Currently, BBCs journalistic ethics is a big topic within British politics. This is because British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the BBC is targeting him because of their reporting on his partying during the covid-19 pandemic. This has sparked a larger conversation over whether the BBC is biased or not. Many have defended BBC considering it to be a non-partisan unbiased source of news. While Johnson is clearly targeting it because of their critical reporting on him, there is no doubt BBC is propaganda. Noam Chomsky famously took down the BBC in an interview with them when he said to host Andrew Marr “I’m sure you believe everything you are saying, but if you believed something different you wouldn't be sitting where you are sitting”. Chomsky is exactly right in his critique of BBC. Thie selective hiring process has led to the network to parrot the British establishment's line on every issue from Jeremy Corbyn to Palastine to Assange to Yemen to Syria. In this article, I will be going over some of the most egregious examples of propaganda parroted by the BBC.
Anti Corbyn Bias
The BBC like all of the British press was extremely hostile to Jeremy Corbyn, the progressive anti-imperialist who previously served as leader of the labor party very similarly to how the United States media smeared Bernie Sanders in his 2016 and 2020 run for the Democratic nomination. BBCs anti-Corbyn bias was proven by a study done by the London School of Economics that showed BBC News at 6 had overwhelming critical coverage of Jemermy Corbyn when compared to positive coverage.
The study also found as journalist Jononothan Cook reported that 75 percent of BBCs articles distorted Corbyn’s actual views on subjects. The Canary, an independent progressive outlet has done great work documenting examples of the BBC pushing anti-Corbyn propaganda. In one instance the BBC took a Corbyn quote of out context running an article titled “Jeremy Corbyn ‘daunted’ by the prospect of becoming prime minister”. In reality, Corbyn answered yes when asked if he was ready to be Prime Minister. He was then asked by the interviewer if he was daunted to which he replied
“Yes, Obviously respectful of the mandate I hope will be given, but utterly determined to carry through into government our programme to bring about better social justice all across this country. And very determined to achieve it, and achieve the environmental aims that we’ve got, and to provide hope, particularly for young people in our society.”
The article took this exchange out of context to make it look like Corbyn was not ready to be prime minister. In another instance, the BBC ran an hour-long broadcast titled “is Labour anti-Semitic”. The segment did not interview any of the hundreds of Jewish voices within the labor party that supported Corbyn. The Jewish Voice for labor said there were hundreds of statements from Jewish Corbyn supporters within the party that the BBC did not interview. In another broadcast, the BBC photo-shopped a picture of Corbyn in the background in front of the Kremlin with a distortion of his hat to make it look like a Russian Bolshevik hat.
In an even more insane moment, the BBC photoshopped Corbyn’s face into a scene from a Harry Potter movie where his face replaced the face of Voldemort, the main villain in the series.
BBCs ignoring Assange
The BBC has also completely ignored the jailing of journalist Jullian Assange who is currently being psychologically tortured in a Belmarsh prison for his adversarial journalism. When asked why the BBC had ignored the Assange story the home affairs correspondent said he had been to hearings and they were “repetitive”. The Canary reported that the BBC was sending a reporter to the Assange hearings daily yet not publishing any reporting on it. Journalist Matt Kennard reported that the only BBC affiliated outlet to report the C.I.As plot to kill Jullian Assange was BBC Somalia and that the story was not mentioned again.
Journalist Mark Curtis reported that in 2021 the BBC ran 64 articles on the jailed Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny and only four on Jullian Assange.
Coverage of Palestine
The BBC has also pushed a pro-Isreal line on Palestine. For example, the BBC repeatedly referred to state-sanctioned violence such as Isreal’s attack Al-Aqsa mosque that wounded 200 Palestinians, and then two days later 100 as a “clash”. The BBC also blamed this attack on Palestinians. Independent outlet Media lens reported that BBC often reports that “Palestinian rockets killed Israeli soldiers” but when Palestinians are killed by Isreal it is reported as “Palestinians have died”. When 248 Palestinians including 66 children were killed by an Israeli assault on Gaza the BBC framed it as a “clash between Hamas and Isreal”. Headlines on BBC on this assault said “Israel targets Hamas chiefs” and “Israel targets Gaza militants” despite the fact that this assault overwhelmingly targeted civilians, hospitals, clinics, housing, and media organizations. In another BBC broadcast of a segment on Isreal, the segment failed to mention the killing of Saeed Odeh a 16 year old Palestinian that happend that day.
Coverage of Yemen
The BBC has also ignored the U.K. government’s complicity in war crimes in Yemen. Mark Curtis reported that the BBC almost completely ignored 23,000 air strikes a third of which targeted civilians.
Coverage of Syria
The BBC sponsored a podcast called “Mayday” on Syria that smeared critics of western governments’ role in the war in Syria and whistleblowers within the OPCW. Journalist Aaron Mate reported that the podcast implied that a whistleblower within the OPCW who leaked a censored report on the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria to WikiLeaks was paid $100,000 as a reward. The podcast hosts failed to reach out to WikiLeaks who said they did not pay the whistleblower and that no one from the BBC reached out to them. Later the BBC was forced to apologize for this podcast because of its slandering of this whistleblower as well as its smear of journalist Peter Hitchens who the podcast falsely claimed: “ shared the Russian and Syrian state views on the (Syrian) war”.
The BBC is undeniably propaganda with their smearing of leftists like Jeremy Corbyn and their repeating of the British state’s view of Assange, Palestine, Yemen, and Syria. They have been caught taking part in a UK Foreign Office campaign to “Weaken Russia” proving they have no issue with being a tool of the British state. There is no doubt the BBC is not a neutral source and does have a strong bias towards U.K. foreign policy interests.