Hallelujah! At last, a BBC boss has admitted its stars make a mockery of being impartial with their use of 'toxic' social media, writes MICK HUME
They have become ‘add- icted’ to Twitter, that most ‘toxic’ of social media platforms, and seem to care more about their tweets ‘going viral’ than telling the truth.
No, that isn’t a description of irresponsible, smartphone-obsessed teenagers.
It is an indictment of senior BBC journalists, delivered in explosive fashion to a parliamentary committee this week by none other than the Corporation’s own director of editorial policy and standards, David Jordan.
It was a very satisfying, if utterly jaw-dropping, moment for those of us who have been warning for years about the pernicious impact of Auntie’s recent displays of bias.
In no uncertain words, Mr Jordan told the Lords’ Communications and Digital Committee that BBC journalists have been guilty of ‘egregious’ violations of social media guidelines that undermine its reputation for ‘impartiality and objectivity’.
It is an indictment of senior BBC journalists, delivered in explosive fashion to a parliamentary committee this week by none other than the Corporation’s own director of editorial policy and standards, David Jordan
Groupthink
He even sought to assure the committee that his news staff are not all Left-leaning Guardian-readers — though I look forward to seeing how the Beeb’s dedicated team of ‘fact checkers’ try to prove that contentious claim.
Of course, those of us who live in the real world don’t need to be told that BBC staff have often adopted a form of Left-liberal groupthink.
For years we’ve watched in appalled horror as BBC journalists’ addiction to Twitter has widened the gap between the Corporation and licence-payers it is supposed to serve.
Mr Jordan admitted that the BBC ‘had issues’ with ‘tracking the rise of Euroscepticism’ and ‘tracking the growth of concern about immigration’.
In other words, the BBC’s ingrained pro-EU prejudices had blinded it to the rise of popular support for Brexit and for taking back control of Britain’s borders.
Unforgivable it may be, but that in itself hardly surprising.
By seeking validation on Twitter, BBC staffers confine themselves to an echo chamber where their minority worldview is reflected and reinforced
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After all, this is what happens when reporters and newsreaders become more interested in promoting their own political leanings and agendas and increasing their online followers than unearthing facts.
By seeking validation on Twitter, BBC staffers confine themselves to an echo chamber where their minority worldview is reflected and reinforced.
According to its warped narrative, Leave was bound to lose the EU referendum, Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in for U.S. President and Boris risked being thrashed by Corbyn in the 2019 election.
With such an unrivalled gift for misreading public opinion, it’s clear that many of its journalists simply don’t understand who their audience is.
By seeking validation on Twitter, BBC staffers confine themselves to an echo chamber where their minority worldview is reflected and reinforced (file photo)
How else can we explain senior journalists’ flagrant disregard for BBC guidelines on impartiality on social media?
Those rules dictate that news staff must not ‘state or reveal publicly’ how they vote or express views on politics or any ‘controversial subject’.
Somebody must have forgotten to tell the household names who regularly tweet and retweet anti-Tory and anti-Brexit posts.
One prime offender is BBC2 Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis (latest published salary: £260,000-plus), who has amassed almost 400,000 Twitter followers.
Only two months ago, Maitlis succeeded in making headlines herself, when she opened an episode of the news programme with an extraordinary editorial rant over Tory advisor Dominic Cummings’s ill-advised trip to Durham during lockdown.
Maitlis declared that ‘Dominic Cummings broke the rules, the country can see that and it’s shocked the Government cannot’.Thousands of complaints later, the BBC conceded that the programme had not met its ‘standards of due impartiality’ and that Maitlis’s monologue belonged ‘more on the op-ed page in a newspaper’ than ‘an impartial broad- cast programme’.
Yet nobody familiar with Maitlis’s track record on Twitter was shocked by her outburst.
In the run-up to last year’s General Election she retweeted posts criticising Boris and the ‘nasty party’ Conservatives.
Before the election Edwards ‘liked’ a message from the GMB union stating: ‘Vote Labour for the National Health Service’
Days before the election, Maitlis even tweeted a personal warning to her followers: ‘Don’t underestimate the similarities between G.B.Done [Get Brexit Done] and M.A.G.A. [Make America Great Again] — they each work if they are consistently repeated and chanted — but never explained.’
It was a clear expression of contempt for voters supposedly stupid enough to be duped by Boris or Donald Trump.
Joining Ms Maitlis in the dock is BBC News at Ten presenter Huw Edwards, (salary: £490,000-plus), with around 100,000 Twitter followers.
Before the election Edwards ‘liked’ a message from the GMB union stating: ‘Vote Labour for the National Health Service’.
He also liked a comment criticising Boris Johnson’s plan for Brexit.
Of course, the BBC is not the only news organisation whose worldview is dictated by Twitter.
Only this week, American columnist Bari Weiss resigned from the New York Times with a devastating open letter that warned how ‘Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor’.
Respected
It was an excoriating criticism of a respected ‘newspaper of record’ — by one of its own staff.
But any newspaper ultimately must have the editorial independence to say whatever it believes. It is up to the readers whether or not they choose to buy it.
The BBC, however, is not a newspaper. It is a public broadcaster, paid for by us whether we like it or not.
It is supposed to exist to promote honesty and the truth, not peddle prejudice. Little wonder there is now a Defund the BBC Campaign, condemning its output as ‘woke propaganda’.
Neil is by far the BBC’s most respected and feared forensic interviewer. But his failure to denounce Brexit and his role at the Spectator magazine make him ‘not one of us’
Following the Corporation’s announcement yesterday that it plans to cut 520 jobs from its news operations, I doubt that its Left-liberal stars have much to worry about.
On the other hand, it was hardly surprising that another Twitter-friendly newsman, Andrew Neil (salary unknown), has had his weekly politics show cancelled.
Neil is by far the BBC’s most respected and feared forensic interviewer. But his failure to denounce Brexit and his role at the Spectator magazine make him ‘not one of us’.
The BBC’s toxic pandering to the Twitterati is a symptom of a far greater problem at Broadcasting House — that it is no longer the voice of the British people, but of the metropolitan Remainer middle-classes.
Hostile
Its prejudices infect all of its output, from the news to Countryfile, which recently announced that Britain’s green and pleasant countryside is in fact a hostile ‘white environment’.
BBC ‘comedy’ panel shows have become more like one-note propaganda broadcasts, and ‘woke’ stars are indulged and promoted regardless of what they say elsewhere.
And let us not forget that last week, the BBC had the gall to announce plans to charge the over-75s it seems to scorn, £157.50 a year for their TV licence (file photo)
Only last week, actress Maxine Peake starred in its reprisal of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, a fortnight after spewing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, while Miriam Margolyes is due to return with her travel series, shortly after announcing on Channel 4’s The Last Leg that she wanted the Prime Minister to die of coronavirus.
And let us not forget that last week, the BBC had the gall to announce plans to charge the over-75s it seems to scorn, £157.50 a year for their TV licence.
In 1949, in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell painted a terrifying portrait of a state machine dedicated to parroting the party line that was based on the author’s own wartime experience of working at the BBC.
Over 70 years later, it appears the Corporation has morphed into its own ‘woke’ version of Big Brother’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ — where the meaning of impartiality is all but lost.
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