BBC’s bias on Brexit

CREDIT where it is due, the BBC had a good EU referendum campaign. The corporation was reasonably impartial.

However, as a damning report by the Civitas think-tank proves beyond doubt, that three-month period was a blip in two decades of unremittingly biased coverage in which the BBC fully merited its nickname ‘Brussels Broadcasting Corporation’.

Owing to its vast size, it is difficult to monitor the pro-EU bias which is obvious to viewers and listeners. Now we have the proof, in a detailed analysis of output since the early 2000s, showing how pro-EU MPs were given disproportionate prominence, and Eurosceptics treated like cranks.

The report also confirms this paper’s view that since June 2016 the Corporation, horrified that its previous impartiality may have been a factor in the referendum result, has reverted with a vengeance to its hatred of Euroscepticism.

Over a two-month period last year, just one in ten Today programme interviews featured long-term Brexit supporters, and not once has the BBC commissioned a programme to explore the great opportunities that Brexit holds.

In a sane world the BBC would devote its energies to how to combat the American entertainment behemoths such as Netflix and Amazon, instead of obsessing about gender pay. The Corporation needs to find people of stature to run it, if our airwaves are not to be dominated by US imports.