Cal Thomas: Bias in plain sight

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Last week, the BBC apologized to President Donald Trump for a program it aired last year that spliced parts of his January 6, 2021 speech together. In an internal memo the broadcaster admitted the edit made it look and sound like the president was urging his followers to violently attack the Capitol.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Besides the apology, the BBC committed it would not show the program again but it is refusing to pay any damages to the President. Lawyers for Donald Trump have threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion dollars. WORLD commentator Cal Thomas says the event is just another example of how far the BBC has fallen.

CAL THOMAS: Two friends email from London about the editing scandal that led to the resignation of two top officials from the British Broadcasting Corporation. One emailer says the first “B” in BBC should stand for bias—reminding me of what some conservatives called CNN during the 1990s…the Clinton News Network. The second writer says the edit was only—in his words—“a mistake.”

It wasn't a mistake. It was deliberate and it was made with the intention of having viewers accept their desired negative opinion of Donald Trump. In another country and in another era, this would be called propaganda. If this sounds like the editing of the CBS 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris to make her sound articulate, it should. Both flowed from the same liberal worldview.

Kudos to the London Daily Telegraph for practicing real journalism and exposing the edit of the Trump speech.

During World War II the BBC was a trusted source of information. It sent coded information to the French resistance and took other actions in support of the war effort. This was accurately depicted in the film The Longest Day. In recent years, the BBC has seen its level of trust decline.

A survey conducted by David Pickering of The Conversation news organization notes that "Trust in the BBC is heavily conditioned by political identity." The survey of more than 11,000 people in the UK shows “striking differences between how people with left-wing and right-wing party affiliations” view the broadcaster.

The editing incident isn't the first time the credibility of the BBC has been called into question. Several internal studies have found the organization to have reported unfairly on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Those studies changed nothing as the pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel bias has continued. It is the same when it comes to their reporting on so-called "climate change."

A Wall Street Journal editorial reports that the BBC has had an LGBTQ desk within its London headquarters to make sure stories are favorable about transgender issues. The Journal notes that stories that do not reflect the BBC's "liberal orthodoxy" are routinely suppressed.

On top of that, UK streamers and owners of television sets pay for the privilege. Residents are required to pay an annual TV license fee of nearly 175 pounds—or about $230 dollars per year for a color license…and about a third of that for a black-and-white license. It is a compulsory payment used primarily to fund the BBC's television, radio and online services.

Even with that funding, viewers must still watch endless commercials…though many are more entertaining and creative than the programs themselves.

Efforts by some conservative members of Parliament to eliminate the TV license fee have failed. As in America, politicians are reluctant to give up money.

Tim Davie, the now-resigned director general of the BBC is fighting back against what he calls the “weaponization” of criticism. He said in a statement that the BBC needs to stand up for its journalism…arguing: “This narrative will not just be given by our enemies. It's our narrative. We own things.”

Right there you have the reason so much of the media in the UK and the U.S. are held in low regard. He’s not taking responsibility…he’s hunkering down. The BBC thinks it “owns things,” instead of exercising a responsibility to serve the people fairly and accurately. As with other exposures of bias, I suspect little will change within the BBC. It should follow the example of the new president of CBS News… and begin hiring reporters with a conservative worldview who can report conservative ideas fairly and accurately.

I’m Cal Thomas.

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