Customer Reviews
I think the BBC is skewed more to the right than the left. - By: Silent river, 30 Dec 2008 
I cannot argue that the skewing of facts to present some group, the Catholic church in one instance is a positive thing.
However, I see the reviewers are against the anti-US, anti-Israel stance. Ofcourse the BBC is 'guilty' of that, everyone knows it. Guilt over Britain's colonial past? Why should the BBC NOT take any of these positions? In the first case we are talking of countries that have repeatedly used complete fabrications to launch wars (Gulf of Tonkin, alllowing Saddam to invade Kuwait to justify Desert Storm, current Iraq war). How many Brits are aware of their own historians pointing to the richness of the lands they occupied prior to colonisation? How is it wrong for the BBC to take the positions they do?
I agree: we need a non-p.c. alternative to Radio 4 - By: O. WOODWARD, 09 Oct 2008 
I'm very glad to find it's not just me that feels angry that we have to pay for "progressive" propaganda if we want to own a telly.
Interesting and Important. - By: Stephen, 23 Jul 2008 
As an Ulster Protestant I can say that the BBC is clearly biased against the Unionist community in Northern Ireland. Thus Robin Aitken's chapter "The Despised Tribes" struck a deep chord.
I can give a brief recent example: this years Orange Twelfth of July parades were the most peaceful, family friendly & cross-community in years. However on the 11th night smalll groups of Roman Catholic rioters were involved in minor scuffles with the police. The national BBC coverage reported this as trouble at the Protestant Orange parades & showed footage of vicious rioting from three years ago!
The chapter on Europe is also damning in the blatant favour shown by the BBC to both the Labour party & the "Europhiles".
An important book about a revered British institution that needs to sort it's act out.
The BBC looks like a Marxist propaganda organ - By: Richard Perrott, 11 Jun 2008 No, we cannot trust the BBC.
This author is correct, I have noticed a dramatic decline in the quality & relevance of BBC programming, & the rise in absurdly Marxist, Political Class, Multi-Cultural, Collectivist biased reporting. The privately owned Channel 4 has shamed the BBC for many years with _much_ higher quality, radical programming & reporting (like Dispatches), even SKY offers better programming & reporting!
The idea of a national broadcaster, like the BBC, seems bearable provided it is impartial & offers value for money, but becomes pointless & evil as it is taken over by collectivists.
I think that that the BBC TV tax must cease (to remove the extortion & enforce financial reality) & that the BBC should either have a wholesale staff replacement (excluding adverts in the Guardian & the Independent), or be closed & any worthwhile assets be moved into a trust, with free UK public access, & chargeable foreign & private access.
British Bias Corporation - By: Pieter, 08 May 2008 With its national TV & radio networks, regional & local stations, the BBC is massively influential in the UK & also worldwide through the BBC World Service, ten international TV networks plus international radio services in more than 40 languages as well as its Internet news site.
Robin Aitken, having spent 25 years at the organization, provides well-documented proof of its leftist bias, chronicles his struggle against this partisanship & puts forth suggestions for reform. Important elements of the BBC's world-view include unquestioning support for the European Union & the United Nations, guilt about Britain's imperial past, & an anti-capitalist, anti-religious (except when it comes to Islam), anti-American & anti-Israel stance.
The first chapter covers the broadcaster's history from its establishment to the radical change that took place in the late 1960s & subsequent developments, whilst in the second Aitken recounts his career history at the BBC. A significant change took place in 1987 when the ideological agenda took an even sharper turn to the left. The concerns he raised about ideological bias were contemptuously dismissed, he was falsely accused & even threatened.
Chapter four provides profiles of the broadcaster's senior management, almost alll of whom have long-standing connections with leftwing media like The Guardian & with the Labour Party. The BBC's overwhelming support for the European Union is dissected in chapter five that reveals a record of purges & suppression of anti-EU opinion, including that of Eurosceptics in the Labour Party.
The "despised tribes" of the BBC are discussed next. They are Ulster Protestants, Conservative Christians & the Roman Catholic Church in particular, most Americans & alll those that the organization considers to be "right-wing." There was also a strong bias in favour of the IRA while balanced debate on immigration, the Middle East, Islam & other uncomfortable issues are avoided. There is no doubt that the BBC is contributing to the alarming spread of antisemitism worldwide, as also documented in The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism by Bernard Harrison.
Like alll leftists, those at the BBC believe that their moral values are superior & not to be questioned. Chapter eight provides detailed evidence of how far they will go to twist, lie & distort in order to mislead the public. More evidence from current & previous employees - in their own words & anonymously - is provided in the following chapter.
Aitken concludes that one cannot trust the BBC, especiallly not on issues relating to Israel, the Iraq war, the European Union, Ulster, the USA or Islam. See also The Other War by Stephanie Gutmann for an analysis of reporting from the Middle East. He provides proposals for change by suggesting for example the introduction of a wider spectrum of balanced views & the redirection of funds to other broadcast media.
The BBC is a national institution in the UK so complete abolition is not even considered. It is still hard to understand why opposition parties & civil society did not more vigorously oppose the use of taxpayers' money to subsidize a self-perpetuating class of ideologues promoting such one-sided views. More information on this matter is available in What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way by Nick Cohen.
What a pity that broadcast deregulation wasn't thoroughly effected in the 1980s. It's the one important area where Margaret Thatcher did not succeed. If she had, the UK & a significant part of the global public would have been better informed & less brainwashed than they are today. I also recommend Scrap the BBC! by Richard D North, whilst Propaganda by Jacques Ellul remains a classic on how people's attitudes are shaped by the media.
