Yes, BBC was biased: Director General Mark Thompson admits a 'massive' lean to LeftBBC Director General Mark Thompson has admitted the corporation was guilty of a 'massive' Left-wing bias in the past.
The TV chief also admitted there had been a 'struggle' to achieve impartiality and that staff were ' mystified' by the early years of Margaret Thatcher's government.
But he claimed there was now 'much less overt tribalism' among the current crop of young journalists, and said in recent times the corporation was a 'broader church'.
He claimed there was now an 'honourable tradition of journalists from the right' working for the corporation.
His comments, made in the New Statesman magazine, are one of the clearest admissions of political bias from such a senior member of its staff.
The BBC has long been accused of being institutionally biased towards the Left, and an internal report from 2007 said it had to make greater efforts to avoid liberal bias.
That report criticised the BBC for coming late to several important stories including euroscepticism and immigration, which it described as 'off limits in terms of a liberal-minded comfort zone'.
Speaking of the time when he joined the BBC, Mr Thompson told the magazine: 'In the BBC I joined 30 years ago [as a production trainee, in 1979] there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the Left.
'The organisation did struggle then with impartiality. And journalistically, staff were quite mystified by the early years of Thatcher.
'Now it is a completely different generation.
'There is much less overt tribalism among the young journalists who work for the BBC.'
He told the New Statesman: 'The BBC is not a campaigning organisation and can't be, and actually the truth is that sometimes our dispassionate flavour of broadcasting frustrates people who have got very, very strong views, because they want more red meat.'
Mr Thompson also connected his religious faith as a Catholic with working at the corporation.
He said people joined the BBC because it is an organisation moved by a sense of values.
He added: 'I do think the BBC is very much - sometimes frankly, almost frighteningly so - a values driven organisation.'
'People's sense of what's right and wrong, and their sense of justice, are incredible parts of what motivates people to join.
'I'm part of that. For me, that's connected with my religious faith but the key thing is: you don't have to be Catholic.'
Mr Thompson described relations between the BBC and the recently ousted Labour government in its last few years as 'quite tetchy'.
But he said he was optimistic about a good settlement in forthcoming licence fee discussions with the Coalition.
He denied the organisation was one of 'glorious freeloading' but conceded: 'We had our moments in the past'.
The interview came after Mr Thompson gave the prestigious MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival last month where he said millionaire stars face the axe or having their salaries slashed.
Yesterday it also emerged the BBC is facing the threat of strikes after thousands of journalists, technicians and other staff voted massively in favour of industrial action in a row over pensions.
Members of the National Union of Journalists and the technicians' union Bectu backed walkouts by more than 9-1 in protest at 'punitive' changes to the staff pension scheme.
Unions held back from naming strike dates so that talks can be held over the next two weeks in the hope of resolving the dispute.
By Paul Revoir
Source:-
"The Daily Mail".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1308215/Yes-BBC-biased-Mark-Thompson-adm...
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Thompson admits BBC had 'bias to left' (Read 6387 times)
