Mick Hartley

Melanie Phillips, in the Times, on the problems faced by the BBC as new head Matt Brittin steps in:

What’s really chilling about this BBC mindset, which is the default position of its journalists and editors, is that they genuinely believe they represent the political centre ground and uphold the BBC’s sacred obligation to fairness and truth-telling. So it follows that they dismiss as an extremist anyone who calls them out for their partisan betrayal of journalistic integrity. They therefore inhabit a totally sealed thought system — the mindset, tragically, of the university-educated progressive classes.

This has had the most baleful effects, not just in Britain but in the world. So influential is the BBC, which still trades on its historic reputation as the kitemark of truthful, fair and objective reporting, that in its degraded state it has become the principal pollutant of the cultural climate.

Nowhere has this been more lethal than on the issue of Israel, with the BBC pumping out inflammatory and unchallenged falsehoods day in, day out about the IDF’s behaviour in Gaza. This has caused Danny Cohen, the former director of BBC Television, to denounce its “institutionally hostile” coverage of Israel and to accuse it of fanning the flames of antisemitism.

…the BBC’s presentation of Israel seemed to me to be not just biased but malevolent, painting it as truly demonic in wantonly killing vast numbers of Gaza’s children, starving its citizens and committing war crimes. Such monstrous falsehoods have helped to incite current hatred of Israelis and Jews. 

We had Rob Burley’s devastating expose of the BBC’s trans capture the other day. Tough times ahead for Matt Brittin.