Date published: 2007/05/26
The BBC says:
The BBC Trust has published today (25 May 2007) the Independent Panel report into the impartiality of BBC coverage of business.
The panel, chaired by Sir Alan Budd, does not believe the BBC has a systematic bias against business. Its overall conclusion is that "most of the BBC's business output meets the required standards of impartiality". But the panel also says it "has seen a number of individual lapses and identified some trends which lead to repeated breaches of the BBC”s standards".
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On behalf of the BBC Trust, Chairman Sir Michael Lyons has issued the following statement:
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"Overall the Trust welcomes the report and in particular the panel's insightful analysis. The report includes reassuring evidence of good quality journalism and we are pleased that the panel found no evidence of systematic bias by the BBC against business. That said, the report also includes some clear examples of under-performance and offers some new and interesting insights, in particular the contrasts between what the panel describes as sycophantic and aggressive interviews of industry “doyens”. The Trust shares the panel's concern about the BBC's predominant focus on the consumer perspective in business reporting if it results in the audience not receiving the full story. Audiences are also investors, savers, business owners and employees with a personal and civic interest in understanding the impact of business from a range of perspectives. The Trust is clear that impartiality means providing a complete picture and full breadth of opinion and the BBC has a responsibility to deliver this."
Interestingly this story was not covered on the BBC news website, but instead buried in some press release on some obscure part of the overall BBC website. The BBC is just like any other organisation, it doesn't take criticism kindly. The BBC is run by the academic middle class, and like the academic middle class all over the world (especially in Europe), they have an innate anti-commercial bias in their world view. And the report's focus on just business coverage is missing half the picture. Not only is the BBC biased against business, it also runs uncritical stories of all the usual business-hating organisations that the academic middle class love (e.g. Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF, RSPB, the Soil Association, etc.), often pretty much just regurgitating what read like press releases from these organisations (all of which are just as unaccountable to the general public as businesses).
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