There can be little doubt that if the electorate in the EU referendum consisted entirely of BBC employees the Remain campaign would enjoy a landslide victory. When people lament a “metropolitan liberal elite” that is disdainful of the masses, no other institution so encapsulates such a mentality.
This means that it may not be at all conscious of bias. The desire to be professional may well be sincere. It is simply that for the chattering classes it is a struggle to envisage an alternative outlook.
They go to dinner parties with old university friends with the same mindset. They read The Guardian. Former newscaster Peter Sissons has said: “In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’.”
.@nicholaswatt reports Remain camp will switch emphasis frm projected costs of #brexit to actual econ impacts of #brexit fears now#newsnight
— Ian Katz (@iankatz1000) June 17, 2016
Often, indeed, BBC journalists used to work for The Guardian. For example there is Ian Katz, the Editor of Newsnight who is also the former Deputy Editor of the Guardian. Then there is Nicholas Watt, the Political Editor of Newsnight who until a few weeks ago was the chief political correspondent at the Guardian.
Watt wrote for the BBC recently: “Vote Leave is pursuing a classic core votes strategy to persuade diehard supporters to turn out on 23 June, by focusing on immigration.”
Certainly immigration is important, but Vote Leave has talked rather more about democracy and the need to “take control” and decide our own laws.
The bias can take many forms. For instance the level of prominence given to different stories. Thus the BBC gave a lot of coverage to Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston’s recent announcement that she was switching sides to back Remain – but far less attention to the Labour MP John Mann backing Leave.
Yesterday, Baroness Warsi led BBC bulletins with her supposed “defection” from Vote Leave to Remain – even though nobody on the Vote Leave side was aware of any practical support she had given them in the first place.
Far less attention was given to a genuine switch by Lord Guthrie, the former chief of the defence staff. He had earlier publicly backed EU membership but has now changed his mind to back Brexit because he is concerned that a European Army “could damage NATO.”
FTSE 100 makes gains as opinion polls indicate a shift towards UK voting to remain #EURefhttps://t.co/YHm50uJlm5 pic.twitter.com/sasBoHP7cr
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 20, 2016
Another form of bias comes with the BBC’s vocabulary. Thus on the Radio 4 Today programme on June 6 there was a story that Britain might have to pay the EU another £2.4 billion in a Eurozone bailout. The Leave campaign “claimed” that we’d pay more while Remain “pointed out” that we wouldn’t. We keep being told about the risks of Leave, but what about the risks of Remain? Very little attention has been paid to this.
Another favourite of the BBC is to talk about people being “pro Europe” or “anti Europe” rather than pro or anti the EU.
This distinction could not be more fundamental. Wanting to quit the political European Union has nothing to do with anyone’s feelings for the continent of Europe. To even suggest otherwise is utterly disingenuous.
A Europe-wide kissing fest to persuade Brits to stay in the EU https://t.co/ajJrK7Xnss #EUReferendum #BBCShorts pic.twitter.com/1c03OGjq8Q
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 21, 2016
There is nothing new in this. Jack de Manio, a previous presenter of the Today programme, was ousted in the early 1970s due to his opposition to what was then known as the Common Market. Mark Thompson, a former Director General of the BBC, said that in the 1980s the Corporation’s staff “were quite mystified by the early years of Thatcher”. He implied there had been a subsequent change of culture – I’m not sure how many have noticed it.
To be fair it is not just the BBC. The TV presenter who is the most blatant propagandist on British TV is not from the BBC but Jon Snow of Channel 4 News. He says Glenys Kinnock, wife of Neil and the former Labour Euro MP, is the “embodiment” of what he believes. For impartial coverage from ITV we must rely on Robert Peston their Political Editor, formerly with the BBC. His father was a Labour peer and his best friend is PR man Roland Rudd – that most fanatical supporter of the EU you could find.
Beckham is the endorsement Remain has been absolutely desperate to secure. Do you think it will make a difference?
— Robert Peston (@Peston) June 21, 2016
Of course in the internet age we are not entirely dependent on the BBC – or ITV or Channel 4. Alternative voices can get through. Brexit the Movie, available for free on YouTube, has been seen by nearly four million people.
Yet the overall verdict has to be that the BBC have not been mere observers in the EU referendum, but participants. They have backed the EU because they share the same culture. Disdain for patriotism and a competitive open market economy. A bloated bureaucracy and sense of entitlement to forced funding from the public purse.
A Vote to Leave the EU would be a blow to the BBC from which it would
struggle to recover.
