In fact, two have resigned, both the director general and the boss of news - and the fact that this bias scandal at the BBC has claimed two of the most senior executives there tells you how serious it is.
And it's not just serious for the BBC, it's serious for basically all the mainstream media outlets in the English-speaking world.
Because even though the rest of us didn't splice together two pieces of what Donald Trump said to make it sound like he was encouraging his followers to take a fight to the capital, and even though the rest of us didn't hire the son of a Hamas official to voice a documentary about Gaza, many of us take the BBC's content, don't we? Often unchecked.
There are some media organizations out there that are so beyond reproach that other media outlets - like ourselves - will take their content and not re-verify it, because it's the BBC and we shouldn't have to re-verify it.
And if they're infected by bias, we all become infected by bias, don't we?
Whether it's their obvious bias on Gaza, their bias on trans issues, their bias on Trump - which they have been well and truly busted for - their bias becomes everybody else's bias, because we're taking their content.
This is the kind of stuff that has crashed and still continues to crash public trust in the media, because if you thought that the media was unfair on Trump, now you've been proven right.
And if you thought that the media was soft on Hamas, now you've been proven right. If you thought that there was all this stuff going on where the media had fixed views on trans issues, now you've been proven right.
All you need to do is look at that whistle-blower's dossier that was leaked last week. For the most part, that will explain all of it to you.
And by the way, as a member of the media, my faith in the BBC has been really eroded by what's just happened - not just because they sliced together two pieces of Trump's speech to make him say something he didn't say, but because they knew it and sat on it for so long.
This happened a year ago. It took a whistle-blower's frustration to eventually write a dossier and then to leak it explicitly - because the BBC weren't doing anything about it - for the BBC to actually do something about it, like the resignations that we've seen in the last 24 hours.
It's not good enough what's happened at the BBC, and jeez, if this is how media outlets are still behaving in 2025, despite all the evidence that they are losing public trust - it's gonna take a really long time for us all to get it back.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
23 comments:
The BBC has been pumping out fake news and propaganda since its inception. They had zero credibility already for anyone actually paying attention to reality.
Lol, trust?
What trust?
Isn't it a beautiful thing when something that has been so obvious to the general public for so long, suddenly dawns on a member of the MSM in public? Dawww, it's so cute - it's almost like they understand!
"The BBC scandal impacts trust across all media" - ermmm, sorry to have to break it to you, but there's no trust left to impact - it has been steadily eroded every time brazen lies have been told by supposed truth tellers, and when caught out, they just lie more. The general public is stupid, but we're not *that* stupid.
Just shining a light on what we all knew was going on and have been talking about for a decade.
My eyebrows didn’t raise a millimetre at the revelation.
So true Heather. I just don't know what to trust any more and I have, over the last few months, cancelled all the news media subscriptions I have held for many years simply because I have being seeing too much nonsense. I think the news media are in deep trouble and need to work out how to get out of this mess.
BV is about the only credible news outlet.
What happened with the Canadian kiwi who was going to sort the NZME board ?
A British Opinion Piece put it well, "What is the Point of the BBC if it can't by Impartial?". The same line can be used in NZ, "What's the point of TVNZ if it can't be impartial?". Publicly funded news is only useful should it be impartial. Should it be biased then it has no advantage over any other source.
TVNZ cheated me a few days before the last election by heavily editing an interview that I did on OneNews. I evenly handedly critiqued National & Labour. TVNZ willfully removed every single critique of Labour I did and only included the Nat ones. Its a dishonest organization far worse than the BBC - what the BBC has done is nothing compared to TVNZ. It should either become impartial or be defunded.
I see adverts for Ground News which brings in reports from many different sources but has a Left/Right bias rating on each article.
Their consistent response to this crisis has been to blame everyone else. Trump, alt-media, Trump, the public - did I mention Trump? Anyway, anyone but themselves. They bring nothing to the table any more. Do you think a resurrected MSM will change its ways, learn its lessons, be contrite? Not a chance. Let them go the way of the moa.
Name: HDPA
Specialist subject: The bleedin' obvious.
This news is as sad as seeing a once dependable old mate going to rack and ruin through booze or whatever.
I became a devotee of the BBC in the late 1960s while living in the New Hebrides and my shortwave radio was my umbilical cord to the world. This continued off and on over the decades as I lived in PNG, Botswana and Lebanon. It was the BBC World Service that kept us up to date during the 2006 Israel/Hezbollah War.
I continue to have trust in the old crew like Lyce Doucet, Frank Gardner and Lucy Williams to name just three. Must be more recent DEI political appointees screwing things up!
These resignations are not reckonings, but offerings. The real issue festers: the BBC’s institutional deference to political power.The BBC is punished for the wrong things. It loses its leaders over an editing error, while escaping accountability for its editorial failures on Gaza.The ultimate prize would be the dismantling of the corporation itself - the greatest victory yet for the domestic enemies of public service journalism on Britain’s right, and its increasingly emboldened far right.
My once loyal faith in the BBC as an impartial new broadcaster was shaken when I read how they were actively promoting the false "human caused global warming" scam at full throttle.
Seems to me that, however the BBC rearranged Trumps words, his objective was quite clear and was acted upon by the mob as he intended. Trump watched the insurrection live on TV and didn't lift a fingur to stop it. He has blood on his hands. The BBC simply drove the point home by doing what news media always do - reducing the story to its most attention-grabbing component. Just like Trump does every time he opens his mouth. But Trump is a lot better at it than the BBC and in this case the BBC got it right.
The BBC started its spiral of decline when it made an 'editorial mistake' in the Panorama interview Bashir made with Princess Diana.
No-one with half a brain has believed anything the legacy news media has said from Covid-scam onwards. No-one with a complete brain has believed them for the last 40 years.
I wonder how long it will take before the local Trump haters in the media and those on this blog own up to their own bias and lies about the current US President.
Their silence is defening but not unexpected given their previous willingness to accept every morsel of reporting as gospel evidence that Trump is the Anti Christ and all the world’s problems are due to his mishandling of his own responsibilities.
Of course, even though we have known for some time that the Russia connection was the product of corrupt activities from senior members of the Obama administration and now this damnable admission exposing similar corrupt attempts to put Trump in jail during the Biden era, still no word from the.TDS sufferers in this country.
It beggars belief the extent to which they will go to prove they are right and we have been wrong.
My guess is that we will be waiting a long time ( possibly until Hell freezes over) before these pathetic “Know alls” have the balls to admit their guilt and crawl back under their rocks
Why the surprise Heather. The corrupt MSM has been spreading propaganda for years. They quote, “reliably reported statements from Hamas,” for crying out loud, and the docile fall for it. Trump challenges Legacy Media’s left wing bias and therefore is dealt to accordingly. Opinion rules over fact.
The dishonesty of the MSM can vary . My personal experience involved the taking of photographs they intended to put into print that were not at all flattering to the person and falsifying statistics then claiming they were misprints instead. Be very wary of them they have power to warp and twist anything you say or do if they don't agree with their leftist views.
So, the, at least hitherto, respected BBC has been caught out tweaking its report of Trump’s response to the insurrection of Congress, an event that is undoubtedly the most shameful internal attack on U S democracy since the civil war. People died, and many more were injured. The mob looted, defiled and damaged the sacred House of Representatives, and called to hang senior politicians. Trump encouraged it all the way - he was impeached for it. Those involved were subject to justice, but within hours of Trump being reelected, he pardoned them wholesale. Now he’s still pardoning those that were involved. But halleluiah! Forget all that; the BBC told a porky. We know this because the mainstream media has revealed it, and two principals at the BBC have lost their jobs. So, that’s one example of one MSM outlet that’s flawed, proof that the ‘MSM is corrupt’ and those who don’t support Trump are ‘Trump haters’.
That was just one example of Trump’s attack on democracy, albeit the worst. It started through the Obama presidency when Trump insisted that Obama, who was fairly elected, was constitutionally unqualified to be president because he was born in Kenya. This was a bare-faced lie designed to undermine Obama’s constitutional authority, and to some extent it did. (Obama did something no president has ever done – he publicized his birth certificate. Trump dismissed it as a fake.) Trump’s being lying ever since, and attacking democratic institution and norms as well. Three more years of it! Let’s see the state of that great country then.
So I take it you consider fact should rule over opinion Mr Bibby. I totally agree, so long as we are talking about verifiable facts, not the infamous category of "alternative facts" invented during Trump's first term. So here's a fact relevant to the topic under discussion you may have missed. On December 19, 2022, long before the Panorama documentary aired, the bipartisan United States House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol (commonly referred to as the January 6th Committee), voted unanimously to refer Trump to the U.S. Department of Justice for prosecution for his attempts to incite, assist, or give aid or comfort to an insurrection. That vote was was based on overwhelming evidence received by the committee that Trump summoned the mob and told them to march on the Capitol, knowing some were armed, as part of a conspiracy to overturn the election. You should read their report some time. So, as I commented above, it seems to me that while the BBC may have been injudicious with their editing, the truncated speech was not about to mislead anybody because the facts were already well-established. All the faux "mea culpa" wailing now emerging from the BBC bosses is just performative art, designed to support the British Government's diplomatic maneuvering to extract the best trade deal possible from Trump. It won't help of course, but now watch him try to line his own pockets as a consequence. The BBC reports that he has already made an opening bid for damages of $1 billion. Fake news? Only time will tell.
The world is now in a major bind on too many fronts because of Trump and his megalomaniac behaviour. And here we are nit-picking and fussing over some very skilful TV editing. Editing which to my mind revealed the true essence of Trump. Isn’t that what media is supposed to be all about – revealing the truth.
Trump’s Jan 6 ranting speech encouraged the protest and initially he was wanting to accompany the rabble. His minders thought better of it. The speech ran for nearly an hour so there was a lot to choose from.
Should the issue be all about the BBC or Trump? Too many are being drawn into support for Trump’s megalomania. Trump equates to poison-ivy, full stop. Would Trump sue me for saying that?
I will however take Robert MacCulloch’s point about TV1. Their editing and presentation styles are much more ham-fisted than skilful, but at the same time designed to fit in with advertising schedules.
To "The Jones Boy" of 11.11.20025 @4.40Pm.
January 6th Washington, D.C. -
- it has been proven that Trump "did not summon the multitudes to Washington, they came on their own accord.
- his 'speech' was not "one of insurrection", he sensed the mood and sought "calm", captured by TV crews at the time (but like you was a verbal anti Trump action pushed by the Democrats),
- it has been proven, that amid the "multitudes" there were 'agents of provocation' and used the "mood of the multitude" to perpetuate the 'actions they took'.
The Committee that met, had only one Republican and she 'carried the same hatred for Trump' as her recent late father did (who just also happened to be a multi millionaire - for which his Vice Presidency, under Bush The Younger, was looked at in "side ways manner", based on the activities he got involved). Biden was the second one.
Please also note, that once Trump was re-elected, that all paperwork created during that 'inquiry' has since " been lost/ is now unaccounted for" and the Committee members have "taken a vow of silence" knowing full well that Criminal Charges could follow - the same thing that is happening to James Comey, former head of FBI, till Trump fired him.
Oh, people of the USA (armed at the Capital Building), you are obviously not aware -
- that once a gun permit is issued - for hand held firearms
- the holder can carry a hand held gun as either
a/- open carry/ in a hip holster and clearly visible to all
b/- or closed carry, secreted in a holster under clothing - so if 'reports' made this statement, then is would have been a legal action by those (supposed) armed thugs.
If you remove your firearm - you have to have justified reason and shooting Members of Congress is not one, the Capital Police will just fire back.
Oh another thing, should you visit America and become involved in an armed altercation, in a public space, my advice is 'suddenly' take a close up interest in the ground under your feet (lay down) as any "armed citizen" as stated above is like to start 'shooting back', as they will use their "rights" to bring the situation to an end.
When I read your comment I was reminded of Jacinda Ardern's speech to the UN - subject misinformation/disinformation and it was "one time that I agreed with her".
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