BBC
 BBC  (Corporate media)      | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Motto | Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation |
| Formation | 18 October 1922 |
| Founder |  John Reith |
| Headquarters | Broadcasting House, London, United Kingdom |
| Leaders | • Director-General of the BBC • BBC/Governor • BBC/Chair |
| Type |  propaganda |
| Staff | 20,736 |
| Interest of | BBC/100 Women/2020, BBC/100 Women/2021, BBC/100 Women/2022, BBC/People, Alex Belfield, Biased BBC, Asa Briggs, Yalda Hakim, Fergus Walsh |
| Member of | European Broadcasting Union |
| Sponsored by | BBC/Verify, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |
| Subpage | •BBC/Censorship •BBC/Chair •BBC/Deep state control •BBC/Director-General •BBC/Governor •BBC/People •BBC/Political Editor •BBC/Propaganda •BBC/Radio 4 •BBC/Scotland Editor •BBC/Terrorism reporting •BBC/Verify |
| A state propaganda apparatus disguised as a quasi-autonomous public service corporation. | |
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the largest broadcasting organisation in the world.[1] In its own words it is an 'autonomous public service broadcaster' [1] operating under a Royal Charter [2]. The BBC's main responsibility under its charter is to provide 'public service broadcasting' within the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and Isle of Man. Outside the United Kingdom the BBC broadcasts commercially funded channels such as BBC America, BBC Canada, and BBC World News. It also has a substantial presence on the Internet.[3]
| A video by James Corbett |
Contents
Origins
The BBC was the first national state broadcasting organisation. [4] Founded on as the 'British Broadcasting Company Ltd', it was subsequently granted a Royal Charter [2] and was made a publicly funded corporation in 1927. The stated mission of the BBC is "to inform, educate and entertain" - as laid down by Parliament in the BBC Charter; [5].
The BBC is run by the BBC Trust (strapline: "Getting the best out of the BBC for licence fee payers")[6]. Per its charter, its should be "free from both political and commercial influence and answer[able] only to its viewers and listeners".[7]
The 1926 General Strike
- Full article: 1926 United Kingdom general strike
- Full article: 1926 United Kingdom general strike
The UK General Strike of 1926 provided an indication of how the BBC was to be run. John Reith, then general manager of the BBC (later director general), confided to his diary: "The Cabinet decision is really a negative one. They want to be able to say that they did not commandeer us, but they know they can trust us not to be really impartial." [8] Reith explained it like this "since the BBC was a national institution, and since the government in this crisis was acting for the people... the BBC was for the government in the crisis too."[9]
John Pilger contrasts the actual implementation of a policy on impartiality with the literal meaning. He states:[10]
The BBC began in 1922, just before the corporate press began in America. Its founder was Lord John Reith, who believed that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism. In the same year the British establishment was under siege. The unions had called a general strike and the Tories were terrified that a revolution was on the way. The new BBC came to their rescue. In high secrecy, Lord Reith wrote anti-union speeches for the Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and broadcast them to the nation, while refusing to allow the labor leaders to put their side until the strike was over. So, a pattern was set. Impartiality was a principle certainly: a principle to be suspended whenever the establishment was under threat. And that principle has been upheld ever since.
Deep state control
- Full article: BBC/Deep state control
- Full article: BBC/Deep state control
Bilderberg trustee and steering committee member, Marcus Agius is a Senior Independent Director of the BBC and was the first non-executive director appointed to the BBC's new Executive Board,.[11] The clearest evidence is that the BBC remains de facto subservient to the deep state is in its handling of deep events.
Vetting by the Intelligence Services
Perhaps the clearest evidence that the covert control exercised over the BBC throughout the post WW2 period to about the mid 1980's is provided by the systematic MI5 vetting of senior (and not-so-senior) BBC appointments and projects.[12] Daphne Park, a senior MI6 officer, was a governer of the BBC from 1982 to 1986.
Andrew Gilligan affair
A latter-day example of BBC subservience was provided by the treatment accorded Andrew Gilligan, one of its reporters, over his broadcast claims about the 'sexing up' of the 'Iraq Dossier' used to justify the UK's participation in the invasion of Iraq and which led to the death of UN Weapons Inspector Dr David Kelly. In spite of Gilligan's claims being largely vindicated by subsequent revelations, he was forced to resign from the BBC, as was its Chairman Gavyn Davies and its Director General Greg Dyke.
BBC rejects humanitarian appeal
In the 2008/2009 attack on Gaza by Israel known as Operation Cast Lead at least 1,417 people[13] (mostly women and children) were killed and more than 3,000 homes and hundreds of other properties, including factories, workshops, animal farms and orchards, as well as government buildings, police stations and prisons, were destroyed and more than 20,000 were damaged.[14][15]
"The level of human suffering and destruction I saw today is, from any angle, heartbreaking. It is shocking that civilians suffered so disproportionately in this military operation".
UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes, 22 January 2009
The Disasters Emergency Committee launched a public appeal to support its humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza, which the BBC refused to broadcast on grounds of "Upholding the BBC's hard won reputation for impartiality"[16][17] [18] The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, accused the broadcaster of taking sides, "This is not a row about impartiality but rather about humanity". Communities secretary Hazel Blears said: "I sincerely hope the BBC will urgently review its decision."[19] It did not.
Output
- Full article: BBC/Propaganda
- Full article: BBC/Propaganda
Not all BBC material should be thought of as propaganda - the majority of it is the work of well intentioned people. Nevertheless, it would be naive to assume that it is all produced in good faith. Considering its motto "Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation", the exploitation of the BBC for war propaganda is as hypocritical as it is odious. Robert Stuart deserves commendation for his efforts to expose the case of Dr Rola in this regard.
Exceptional material
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The BBC does has broadcast highly creditable material on occasions, and has even broadcast material which has assisted in revealing the deep state. Most notable in this regard is Allan Francovich's 1992 expose of Operation Gladio, which was broadcast once on BBC 2. Film maker Adam Curtis stopped short of exposing 9/11 as a false flag attack, but his series The Power of Nightmares did argue powerfully on BBC that Al Qaeda was a creation of the US government and that fear of "terrorism" was being used cynically for political purposes.
Censorship
- Full article: BBC/Censorship
- Full article: BBC/Censorship
The BBC is censored on topics of particular importance to the deep state. On occasions the BBC has commissioned and paid for exposes but then failed to broadcast them after intervention from senior establishment figures.[20] For example, like the rest of the commercially-controlled media, they followed the 9-11 attacks by countless repeats of the collapse of World Trade Centers 1 & 2 (often with an inset image of Osama Bin Laden), but for years had nothing to say about 9-11/WTC7. They also removed reference to Bin Laden's murder from an interview with Benazir Bhutto.[21]
Funding
Within the UK, it is funded principally by an annual television licence fee, which is charged to all United Kingdom households, companies and organisations using any type of equipment to record and/or receive live television broadcasts. The level of the fee is set annually by the UK Government and agreed by Parliament. In 2012, Tony Rooke refused to pay his BBC license, citing Section 15 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, which states that "it is an offence for someone to invite another to provide money, intending that it should be used, or having reasonable cause to suspect that it may be used, for terrorism purposes".[22]
Summary
The BBC has not been immune from the general decline in reportorial standards and a move away from investigative journalism.[23] Whilst inquirers will undoubtedly be informed that these were all unfortunate aberrations from which lessons have been learned, there is every reason to suppose that, just like the Ronnie Corbett character in the John Cleese/Ronnie Barker/Ronnie Corbett video sketch, when it comes to deep political issues of the UK Establishment, the BBC continues to "know its place".[24]
An event carried out
| Event | Location | Description |
|---|---|---|
| BBC coverage of the Calais Jungle | France | Coverage of the European migrant crisis from the BBC. |
A Document by BBC
| Title | Document type | Subject(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Document:BBC report on the 2001 Mexican legislative assembly attack | report | 2001 Mexican legislative assembly attack |
Quotes by BBC
| Page | Quote | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-2024 Israel-Hamas War | “There had already been a significant increase in violence by Israeli settlers this year, even before the Hamas attack, according to UN data, with more than 100 incidents reported each month and about 400 people driven from their land between January and August.
Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem told the BBC that since the attack, it had documented "a concerted and organised effort by settlers to use the fact that the entire international and local attention is focused on Gaza and the north of Israel to try to seize land in the West Bank". Partial data compiled by B'Tselem, covering the first six days after the Hamas attack, recorded at least 46 separate incidents in which it said settlers threatened, physically attacked or damaged the property of Palestinians in the West Bank. "A lot of shepherding families and communities have fled because they were threatened in the past week by settlers," said Roy Yellin, a spokesman for B'Tselem. "Settlers have been giving residents a deadline to leave and telling them if they don't they will be harmed. And some villages have been totally emptied out."” | 2023 | BBC |
| China | “The US believes a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down over its territory is part of a wider fleet that has spanned five continents.
"The United States was not the only target of this broader programme," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. He added that the US had shared information gathered from the balloon debris with dozens of other countries. China has denied the balloon was being used for spying purposes, and says it was a weather device blown astray. US officials have described the balloon as being about 200 ft (60m) tall, with the payload portion comparable in size to regional airliners and weighing hundreds - or potentially thousands - of pounds. Its presence in US airspace set off a diplomatic crisis and prompted Secretary Blinken to immediately call off a trip to China - the first such high level US-China meeting there in years. It was later shot down by a US fighter jet off the eastern coast. Citing unnamed officials, the Washington Post reported that the US believes the suspected surveillance balloon project was being operated from China's coastal Hainan province and targeted countries including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines.” | 2023 | |
| European Parliament | “A fourth Euro MP caught up in a "cash-for-laws" scandal has denied wrongdoing as the European Parliament investigates corruption allegations. Spanish MEP Pablo Zalba said he had been "deceived" by the Sunday Times undercover reporters and had not accepted their offer of cash.
But he said he did amend draft legislation at the request of the reporters posing as lobbyists. Two other MEPs have resigned in the affair and a third has left his party. Mr Zalba, of Spain's centre-right Popular Party (PP), said he was the victim of a "trap", in which the pretend lobbyists had requested two amendments to draft legislation on consumer protection. He said he rejected the first amendment but agreed to put forward the second because he thought it would help protect small investors, Spain's El Pais news website reported. According to the UK's Sunday Times newspaper, the undercover team made it clear to Mr Zalba that he would be paid for his services” | 2010 |
Related Quotations
| Page | Quote | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australian Broadcasting Corporation | “The Australian Broadcasting Corporation shamed the BBC by putting out a Four Corners documentary on the Panama leak that had real balls. In stark contrast to the BBC, the Australians named and shamed Australia’s biggest company and Australia’s biggest foreign investor. BBC Panorama by contrast found a guy who sold one house in Islington. The Australians also, unlike the BBC who deliberately and knowing hid it, pointed out that the corruption centred on the British Virgin Islands, and even went there. All in all an excellent job.” | April 2016 | |
| John Laughland | “People experience a strong psychological reluctance to accept that political events today are deliberately manipulated. This reluctance is itself a product of the ideology of the information age, which flatters people’s vanity and encourages them to believe that they have access to huge amounts of information. In fact, the apparent multifarious nature of modern media information hides an extreme paucity of original sources, rather as a street of restaurants on a Greek waterfront can hide the reality of a single kitchen at the back. News reports of major events very often come from a single source, usually a wire agency, and even authoritative news outlets like the BBC simply recycle information which they have received from these agencies, presenting it as their own.” | John Laughland | 2010 |
| Craig Murray | “We have a programme, the Integrity Initiative, whose entire purpose is to pump out covert disinformation against Russia, through social media and news stories secretly paid for by the British government. And we have the Skripals’ MI6 handler, the BBC, Porton Down, the FCO, the MOD and the US Embassy, working together in a group under the auspices of the Integrity Initiative. The Skripal Case happened to occur shortly after a massive increase in the Integrity Initiative’s budget and activity, which itself was a small part of a British Government decision to ramp up a major information war against Russia. I find that very interesting indeed.” | Craig Murray | 21 December 2018 |
| Robert Stuart | “Let me pin my colours to the mast and say that I am absolutely convinced that the BBC did deliberately and knowingly fake evidence of chemical attacks.” | Craig Murray Robert Stuart | |
| Mark Urban | “Mark Urban’s piece for Newsnight tonight was simply disgusting; it did not even pretend to be more than a propaganda piece on behalf of the security services, who had told Urban (as he said) that Yulia Skripal's phone “could have been” tapped by the Russians and they “might even” have listened to her conversations through the microphone in her telephone. That was the “new evidence” that the Russians were behind everything. As a former British Ambassador I can tell you with certainty that indeed the Russians might have tapped Yulia, but GCHQ most definitely would have. It is, after all, their job, and billions of our taxes go into it. If tapping of phones is seriously presented as evidence of intent to murder, the British government must be very murderous indeed.” | Craig Murray Mark Urban | 5 July 2018 |
Employees on Wikispooks
Sponsors
| Event | Description |
|---|---|
| BBC/Verify | A BBC "fact checking service" |
| Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | Very influential and rich foundation established to take leadership of global health. |
Related Documents
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:Appleby launches legal action against ICIJ’s UK partners | Article | 18 December 2017 | Gerard Ryle | "This is a potentially dangerous moment for free expression in Britain" – Gerard Ryle |
| Document:BBC Panorama Investigation Into Labour Antisemitism Omitted Key Evidence and Parts of Labour’s Response | Article | 22 July 2020 | Justin Schlosberg | The fact that the Labour Party is now settling libel cases brought by both John Ware and the Labour 'whistleblowers' is remarkable, not least because there is meant to be an ongoing internal inquiry into the leaked internal report, whose findings have now effectively been prejudged. But I’ve been told this will cost the party close to half a million in damages and costs. |
| Document:BBC's biased and inaccurate reporting of anti-semitism allegations towards Jeremy Corbyn | Letter | 7 August 2018 | Pamela Blakelock | "We regret that the BBC has failed to comply with its own codes with regard to impartiality and accuracy. Given the gravity of allegations of anti-semitism, the role performed by the BBC is all the more critical if it is to live up to Reithian principles of informing the public." |
| Document:Excess deaths in 2022 among worst in 50 years | Article | 10 January 2022 | Rachel Schraer Robert Cuffe | Why did so many people die in 2022? This remarkable BBC News article doesn't explain why. |
| Document:HSBC and the sham of Guardian’s Scott Trust | Article | 3 March 2015 | Jonathan Cook | Britain, we are told, is privileged to have two “liberal” media outlets, the BBC and Guardian, that are seen either as neutral or as a leftwing counterbalance to the rightwing agenda of the rest of the media. Here are three illuminating articles and a short video that should help to dispel any such illusions. |
| Document:Has the media ignored good news about Jeremy Corbyn | Blog post | 11 December 2017 | Patrick Worrall | No-platforming Jeremy Corbyn: Tories and Unionists have a visceral hate of Seán MacBride |
| Document:I get abuse and threats online - why can't it be stopped? | Article | 18 October 2021 | Marianna Spring | The Disinformation Specialist at the BBC gets criticism online for her "fact checking". Internet censorship is the answer. |
| Document:Index on Disgrace | Article | 22 April 2018 | Craig Murray | "We thus have the extraordinary spectacle of a coordinated government and media onslaught on anybody who doubts their entirely fact free narratives. Public trust in the state and corporate media hits new lows, which is the happy part of this story." |
| Document:Is The BBC Anti-Labour? | Report | December 2019 | Paddy French | Paddy French's antidote to John Ware's Panorama programme "Is Labour Anti-Semitic?" |
| Document:MI5 and the Christmas Tree Files | book extract | 1988 | Mark Hollingsworth Richard Norton-Taylor | |
| Document:No Ceasefire in the Propaganda War | blog post | 24 November 2023 | Craig Murray | Since October 8 over 200 Palestinian children have been taken prisoner, none of whom had anything to do with the October 7 attacks. That rather puts the possible release of 33 children and six women today into perspective. But it is not a perspective the BBC would ever give you. |
| Document:Objectives, Tasks and Cluster activities and Relationships | Wikispooks Page | Euan Grant | Euan Grant lists an extensive list of willing collaborators. Intelligence people, non-fiction authors and lots and lots of media. | |
| Document:The BBC is weaponising its Lebanon reporting to help disguise Israel's crimes | Article | 27 September 2024 | Jonathan Cook | By the third week of September, Israel had killed more than 750 Lebanese, compared to 33 Israeli deaths. The differential is even starker now. And yet the western media has not framed Hezbollah’s attacks as its "right to defend itself" – a right we are continuously reminded Israel has. |
| Document:The BBC’s vaccine cheerleader Jeremy Vine gets his comeuppance | Article | 15 August 2021 | Kathy Gyngell | The BBC and their COVID-19/Vaccine propaganda is getting pushback. |
| Document:The Demonization of Jeremy Corbyn | Article | 10 December 2019 | Tony McKenna | Notwithstanding, Corbyn was transfigured by a rabid establishment into successive manifestations of the purest evil: he was a terrorist sympathiser; a threat to national security; a communist spy; a misogynist; and, a dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semite. |
| Document:The Paradise Papers and HSBC. Who | Article | 14 November 2017 | Nicholas Wilson | The corruption surrounding Theresa May's seduction of Saudi Aramco to hold its stock market launch (IPO) at the London Stock Exchange next year has involved bribes, lobbying for HSBC and changing the rules by the FCA |
| Document:What is the point of tourists' checks and tests if migrants can just walk into Dover? | article | 5 June 2021 | Peter Hitchens | A blog post outlining the illogical policy of lockdown measures in the pandemic era, followed by sections about political correctness, and the Douma attack whistleblowers and Wikileaks. |
| File:BBC ECU Response about Dr Rola.pdf | letter | 19 May 2014 | Colin Tregear | The reponse from the BBC to the complaints about the veracity of the Dr Rola footage by Robert Stuart. |
| File:BBC on the Israel-Palestine conflict.pdf | paper | 22 February 2013 | Peter Allen | Peter Allen's University of Leicester MA dissertation, analysing the bias of the BBC Newsnight program in its reporting of the Israel/Palesine conflict. Although confined to the Newsnight series, it is a telling commentary on the subliminal official narrative nature of BBC News output and that of the Western Corporate media in general. |
| File:How the BBC betrayed the NHS.pdf | report | 27 September 2012 | Oliver Huitson |
Documents sourced from BBC
External sites
- Beyond the Fringe article - 24 January 2010, on the BBC refusal to Broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza
References
- ↑ a b About the BBC – What is the BBC
- ↑ a b What is a UK 'Royal Charter' ?
- ↑ http://bbc.co.uk
- ↑ BBC History - The BBC takes to the Airwaves
- ↑ BBC website: About the BBC - Purpose and values
- ↑ BBC Trust Web Site
- ↑ BBC Royal Charter and Agreement
- ↑ C. Stuart (ed.) The Reith Diaries (1975)
- ↑ Michael Gurevitch, Culture, Society, and the Media (Routledge, 1982) p.302
- ↑ The Invisible Government, John Pilger, Information Clearing House, Speech delivered at the Chicago Socialism 2007 Conference on Saturday June 16 2007
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/managementstructure/biographies/agius_marcus.html
- ↑ "MI5 and the Christmas Tree Files"
- ↑ Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (19 March 2009). "Confirmed figures reveal the true extent of the destruction inflicted upon the Gaza Strip; Israel’s offensive resulted in 1,417 dead, including 926 civilians, 255 police officers, and 236 fighters.".
- ↑ Amnesty Report on "Operation Cast Lead" more than 3,000 homes and hundreds of other properties, including factories, workshops, animal farms and orchards, as well as government buildings, police stations and prisons, were destroyed and more than 20,000 were damaged. July 2009.
- ↑ [http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf Goldstone Report on "Operation Cast Lead".
- ↑ Disaster Emergency Committee Appeal for Gaza
- ↑ BBC refusal to broadcast DEC appeal - The Guardian 24 Jan 2009
- ↑ Media Lens of the BBC refusal to broadcast the DEC appeal for Gaza
- ↑ BBC crisis over refusal to broadcast Gaza appeal 24 January 2009.
- ↑ http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/716
- ↑ https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbythebbc/bbc-censors-benazir
- ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284337/TV-licence-evader-refused-pay-BBC-covered-facts-9-11.html
- ↑ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-timothy-hunt-witch-hunt/
- ↑ John Cleese & The Two Ronnies video sketch 'I know my place'
