BBC upheld just 25 complaints of bias in five years
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
I’m surprised it’s as many as 25!!
The BBC’s internal watchdog has been dismissed as “unfit for purpose” after it emerged that just 25 complaints of bias have been formally upheld in the past five years.
In the same period, the BBC received 1.7 million complaints, of which more than 600,000 are likely to have been about bias, based on previous data.
Campaigners said it “defies belief” that the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) found that an average of just five complaints of bias each year had any substance.
The Government is currently examining the effectiveness of the complaints process as part of a mid-term review of the BBC’s 10-year Royal Charter. Critics are calling for a complete overhaul.
Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, has promised to improve impartiality at the broadcaster, which has been dogged by accusations of bias in recent years. The new data suggest much more progress is needed.
News-watch, a monitoring organisation set up by David Keighley, a former BBC journalist, has submitted a 95-page report to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which is in charge of the mid-term review.
It is among those calling on the Government to order a rethink of the whole complaints process, suggesting the BBC should not be “its own judge and jury”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/05/bbc-coimplaints-bias-25-upheld-out-of-17m-report/
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Why would the BBC want to criticise itself? A different system is needed.
I honestly don’t believe the BBC sees itself as biased. Like the Guardian, it sincerely believes its opinions are fact and truth.
That’s it entirely.
Correct. Truth is what they say it is.
Yes, they are both completely liberal, as in they are totally illiberal and intolerant of any view they disagree with.
On a whole range of issues – climate change, Brexit, tax, regulation, Trump, capitalism, free markets, gender – the BBC simply doesn’t believe there are two sides to the argument. Thus it doesn’t believe there can be bias. There is right and there are Deniers and fascists. They are right. They treat political opinions , and often flat-Earth economics – as facts.
Sorry, do not agree; “sincerity” is quality in hiding as far as The BBC is concerned. I have made several complaints following HYS comments, on AWG/CC, SARS COV2 etc, by me referencing studies and sources of information that were/are 100% trustworthy, not proselytising and simply because the sources have nothing to gain and everything to lose by putting their heads above the parapet – and because I chose with some care the subjects , subsequent events have undermined the BBC’s refusal to address these issues impartially. Every single won has been dismissed out of hand, all for highly spurious reasons, demonstrably wrong, more than one requested to be referred and in each case The BBC Complaints Unit has failed to deliver on their own procedures by A) not including a link to the ECU has they are mandated to do and B) more than once refusing to answer emails.
Davie is the problem – he does not consider The BBC have to deliver impartiality when THEY decide the “science” is settled – the “97% Syndrome”.
Instead of defunding The BBC, would it not be a better step to campaign for a 100% independent complaints process with a “3 strikes and you are out” type sanction for those so called journalists who lie habitually..and there are a lot to go at?
I’m not clear what you are disagreeing with?
Sincerity is not a quality that pervades The BBC – any definition of sincerity involves…. “Freedom from duplicity, deceit, or falsehood; honesty; truthfulness”
I would suggest that The BBC is the polar opposite of that description with very very few exceptions ( I recommend The Noble Liar by Robin Aitken ) and that it’s output is very deliberately slanted; to suggest the BBC’s output is sincerely driven hints at institutionally brainwashed employees?
Fully agree that the BBC is biased. I was watching a BBC video on YouTube concerning the electrical crisis in South Africa. The reason for insufficient power generation is plain and simply corruption within the ruling party (ANC) sabotage by supporters of the ANC, mismanagement by Cadres placed by the ANC.
Instead of concentrating on this issues. They then go to the use of coal and its mining in SA. This has absolutely nothing to do with the power generation, but they do it to suit the Agenda dictated to them by WEF and fat Soros.
The BBC is as bent as Eddie Izzard.
I am surprised they didn’t blame white colonials and I suspect there will be no mention on the BBC of the new apartheid laws being introduced in S Africa.
I requested this data 10 years ago.
Long story short, they refused, so I raised an FOI request. They refused, citing the Balen Ruling, so I appealed.
The BBC threatened me with legal costs, but eventually capitulated.
The outcome was to learn that of 1.25 million complaints over a 5 year period, only 0.014% were upheld at the old stage 2.
If you were actually successful in your claim, the BBC ignored the issue.
It was unfit then and remains so today.
Happy to provide details if required.
‘It is among those calling on the Government to order a rethink of the whole complaints process’
Meanwhile, this American can’t figure out why it is any of government’s business. The marketplace should decide. Don’t like what BBC says? Change the channel.
I can’t stand what NBC says. So I watch Fox (less now, since they fired Tucker).
“…this American…”
Perhaps he does not know that the BBC is funded by an annual Licence Fee, of £159 per household, payable the instant anyone in the household watches or records live TV on any channel or service (whether BBC or not) ?
That is the crux of the problem. The complaint system is a diversion, an attempt to convince the viewer/listener (notice I didn’t say the customer) that they have a way to influence the BBC. They don’t. It matters not what you say in your complaint because there is absolutely nothing you can do to cut off the money stream to the BBC. You must do away with funding it with compulsory taxes and force it to supply a product for which folks are willing to pay. Then you will have a real vote on what the BBC produces.
And by the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation.
It is different in the UK. You have to have a “TV licence” regardless of which channels you actually watch, and the revenue from that goes into the coffers of the BBC. I guess that is why people watch the BBC having been forced to pay that licence fee.
That said the state of the BBC is disgraceful. It is supposed to have a statutory duty of impartiality, but it is not enforced.
So you get your TV from the government.
Not just TV channels but radio stations nationally, locally and internationally, plus a big website.
“So you get your TV from the government.”
Not really. The UK gets its TV from the sort of people who have captured the government and many other institutions.
The whole MSM, not only the BBC, is engaged in making already-feeble brains into pure mush. Key to this is stage conjuror style ‘misdirection.’
Example: A thousand excess* deaths in England reported by the Office of National Statistics for the week ended May 26. What is the first headline that appears on my computer today?
“Heartbreak as Howlett’s [a zoo] lioness Grace dies while giving birth.”
* Official nomenclature.
“So you get your TV from the government.”
To all intents and purposes, the Covid scamdemic proved that..
Being in government means never having to say you’re sorry.
This statement Applies much more broadly than just the BBC.
Can anyone help. Ever since I logged into the BBC Verify function my comments on here are going into “awaiting moderation” and some are not appearing at all…this one may not! Any ideas why?
I’ve tried everything Ray
It appears, from very lengthy trials and tribulations, that my 26 year old email address has been hacked into by persons unknown. This is causing me major grief as I now have to notify the world and its dog of a new alternative address. Thanks for your efforts.
Well, I’m retired and have a bit of time on my hands some days. Give me some example wording and I’ll start a petition on the Government Petitions Website.
Publicity might be a problem
Yet the BBC still exists and has its Charter still intact, WHY?
If I was running a company that had 1.7 million complaints of any description over a 5 year period, I’d be seriously worried and doubt whether I’d be in a job if the shareholders found out.