The BBC has bias issues. No, this isn’t some MRC report loaded with political platitudes about how people hate the great GW Bush. It’s the inside skinny on a BBC “impartiality summit.” Bear in mind as you read this dreck that the BBC is publicly funded and, judging from the internals of this meeting, quite happy being partisan and agenda-driven.

A leaked account of an ‘impartiality summit’ called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC’s ‘diversity tsar’, wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

‘Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it.’

Wow. Biases in the BBC that all match the ones conservatives have said they had for years. I think it’s worthy of note that people who have claimed this over the years have been chastised repeatedly for saying so, called partisan shills, and rebuked strongly by supporters of the BBC (usually liberal ones) and been told that their arguments are old, tired, untrue, and unprovable.

Very satisfying, indeed.

And let’s get something out of the way, also. I don’t know of one single news organization that can honestly say they wouldn’t talk to Osama if he came a-knockin’. I mean, really. Is that supposed to prove something? That’s probably not even worthy of a mention if the point of your argument is bias. That’s not bias, it’s newsgathering and news reporting, and any news organization worth its salt not only would do that interview, but should.

In one of a series of discussions, executives were asked to rule on how they would react if the controversial comedian Sacha Baron Cohen ) known for his offensive characters Ali G and Borat - was a guest on the programme Room 101.

On the show, celebrities are invited to throw their pet hates into a dustbin and it was imagined that Baron Cohen chose some kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a Bible and the Koran.

Nearly everyone at the summit, including the show’s actual producer and the BBC’s head of drama, Alan Yentob, agreed they could all be thrown into the bin, except the Koran for fear of offending Muslims.

Do I really need to even discuss that segment?

via JYB

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