I was flabbergasted this morning (3rd January 2025) to hear a segment on BBC Radio 4 Today, where there was a discussion prompted by widespread calls by X users, and Elon Musk himself, calling for National Inquiry into rape gangs in Oldham. We are used to the Daily Mail often seeming to set the agenda for news commentary, but X, the platform that all right-minded people are fleeing from?
This prompted me to write this piece about a concern I have had about BBC news coverage for some time.
If you watch or listen to BBC news coverage and political commentary, on TV or Radio, and compare it with, say, Channel 4 News, you will for the most part detect a distinct difference in tone and content.
On Channel 4 News, if there is a news flare up about some talking point that is being pushed by the right wing media, Elon Musk’s X, or wherever, there will be a strong push back, but not so much on the BBC.
We have seen this with the riots in the summer and now with calls for a Public Inquiry into sex gangs in Oldham. In this case it is not about the merits or de-merits of a national inquiry but the way this story has been handled, even though it is clear that malign actors are using the terrible experiences of young girls in Oldham to pursue a far-right agenda. Instead of the picking up the framing “Why is there not a National Inquiry?” (with the dog-whistle of implied cover-up), the BBC journalists could reframe it as “We’ve had multiple reports on grooming gangs, let’s explore what success there has been, if any, in implementing the many recommendations?”. But no, the BBC News coverage seems to cut-and-paste the headlines screaming from the right wing papers whose primary interest seems to be undermining the Government.
How is that “balance”?
Impartiality is not simply taking opinion at face value, but should involve challenging the underlying assumptions and framing that is being promoted. Sharp interrogation of the assumptions and framing are the norm on Channel 4. On the BBC too often it comes across as an acceptance of the framing, followed by a bland commentary and exchange of opinions. This can have the appearance of a robust discussion but is anything but if it fails to challenge underlying assumptions and motivations. It comes across as ‘he said, she said’.
The BBC will counter by saying they are different because they have a mandate to ensure impartiality of its coverage, but how do they interpret this duty?
We saw how on climate change reporting over a decade ago, that ‘false balance’ was practised, as Professor Steve Jones pointed out in his July 2011 report on science reporting at the BBC. He noted:
“in their desire to give an objective account of what appears to be an emerging controversy…face the danger of being trapped into false balance; into giving equal coverage to the views of a determined but deluded minority.’ This problem of false balance was particularly pronounced when it came to climate change because ‘denialists’ use rhetoric ‘to give the appearance of debate”
and as a result pursued an “over-rigid” insistence on due impartiality and risked giving ”undue attention to marginal opinion” on scientific questions. A commitment to accuracy cannot be overridden by the claim of impartiality.
Three years later, the Science and Technology Select Committee conducted a year long inquiry on the BBC’s coverage of climate science and found that:
“BBC News teams continue to make mistakes in their coverage of climate science by giving opinions and scientific fact the same weight”.
We saw how the coverage of Brexit was too often a parade of opinions, avoiding any real substantive argument or evidence base. Claims that there would be no harm to our economy were handled very much in this fashion. Only well after the referendum, when the Conservative Government was embroiled in increasingly convoluted attempts to avoid the inevitable, did a real interrogation occur of the flawed claims (such as the oft-repeated claim that WTO rules could be used to side step EU rules).
The BBC produced some great coverage on this question such as the article Brexit trade deal: What do WTO rules or an Australia-style relationship mean?. But that was in 2020, four years after the Referendum. Where was this in-depth coverage before the vote?
There were no shortage of experts challenging the Pro-Brexit claims about trade, such as Bristol University Law School, but these never got a proper airing on the BBC, which was once again desperate (do you spot the pattern) to appear balanced but achieving exactly the opposite. It became a competition of different slogans, and the devil, as we all know, always has better tunes; and better slogans (‘Take Back Control’ won the day).
After their success in getting the UK to leave the EU – our nearest and largest trading block – and all the harm that has ensued (as warned of by experts), the same right-wing actors have now gained confidence. They’ve completely stopped the pretence: they are now nakedly espousing a far right agenda. They want to use populist attacks on the Government to undermine our democracy. Now, Trump and Musk – who no one in the UK have voted for – are putting their considerable weight behind Farage’s Reform Party.
Of course, any comparison with 1920s Germany is regarded as alarmist and scaremongering.
“But that could never happen in the UK?”. Do we really believe that we are more cultured and sophisticated, and less susceptible to demagogues, than the Germany that sleepwalked into authoritarian rule?
In their rise to power, the Naziz made the same use of disinformation, attacks on institutions and ‘othering’ of minorities (the Jews). Remember that the Nazis used the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903) in their campaign of antisemitism, even while they knew it was not true. The meme has never really left us, even after the horrors of the Holocaust.
This toxic conspiracy theory has transformed into a modern form: a conspiracy of a world order that controls everything and is led by Jews. It is a core belief amongst the far right conspiracy theorists who Trump has empowered, and who lurk in the wings, aiming to undermine every Western democracy, including ours.
It is no surprise then that Nigel Farage was called out in the Guardian (2019) for criticising George Soros, an emblematic placeholder in this imagined world Government:
Farage said Soros sought “to undermine democracy and to fundamentally change the makeup, demographically, of the whole European continent”. The latter claim directly echoes conspiracy theories against Soros made by far-right groups such as Generation Identity.
His tactic of using conspiracy claims was evident again in comments he made following the murder of 3 girls in Stockport in the summer of 2024 (as reported in The Independent, 19th August 2024), and half of voters held him directly responsible for the riots, when
.. he accused the police of withholding the truth from the public and repeated misinformation which claimed the suspect was under surveillance by security services.
And as reported in The Guardian (13th August 2024), Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat is reported as saying that Farage had been
“amplifying false information” by spreading a theory first suggested by influencers like Andrew Tate, and then failed wholly to condemn the riots. “I want to be clear: this is not leadership. It is deeply irresponsible and dangerous,” he said.
It is no wonder there was much despair at Mishal Husain leaving the BBC, because she seemed to be an outlier – a journalist on BBC Radio 4 Today who departed from the formulaic banality of faux balance, and instead engaged in substantive argument. See how she conducted interviews with Nigel Farage on his claim that no one speaks English in Oldham or on the Reform Party’s policy to freeze non-essential migration. If she can do it, why can’t the others? Victoria Derbyshire on BBC Newsnight is another in an all too small group.
Yet overall the BBC is failing in its duty as our national broadcaster, by enabling marginal opinion and not holding malign actors to account. It’s approach to news reporting requires a fundamental review. They could start by endeavouring to emulate Mishal Husain’s methods, by simply not putting up with those that engage in dogwhistle politics. Call it out!
(c) Richard W. Erskine, 2025.
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