‘Biased’ BBC Blasted As ‘Mouthpiece of the Elite’
Leading Guardian columnist George Monbiot accused BBC journalists of ‘doing the dirty work’ of Britain’s ‘financial and political elite’ this week, by ignoring alternative voices in favour of relentlessly promoting the austerity agenda of Britain’s mainstream political parties. (http://bit.ly/1yGZzif )
Pointing out the BBC’s massive influence in shaping Britain’s political consensus, he quoted from an academic study of the corporation’s coverage of the banking crisis of 2008, which uncovered the scale of the bias by examining the guests invited onto leading political show the Today Program in the first 2 weeks after the crash.
“Opinion was almost completely dominated by stockbrokers, investment bankers, hedge fund managers and other City voices,” the Cardiff School of Journalism study reported.
“Civil society voices or commentators who questioned the benefits of having such a large finance sector were almost completely absent from coverage.” (http://bit.ly/1wxZW7T )
Evidence of the BBC’s long standing subjugation of alternative voices was further highlighted by DangerousMinds.net this week who published a feature examining the marginalization of George Orwell before his death, which included then controller JB Clark secretly excluding him as a broadcaster on the basis that he didn’t like his voice.
“I realise, of course, that his name is of some value in quite important Indian circles but his voice struck me as both un-attractive and really unsuited to the microphone,” the Overseas Services Controller wrote in a secret 1950 memo, published for the first time this week. (DangerousMinds; http://bit.ly/1L4XobC )
Jonty Skrufff: https://twitter.com/djjontyskrufff
