Christianity blasphemous reporting by BBC, its refusal to reproduce the actual

Muhammad cartoons The ''Jyllands-Posten'' Muhammad cartoons controversy (or Muhammad cartoons crisis, da, Muhammedkrisen) began after the Danish newspaper ''Jyllands-Posten'' published 12 editorial cartoons on 30 September 2005, most of which depicted Muhamma ...

in its coverage of the controversy convinced many that the BBC follows an unstated policy of freely broadcasting defamation of Christianity but not Islam.

Disproportionate reporting on Muslims over other faiths

Hindu and Sikh leaders in the United Kingdom have accused the BBC of pandering to Britain's Muslim community by making a disproportionate number of programmes on Islam at the expense of covering other Asian religions, such as Sikhism and Hinduism. In a letter sent in July 2008 to the Network of Sikh Organisations (NSO), the head of the BBC's Religion and Ethics, Michael Wakelin, denied any bias. A spokesman for the BBC said that it was committed to representing all of Britain's faiths and communities. A number of MPs, including

Rob Marris Robert Howard Marris (born 8 April 1955) is a British Labour Party politician, who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wolverhampton South West. He first held the seat from 2001 until his defeat in 2010. He regained at the seat at th ...

and

Keith Vaz Nigel Keith Anthony Standish Vaz (born 26 November 1956) is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leicester East for 32 years, from 1987 to 2019. He was the British Parliament's longest-serving Br ...

, called on the BBC to do more to represent Britain's minority faiths. "I am disappointed," said Vaz. "It is only right that as licence fee payers all faiths are represented in a way that mirrors their make-up in society. I hope that the BBC addresses the problem in its next year of programming".

BBC reporter's tears for Yasser Arafat

During the BBC programme ''

From Our Own Correspondent ''From Our Own Correspondent'' is a weekly BBC radio programme in which BBC foreign correspondents deliver a sequence of short talks reflecting on current events and topical themes in the countries outside the UK in which they are based. The pro ...

'' broadcast on 30 October 2004, Barbara Plett described herself as crying when she saw a frail

Yasser Arafat Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini (4 / 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat ( , ; ar, محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني, Mu ...

being evacuated to France for medical treatment.Plett, Barbara (30 September 2004
"Yasser Arafat's unrelenting journey"
BBC News, 30 October 2004. Retrieved 22 October 2006 That led to "hundreds of complaints" to the BBC, and suggestions that the BBC was biased.

Andrew Dismore Andrew is the English form of a given name common in many countries. In the 1990s, it was among the top ten most popular names given to boys in English-speaking countries. "Andrew" is frequently shortened to "Andy" or "Drew". The word is derived ...

, the MP for Hendon, accused Plett of "sloppy journalism" and commented that "this shows the inherent bias of the BBC against Israel".

defended Plett in a statement by saying that her reporting had met the high standards of "fairness, accuracy and balance" expected of a BBC correspondent.Gibson, Owen (26 November 2005).
BBC bias complaint upheld
. ''

''. Retrieved 22 October 2006. Gross, Tom (28 November 2005)
BBC sanctions reporter who cried for Arafat (& "Hitler" running in Fatah primaries)
Retrieved 30 December 2006. Initially, a complaint of bias against Plett was rejected by the BBC's head of editorial complaints. However, almost a year later, on 25 November 2005, the programme complaints committee of the BBC governors partially upheld the complaints by ruling that Plett's comments "breached the requirements of due impartiality". Despite initially issuing a statement in support of Plett, the BBC Director of News, Helen Boaden, later apologised for what she described as "an editorial misjudgment". The governors praised Boaden's speedy response and reviewed the BBC's stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Suppression of Kriss Donald murder coverage

On 15 March 2004, a 15 year old Scottish school boy was kidnapped, tortured, stabbed multiple times, and then burnt alive by a gang of British Muslim men of Pakistani origin. The

...
were criticised by some viewers because the case featured on national news only three times and the first trial was later largely confined to regional Scottish bulletins including the verdict itself. Although admitting that the BBC had "got it wrong", the organisation's Head of Newsgathering,

, largely rejected the suggestion that Donald's race played a part in the lack of reportage, instead claiming it was mostly a product of "Scottish blindness". In preference to reporting the verdict the organisation found the time to report the opening of a new

arts centre An art centre or arts center is distinct from an art gallery or art museum. An arts centre is a functional community centre with a specific remit to encourage arts practice and to provide facilities such as theatre space, gallery space, venues fo ...

in Gateshead in its running order. The BBC again faced criticisms for its failure to cover the second trial in its main bulletins, waiting until day 18 to mention the issue and

Peter Horrocks Peter John Gibson Horrocks CBE (born 8 October 1959) is a broadcast executive and a former Vice-Chancellor (chief executive) of The Open University. He was educated at the independent King's College School in Wimbledon and at Christ's College, ...

of the BBC apologised for the organisation's further failings.

''Secret Agent'' biased documentary against British National Party

On 15 July 2004 the BBC broadcast a documentary ''The Secret Agent'', on the far-right

British National Party The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK gover ...

where undercover reporter

Jason Gwynne Jason Gwynne is a journalist, most widely known for his 2004 documentary on the British National Party (BNP). The documentary was based on undercover footage gathered by Gwynne who posed as a football hooligan looking to get involved in far-righ ...

infiltrated the BNP by posing as a

football hooligan Football hooliganism, also known as soccer hooliganism, football rioting or soccer rioting, constitutes violence and other destructive behaviours perpetrated by spectators at association football events. Football hooliganism normally involves ...

. The programme resulted in Mark Collett and

Nick Griffin Nicholas John Griffin (born 1 March 1959) is a British politician and white supremacist who represented North West England as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014. He served as chairman and then president of the far-righ ...

, the leader of the party, being charged for inciting racial hatred in April 2005 for statements that included Griffin describing Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith," Collett describing asylum seekers as "a little bit like cockroaches" and saying "let's show these ethnics the door in 2004". Griffin and Collett were found not guilty on some charges at the first trial in January 2006, but the jury failed to reach a verdict on the others and so a retrial was ordered. At the retrial held in November 2006, all of the defendants were found not guilty on the basis that the law did not consider those who followed Islam or Christianity to be a protected group with respect to racial defamation laws. Shortly after this case, British law was amended to outlaw incitement to hatred against a religious group by the

Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (c. 1) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which creates an offence in England and Wales of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion. The Act was the Labour Governm ...

. The BNP believed that it was an attempt to "Discredit the British National Party as a party of opposition to the Labour government". After the second trial, Griffin described the BBC as a "Politically correct, politically biased organisation which has wasted licence-fee payers' money to bring two people in a legal, democratic, peaceful party to court over speaking nothing more than the truth".

Anti-Muslim bias

Asian network

In 2008, staff at the BBC's Asian radio station complained of anti-Muslim discrimination by a "mafia of executives", which required the BBC to launch an internal investigation. Staff claimed that Hindus and Sikhs were being favoured over Muslim presenters and reporters.

Disparity in coverage of Islamophobia

One of Britain's largest Muslim representative bodies accused the BBC of "failing to sufficiently report" on Islamophobia within the ranks of the Conservative Party. The complaint was addressed to the BBC Director General, Tony Hall, in a letter by the

Muslim Council of Britain The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is a national umbrella body with over 500 mosques and educational and charitable associations affiliated to it. It includes national, regional, local, and specialist Muslim organisations and institutions fro ...

. The MCB reminded Hall of the BBC's responsibility as a public broadcaster to be impartial and not to create a hierarchy of racism through its biased coverage: "Racism against Muslims should be given equal importance to racism against others". On 6 June 2018, the independent online media outlet Evolvepolitics released an article highlighting the disparity in BBC media coverage of anti-Semitism within UK Labour and that of Islamophobia within the Conservatives. The article demonstrated that the BBC website had about 50 times the amount of search results dedicated to anti-Semitism in the Labour Party as for Islamophobia in the Conservative Party. All outlets have given a far higher amount of coverage to Labour anti-Semitism compared to that of Tory Islamophobia: the BBC have covered this over ten times more.

Catering primarily for Christians over other faiths

The BBC's head of religion, Aaqil Ahmed, accused the BBC of neglecting Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in its religious programming and catering primarily for Christians in 2016.

Biased reporting of sexual abuse scandals of BBC staffers

In the weeks after the

ITV1 ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the Channel 3 public broadcast service across all of the United Kingdom except for t ...

documentary '' Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile'' was broadcast on 3 October 2012, the BBC faced questions and criticism over allegations that it had failed to act on rumours about sexual assaults, especially on young girls, by presenter Jimmy Savile, some of which had occurred on BBC premises after the recording of programmes, including ''

Top of the Pops ''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most o ...

'' and ''

Jim'll Fix It ''Jim'll Fix It'' is a British television series broadcast by the BBC between May 1975 and July 1994 and was devised and presented by Jimmy Savile and produced by Roger Ordish. The show encouraged children to write in a letter to Savile with ...

''. Allegations were also made that a ''

Newsnight ''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availa ...

'' investigation into Savile in December 2011 was dropped because it conflicted with tribute programmes prepared after his death. By 11 October 2012 allegations of abuse by Savile had been made to 13 British police forces, and on 19 October Scotland Yard launched a formal criminal investigation into historic allegations of child sex abuse by Savile and others over four decades. The police reported on 25 October 2012 that the number of possible victims was 300. It was claimed that

Douglas Muggeridge Douglas Muggeridge (1928 – 26 February 1985)''BBC annual report and handbook 1986'', 1985, , p. 160-1 was the controller of BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2 from February 1969 until 1976.Martin, Chad Andrew (2003) ''Paradise now: youth politics an ...

, the controller of

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

in the early 1970s, was aware of allegations against Savile and had asked for a report on them in 1973. The BBC stated that no evidence of any allegations of misconduct or of actual misconduct by Savile had been found in its files and later denied that there had been a

cover-up A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrongdoing, error, incompetence, or other embarrassing information. Research has distinguished personal cover-ups (covering up one's own misdeeds) from relational co ...

of Savile's activities. However, there were claims by some, including DJ

Liz Kershaw Elizabeth Marguerita Mary Kershaw (born 30 July 1958) is an English radio broadcaster. She is the second longest serving female national radio DJ in the UK (after Annie Nightingale), celebrating 30 years on national BBC Radio in 2017. Career Af ...

, who joined BBC Radio 1 in 1987, that the culture in the BBC tolerated sexual harassment. The BBC was criticised in the

UK Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

for its handling of the affair, with

Harriet Harman Harriet Ruth Harman (born 30 July 1950) is a British politician and solicitor who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Camberwell and Peckham, formerly Peckham, since 1982. A member of the Labour Party, she has served in various Cabi ...

stating that the allegations "cast a stain" on the corporation. Culture Secretary

Maria Miller Dame Maria Frances Miller'MILLER, Rt Hon. Maria (Frances Lewis)', Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2012; online edn, November 2012 ...

said that she was satisfied that the BBC was taking the allegations very seriously and dismissed calls for an independent inquiry. Labour leader

said that an independent inquiry was the only way to ensure justice for those involved. George Entwistle offered to appear before the Parliamentary

Culture, Media and Sport Committee The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, formerly the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, is one of the select committees of the British House of Commons, established in 1997. It oversees the operations of the Department f ...

to explain the BBC's position and actions. On 16 October, the BBC appointed the heads of two separate inquiries into events surrounding Savile. Former High Court judge Dame Janet Smith, who led the inquiry into serial killer

Harold Shipman Harold Frederick Shipman (14 January 1946 – 13 January 2004), known by the public as Doctor Death and to acquaintances as Fred Shipman, was an English general practitioner and serial killer. He is considered to be one of the most prolif ...

, would review the culture and practices of the BBC when Savile was working there, and

Nick Pollard George Nicholas Pollard (born 15 November 1950) is a British journalist and the former head of Sky News. Early life and education Pollard was born in Birkenhead and educated at Birkenhead School, an independent school in the town. Career in jo ...

, a former Sky News executive, would look at why a ''

'' investigation into Savile's activities was dropped shortly before its transmission. A '' Panorama'' investigation was broadcast on 22 October 2012. The Director-General of the BBC,

George Entwistle George Edward Entwistle (born 8 July 1962) was Director-General of the BBC during 2012, succeeding Mark Thompson. After a career in magazine journalism, he joined BBC Television in 1989, becoming a producer with a primary focus in factual and ...

, declined to be interviewed, citing legal advice that BBC senior management should co-operate only with the police, the BBC reviews and Parliament. On the same day, the BBC announced that ''Newsnight'' editor

Peter Rippon Peter William Rippon (born 22 August 1965) is a British broadcasting executive. He is Editor of BBC Online Archive. Prior to this he was Editor of BBC Television's current affairs programme ''Newsnight''. Early life Peter Rippon was born in ...

would "step aside" from his position with immediate effect. On 23 October, Entwistle appeared before the Parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Committee at which he faced hostile questioning and stated that it had been a "catastrophic mistake" to cancel the ''Newsnight'' broadcast. In the context of the Savile scandal, a book written in 1999 by journalist John Simpson, ''Strange Places, Questionable People'', was noted to have referred to an "Uncle Dick" at the BBC who had sexually assaulted children and appeared to fit the profile of BBC announcer

Derek McCulloch Derek Ivor Breashur McCulloch OBE (18 November 1897 – 1 June 1967) was a BBC Radio producer and presenter. He became known as "Uncle Mac" on ''Children's Hour'' and '' Children's Favourites'' and provided the voice of "Larry the Lamb" in '' ...

. The author

Andrew O'Hagan Andrew O'Hagan (born 1968) is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize and he has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Award. His most recent novel is ''Mayf ...

wrote that there had long been rumours about McCulloch's activities and those of his colleague

Lionel Gamlin Lionel James Gamlin (30 April 1903 – 16 October 1967)Lionel Gamlin at IMDb
Retrieved 29 October 2012. ...

while they worked at the BBC in the 1940s and 1950s. The BBC said that it would "look into these allegations as part of the Jimmy Savile review". McCulloch's family described the allegations as "complete rubbish". ''Newsnight'' broadcast on 2 November 2012 a report making allegations against an unmamed "prominent Thatcher era Conservative politician" in relation to the

North Wales child abuse scandal The North Wales child abuse scandal was the subject of a three-year, £13 million investigation into the physical and sexual abuse of children in care homes in the counties of Clwyd and Gwynedd, in North Wales, including the Bryn Estyn childre ...

. However, the story collapsed after ''

'' reported on 8 November a case of mistaken identity, and the next day, the victim retracted the allegation. An apology was included in ''Newsnight'' on 9 November, and all ongoing ''Newsnight'' investigations were suspended. George Entwistle stated that he was unaware of the content of the report before it was broadcast and stated that ''Newsnight'' staff involved in the broadcast could be disciplined. However, Entwistle himself resigned on 10 November, after facing further criticism in the media. The Director of BBC Scotland, Ken MacQuarrie, investigated the circumstances around the ''Newsnight'' programme. His findings were published on 12 November and concluded that there had been "a lack of clarity around the senior editorial chain of command" and that "some of the basic journalistic checks were not completed". Nick Pollard's report into the shelving of a ''Newsnight'' report on Savile in 2011 was published in December 2012. It concluded that the decision to drop the original report was "flawed" and that it had not been done to protect programmes prepared as tributes to Savile. His report criticised Entwistle for apparently failing to read emails warning him of Savile's "dark side" and stated that after the allegations against Savile eventually became public, the BBC fell into a "level of chaos and confusion

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

was even greater than was apparent at the time". On 20 December 2012, the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

Public Accounts Committee published criticism of payments made to Entwistle after he had resigned and called the £450,000 paid to him after 54 days in post, double the amount specified in his contract, together with a year's health insurance and additional payments, to be a "cavalier" use of public money.BBC News, ''Entwistle pay-off was cavalier use of public money – MPs'', 20 December 2012
Retrieved 20 December 2012

"London-centrism": Lack of national representation

On 1 November 2007, it was reported that Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, criticised the BBC as too London-centric and paying less attention to news stories outside the capital. In light of such criticism in terms of both news and general programming and in recognition of its mandate to represent the entire UK and to encourage creativity throughout the country, active efforts have been made by the Trust and Board of Governors to correct the regional imbalance. That is reflected in a commitment to produce at least half of programmes outside Greater London, a target that the BBC achieved in 2013 and 2014 but fell short of in 2015. The BBC's annual report for 2015–2016 refers to the "London bubble" and claims that it represents not an active bias but the fact that London is where so many decisions and programming are made. While notable investments in production capacity outside London have been made, such as the creation of MediaCityUK in

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...

, spending figures for regional radio and television production has fallen in real terms. That accompanied a reduction of nearly £600 million in funding for the BBC as a whole since 2010. The UK's move towards increased devolution in the areas of healthcare, education and a range of other policy areas has created additional challenges for the BBC. The flagship newscasts are based in London and tend to report "nation-wide" stories related to government and policy that often pertain only

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

or sometimes

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...

. The BBC Trust and Future for Public Service Television Inquiry recognised that it requires more clarity in UK-wide news programming (for example, by explaining that the Junior Doctors Strike affected only England or that

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

and

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

are exempt from the

bedroom tax The under-occupancy penalty (also known as the under occupation penalty, under-occupancy charge, under-occupation charge or size criteria) results from a provision of the British Welfare Reform Act 2012 whereby tenants living in public housing ( ...

and the funding changes leading to the 2010 student protests), and it creates an additional responsibility for the home nations to report on devolved matters. From 2016, BBC management would go before the devolved committees for culture or media to answer questions and criticism, just as for the Westminster Culture, Media, and Sport Committee.

Wales coverage

In August 2007, Adam Price, a

Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom. Plaid wa ...

MP, highlighted what he perceived as a lack of a Welsh focus on BBC

news broadcasts News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or telev ...

. Price threatened to withhold future

television licence A television licence or broadcast receiving licence is a payment required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts, or the possession of a television set where some broadcasts are funded in full or in part by the licence ...

fees in response to a lack of thorough news coverage of

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

and echoed a BBC Audience Council for Wales July report that cited public frustration over how the

Welsh Assembly The Senedd (; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes laws for Wales, agrees certain taxes and scrutinises the Welsh ...

is characterised in national media. Plaid Cymru Welsh Assembly Member Bethan Jenkins agreed with Price and called for responsibility for broadcasting to be devolved to the Welsh Assembly. Similar calls were voiced from Scottish First Minister

Alex Salmond Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (; born 31 December 1954) is a Scottish politician and economist who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure on the Scottish nationalist movement, he has served as leader ...

. Criticism of the BBC's news coverage for Wales and Scotland since devolution has prompted debate of providing evening news broadcasts with specific focus for both countries.

Scotland coverage controversy

= Scottish independence referendum, 2014

= The

National Union of Journalists The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). Structure There is ...

criticised the BBC in October 2012 for its poor coverage of the Scotland independence referendum, which took place on 18 September 2014. The BBC reportedly "downplayed the costs of referendum coverage, claiming it was a 'one off'". According to a research team led by Dr John Robertson from the

University of the West of Scotland The University of the West of Scotland ( gd, Oilthigh na h-Alba an Iar), formerly the University of Paisley, is a public university with four campuses in south-western Scotland, in the towns of Paisley, Renfrewshire, Paisley, Blantyre, South Lanar ...

, the BBC's first year of referendum coverage, until September 2013, was biased towards the unionist No campaign. Andrew Marr, the BBC presenter, was accused of expressing anti-independence views in a March 2014 interview with Alex Salmond. The BBC allowed the Better Together campaign to make a unionist cinema advertisement at its Glasgow studios in April 2014, which was thought to contravene its editorial guidelines. According to ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

'', the BBC appointed

Kezia Dugdale Kezia Alexandra Ross Dugdale (born 28 August 1981) is a Scottish former politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2015 to 2017. A former member of the Scottish Labour Party and Co-operative Party, she was a Member of th ...

, Labour's education spokeswoman, as presenter of ''Crossfire'', a radio programme debating issues relating to the referendum. The newspaper believed the arrangement to be also a breach of the BBC's guidelines and asserted that Dugdale is "a member of Scottish Labour's Truth Team – set up to monitor all SNP and Yes Scotland interviews, press statements and briefing papers" in the runup to the September vote. A report by the Audience Council Scotland, the BBC Trust's advisory body in Scotland, questioned the impartiality of BBC Scotland in covering the independence referendum in July 2014. A '' Sunday Times'' article, also in July 2014, queried the BBC's approach to the independence referendum and stated that emails by a senior member of a BBC production company organising debates gave advance notice to the No campaign. On 10 September 2014, the BBC was accused of bias in its reporting of an Alex Salmond press conference for the international media. In a response to a question by the BBC's Nick Robinson, Salmond accused him of heckling and wanted an inquiry by the British Cabinet Secretary into a leak to the BBC from the

Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or i ...

onplans of the Royal Bank of Scotland to relocate its registered office to London, which had been in the previous evening's news. In response to complaints on editing live coverage of the conference for later bulletins, the BBC said: "The BBC considers that the questions were valid and the overall report balanced and impartial, in line with our editorial guidelines". After a day of protests from Yes campaigners and demands for Robinson to be sacked, the following Monday (15 September), Salmond responded to questions from journalists at

Edinburgh Airport Edinburgh Airport is an airport located in the Ingliston area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the busiest airport in Scotland in 2019, handling over 14.7 million passengers. It was also the sixth-busiest airport in the United Kingdom by ...

. About Robinson's report in later bulletins, he said: "I don't think it was fair for Nick to suggest that I hadn't answered a question when I actually answered it twice". He did not believe that Robinson should be sacked. The former BBC correspondent Paul Mason was reported in September 2014 to have been critical of the BBC's reporting on his

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

page that had been intended to be read only by his friends: "Not since Iraq have I seen BBC News working at propaganda strength like this. So glad I'm out of there".

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

's director of creative diversity, Stuart Cosgrove called for a rethink at the BBC on the nature of balance and due impartiality. That was during a BBC Scotland radio conversation hosted by John Beattie. Cosgrove commented, "Yesterday, I was watching the rolling BBC News very closely and it was clear that notions of balance were being predicated on a party political basis. It would go from Cameron to Miliband to Clegg and back. If you look at it as a different premise – it's a yes/no question – then

Patrick Harvie Patrick Harvie (born 18 March 1973) is a Scottish politician who has served as Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants' Rights since 2021. He has served as one of two co-leaders of the Scottish Greens since 2008, and is on ...

of the Scottish Greens, who is not the leader but is a significant political person within the Yes campaign, should have had exactly the same coverage as Ed Miliband. Do you think for a second he got that? Of course he didn't. I think there's been a failure of the understanding of the nature of balance and due impartiality. It's simply wrong and not acceptable". An interview of Salmond for the ''

Sunday Herald The ''Sunday Herald'' was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published between 7 February 1999 and 2 September 2018. Originally a broadsheet, it was published in compact format from 20 November 2005. The paper was known for having combined a centre- ...

'' published on 14 September 2014 included his opinion that the BBC had displayed a unionist bias during the referendum.

Inaccuracy and misrepresentation

Inaccurate reporting by Jeremy Bowen

In April 2009, the Editorial Standards Committee of the

published a report on three complaints brought against two news items involving Jeremy Bowen, the Middle East Editor for

. The complaints included 24 allegations of inaccuracy or partiality, of which three were fully or partially upheld.

Antony Lerman Antony Lerman (born 11 March 1946) is a British writer who specialises in the study of antisemitism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, multiculturalism, and the place of religion in society. From 2006 to early 2009, he was Director of the Inst ...

, ''

'', 16 April 2009
What did Jeremy Bowen do wrong?
/ref> The BBC Trust's editorial standards committee found that Bowen's radio piece "had stated his professional view without qualification or explanation, and that the lack of precision in his language had rendered the statement inaccurate" and that the online article should have explained the existence of alternative views and that it had breached the rules of impartiality. However, the report did not accuse Bowen of bias. The website article was amended, and Bowen did not face any disciplinary measures.

Primark and child labour fake news

In 2011, after three years of

Primark Primark Stores Limited (; trading as Penneys in the Republic of Ireland) is an Irish multinational fast fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. It has stores across Europe and in the United States. The Penneys brand is not us ...

's effort, the BBC acknowledged that its award-winning investigative journalism report of Indian child labour use by the retailing giant was a fake. BBC apologised to Primark, Indian suppliers and its viewers.

"Terrorist house" misrepresentation story

In January 2016, stories originating from the BBC alleged that the

Lancashire Constabulary Lancashire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial county of Lancashire in North West England. The force's headquarters are at Hutton, near the city of Preston. , the force has 3,088 police officers ...

had taken a young Muslim child away for questioning on

anti-terrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or ...

charges after he accidentally spelled "

terraced house In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...

" as "terrorist house". The story was widely reported in the British and international media. The police force in question criticised the BBC's coverage of the story by stating that it was "untrue to suggest that this situation was brought about by a simple spelling mistake" and adding that the incident "was not responded to as a terror incident and the reporter was fully aware of this before she wrote her story" and that "the media needs to take more responsibility when sensationalising issues to make stories much bigger than they are and to realise the impact they can have on local communities". A statement from the police and local council also said that it was "untrue to suggest that this situation was brought about by a simple spelling mistake. The school and the police have acted responsibly and proportionately in looking into a number of potential concerns using a low-key, local approach". Other pieces of work by the student, including one where the child wrote about his uncle beating him, were allegedly other reasons for the police questioning over the safety of the child.

One-sided documentary on racism during Euro 2012

Eleven days before the tournament took place, the BBC's current affairs programme '' Panorama'', entitled ''

Euro 2012 The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2012 or simply Euro 2012, was the 14th European Championship for men's national football teams organised by UEFA. The final tournament, held between 8 June and 1 ...

: Stadiums of Hate'', included recent footage of supporters chanting various racist slogans and displays of

white power White pride and white power are expressions primarily used by white separatist, white nationalist, fascist, neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations in order to signal racist or racialist viewpoints. It is also a slogan used by the prominen ...

symbols and banners in Poland and Nazi salutes and the beating of South Asians in Ukraine. The documentary was first commented widely in the British press but was accused of being one-sided, biased and unethical. Critics included the British media, anti-racism campaigners, and black and Jewish community leaders in Poland, Polish and Ukrainian politicians and journalists, England fans visiting the host nations and footballers (

Gary Lineker Gary Winston Lineker (; born 30 November 1960) is an English former professional footballer and current sports broadcaster. He is regarded as having been one of the greatest English strikers. His media career began with the BBC, where he has ...

, Roy Hodgson and others). Jonathan Ornstein, the leader of Jewish community in

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

and a Jewish source used in the documentary, said: "I am furious at the way the BBC has exploited me as a source. The organization used me and others to manipulate the serious subject of anti-Semitism for its own sensationalist agenda... the BBC knowingly cheated its own audience – the British people – by concocting a false horror story about Poland. In doing so, the BBC has spread fear, ignorance, prejudice and hatred. I am profoundly disturbed by this unethical form of journalism". A reporter from ''

Gazeta Wyborcza ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of " real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the ...

'', Poland's biggest left-wing newspaper, questioned ''Panoramas practices and stated, "I am becoming more and more surprised with what the BBC says. So far it has denied two situations I witnessed. I would not be surprised if the BBC prepared a statement saying that the ''Panorama'' crew has never been to Poland". The anti-racism campaigner Jacek Purski said, "The material prepared by the BBC is one-sided. It does not show the whole story of Polish preparations for the Euros. It does not show the Championship ran a lot of activities aimed at combating racism in the 'Respect Diversity' campaign. For us the Euro is not only about matches. The event has become an opportunity to fight effectively against racism and promote multiculturalism. There is no country in Europe free from racism. These are the facts". The nations fined by

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

for racism were not the hosts but the visitors from Spain, Croatia, Russia and Germany. The

Royal Dutch Football Association The Royal Dutch Football Association (, ; KNVB ) is the governing body of football in the Netherlands. It organises the main Dutch football leagues (Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie), the amateur leagues, the KNVB Cup, and the Dutch Netherlands nati ...

issued a complaint to UEFA after

monkey chants Monkey chanting or monkey chants are chants or calls aimed at ridiculing or denigrating Black sportspeople, usually footballers, who play in majority-White countries. The chants are intended to imitate "monkey" or " ape" noises. They may be accom ...

were thought to be aimed at their black players during an open training session in Kraków, but UEFA denied the chants were racially motivated.

False claims about Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko

In 2019, the BBC agreed to pay damages after being sued by the then-president of Ukraine

Petro Poroshenko Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko ( uk, Петро́ Олексі́йович Пороше́нко, ; born 26 September 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko se ...

for publishing libellous reports that Poroshenko had made a $400,000 bribe to Michael Cohen, lawyer of President

. The BBC apologized and admitted that the story was not true.

Criticism by Chinese state related to a "gloom filter" photo

In July 2021, social media influencer Jason Lightfoot pointed out that BBC had manipulated a photo of him to look dull and colourless and shared a comparison between the version of the photo shown on a BBC article and the original, an allegation that was amplified by Zhao Lijian on social media. In December 2021, the BBC published an English and a Chinese-language version of a 17-minute video on the city of

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city an ...

one year after its handling of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. In response, the BBC was targeted by "Chinese trolls and fake news websites", which cybersecurity company

Recorded Future Recorded Future is a privately held cybersecurity company founded in 2009, with headquarters in Somerville, Massachusetts. The company specializes in the collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination of threat intelligence. Recorded Future ...

says are "likely state-sponsored", claiming the broadcaster had applied "a gloomy or 'underworld' filter" to the imagery in its reports to make the country look "dull and lifeless". Foreign Affairs ministry official

Zhao Lijian Zhao Lijian (; born 10 November 1972) is a Chinese politician and the deputy director of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Information Department. He is the 31st spokesperson since the position was established in 1983. He joined the forei ...

and Chinese state media outlets have repeated allegations of a "gloom filter." The ''

Global Times The ''Global Times'' () is a daily tabloid newspaper under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party's flagship newspaper, the '' People's Daily'', commenting on international issues from a Chinese ultra-nationalistic perspective. The pub ...

'' posted a comparison between the Chinese version and English versions of the BBC video, pointing out a difference in coloration between the two.

Organizational practices

Climate change

The BBC has been criticised for hypocrisy over its high carbon footprint despite the amount of coverage that it gives to the topic of climate change. ''Newsnight'' presenter

Jeremy Paxman Jeremy Dickson Paxman (born 11 May 1950) is an English broadcaster, journalist, author, and television presenter. Born in Leeds, Paxman was educated at Malvern College and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate new ...

argued that its correspondents "travel the globe to tell the audience of the dangers of climate change while leaving a vapour trail which will make the problem even worse". Paxman further argues that the 'BBC's coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago'. At the 2007

Edinburgh International Television Festival The Edinburgh International Television Festival is an annual media event held in the United Kingdom each August which brings together delegates from the television and digital world to debate the major issues facing the industry. The Festival ...

, the head of television news, and Peter Barron, the editor of ''Newsnight'', said that the BBC should not campaign on climate change. They criticised the proposed plans for a BBC

Comic Relief Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. Definition Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic epis ...

-style day of programmes on climate change. Horrocks was quoted as saying, "I absolutely don't think we should do that because it's not impartial. It's not our job to lead people and proselytise about it". Barron was quoted as adding, "It is absolutely not the BBC's job to save the planet. I think there are a lot of people who think that, but it must be stopped". Horrocks later outlined the BBC's position on the BBC Editors Blog ("No Line"). The plans for a day of programmes on environmental issues were abandoned in September 2007. A BBC spokesperson said that it was "absolutely not" because of concerns about impartiality. In July 2011 a BBC Trust review cited findings of an assessment by Professor Steve Jones of

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. Jones found there was sometimes an "over-rigid" application of the editorial guidelines on impartiality in relation to science coverage, which failed to take into account what he regarded as the "non-contentious" nature of some stories and the need to avoid giving "undue attention to marginal opinion". Jones gave reporting of the safety of the MMR vaccine and more recent coverage of claims about the safety of genetically-modified crops and the existence of man-made climate change as examples. In 2017, the BBC apologised for allowing climate change denier

Nigel Lawson Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, (born 11 March 1932) is a British Conservative Party politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974 to 1992, and served in the cabinet of Margaret ...

to claim that global temperatures had not risen in the past decade on

's ''Today Programme'', which the organisation acknowledged breached its editorial guidelines., and in 2018,

Carbon Brief Carbon Brief is a UK-based website specialising in the science and policy of climate change. It has won awards for investigative journalism and data visualisation. Leo Hickman is the director and editor for Carbon Brief. Founding Carbon Brief ...

released an internal notice sent by

, the BBC director of news and current affairs, that argued that the BBC's coverage of climate change often went against its own guidelines on accuracy and created a

with regard to impartiality: "Manmade climate change exists: If the science proves it we should report it.... To achieve impartiality, you do not need to include outright deniers of climate change in BBC coverage, in the same way you would not have someone denying that Manchester United won 2–0 last Saturday. The referee has spoken". The BBC is alleged to have attempted to cover up a climate change seminar that is credited with shaping its coverage of the environment.

Sexism

Annie Nightingale was repeatedly refused a job as a disc jockey on Radio 1 on the basis that "Our disc jockeys are husband substitutes".

"Overstaffing"

The BBC has been criticised for "overstaffing" news, sporting and cultural events and in doing so, both wasting licence fee money and using its dominant position to control the coverage of events. A 2010 House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report criticised the number of staff that the BBC had sent to sporting events such as the Beijing Olympics and the Euro 2008 football championships. In June 2011, the BBC sent 263 staff to cover the Glastonbury Festival. The next month, it sent 250 staff members to cover an event marking one year until the start of the

London 2012 Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

, ten times the numbers that were used by other broadcasters. On 19 October 2011, the Liberal Democrats' culture spokesman, Don Foster, criticised the large number of BBC staff members who attended the eviction of Travellers and their supporters from the illegal section of the Dale Farm site. Foster stated that it was "ludicrous overstaffing and hardly good way to get public sympathy for the 20 per cent budget cuts facing the BBC". The BBC responded that it had only 20 staff members on site.

"Off payroll" tax arrangements

In October 2012, a Public Accounts Committee report found that the BBC had 25,000 "off payroll" contracts, 13,000 for people who were on air. The contracts enable people to make their own arrangements to pay tax and

National Insurance National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their fami ...

, which could allow them to contribute less than employees on pay-as-you-earn tax. In response, the BBC said many of them were short-term contracts but that it was carrying out a detailed review of tax arrangements.

Funding

The fact that the BBC's domestic services are funded mainly by a

fee is heavily criticised by its competitors and others on a number of grounds. The rise of multichannel

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...

led to criticism that the licence fee is unjustifiable on the basis that minority interest programmes can now be transmitted on specialist commercial subscription channels and that the licence fee was funding a number of digital-only channels, which many licence holders at the time could not watch (such as

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, covering all genres including animation, comedy, cur ...

and BBC Four). However, since 24 October 2012, with the completion of the

digital switchover The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover (DSO), the analogue switch/sign-off (ASO), the digital migration, or the analogue shutdown, is the process in which older analogue television broadcasting technology is conv ...

, all licence payers can now access that content.

BBC Russia

On 17 August 2007, it was reported that FM broadcast of the BBC's

Russian-language Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living Eas ...

service in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

would be dropped, leaving only medium- and short-wave broadcasts. The financial organisation Finam, which owns the FM radio service that dropped the BBC Russia broadcasts, said through its spokesman, Igor Ermachenkov, "Any media which is government-financed is propaganda – it's a fact, it's not negative". A spokesman, for the BBC responded, "Although the BBC is funded by the UK government... a fundamental principle of its constitution and its regulatory regime is that it is editorially independent of the UK government". Reports put the development in the context of criticism of the Russian government for curbing media freedom and strained British-Russian relations. Reporters Without Borders condemned the move as censorship.

References

External links

BBC
homepage {{BBC BBC controversies

...
Media bias controversies Politics of the United Kingdom