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ArgumentDemocracy in Danger & The Crisis in British Journalism‘The BBC’s Pursuit of Bogus ‘Impartiality’ Finally Crashes and Burns’ After years of appeasing its enemies, former BBC

journalist and producer Patrick Howse believes the BBC’s destruction from within has been spectacularly exposed

Patrick Howse12 March 2023Gary Lineker. Photo: Mark Pain/Alamy Your support matters:

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MailTwitterFacebookThreadsBlueskyBBC’s Pursuit of Bogus ‘Impartiality’ Finally Crashes & BurnsAfter years of appeasing its enemies, former BBC journalist and producer Patrick Howse believes

the BBC’s destruction from within has been spectacularly exposedShareEmailTwitterFacebook Newsletter offer Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive editorial emails from the Byline Times

Team.

Sign up It may seem like the BBC took on Gary Lineker this week, but what it has actually been engaged in is a brawl with itself over a twisted version of what it likes to call

‘impartiality’.

To look at this, we need to start not with the Match of the Day (MOTD) presenter, but with Fiona Bruce, who chairs the corporation’s flagship discussion programme Question Time (QT).

In the QT edition broadcast on 9 March, one of the topics the panel considered was former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s attempt to get his father, Stanley Johnson, a knighthood.

During the course of this, journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown referred to Stanley Johnson as “a wife-beater” and talked about an incident in which he had punched his wife in the face, breaking

her nose and necessitating hospital treatment. Bruce interrupted her with a clearly scripted and rehearsed form of words that concluded “it did happen, it was a one-off”.

Leaving aside the point that we cannot know whether it was a one-off or not (or if that matters), the fact that the BBC felt the need to take an ‘impartial’ stance between a man who broke

his wife’s nose and the woman whose nose was broken, tells you everything you need to know about how warped and ludicrous this notion is.

The BBC’s fundamentally dishonest and logically absurd version of impartiality has been laid bare. If you give equal weight to lies and the truth, you take the side of the lie.

Needs Answers on BBC Chairman’sDonations to Groups Campaigning Against BBCJosiah Mortimer

The BBC has also got to get back to fair, honest reporting of facts and striving for the truth – rather than bending over backwards to air the views of charlatans in search of

‘impartiality’. It has to remember once again that the fair reporting of liars and lies involves calling them liars and lies.

In the long-term, the damage done to the BBC’s reputation by its failure (there’s no other word) to hold the most dishonest and incompetent series of British governments in modern history to

account will be huge.

The BBC has been very badly hit by round after round of spending cuts over many years. The licence fee is inadequate to ensure a thriving and truly independent public broadcaster (by

comparison, the German licence fee is around €220 annually and is topped up with advertising revenue), and a BBC that has lost the trust of what were its most enthusiastic supporters will

find it harder to argue for more secure funding.

And it’s all been done for the benefit of enemies who want it dead. And who now think they have moved a little closer to killing it.

reporter and producerThis article was filed underBBC, Broadcasters, Journalism, Media, UK Politics

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