HEADLINES

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Culture Clash asks: Do you trust the BBC?


Can We Trust the BBC?, the much anticipated book by the former BBC reporter Robin Aitkin, has finally been published, and, despite being predictably ignored by the BBC itself, it has once again brought under the public spotlight the ongoing debate about liberal left-wing bias at the corporation.

Aitken was a news reporter for 25 years, and the book deals solely with the BBC’s news and current affairs output and his experience of working in it, but at the same time, he makes the point that the outlook of the whole corporation is influenced by the culture which exists there.

In the chapter ‘Blowing the Whistle’, one of Aitken’s anonymous interviewees sets out what he says are the core beliefs at the centre of this culture. They are: anti-racist, pro-abortion, pro-union and anti-big business, pro-United Nations, pro-government spending, pro-multiculturalism and ethnic minorities in general, anti-Monarchist, anti-American and anti-private education and healthcare.

If this is true, then what, if anything, should we do about the BBC? To discuss this I’m glad to have with me writer and commentator Douglas Murray, TV producer and journalist Carol Gould, Social Affairs Unit author Adam Smyth and journalist Tessa Mayes.

Watch it on 18 Doughty Street

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Fantastic program. Your last two episodes seem to have matured greatly. The anti-muslim obsession seems to have subsided ever so slightly and as a result a far more interesting debate has been achieved, whilst still tackling the issue. Congratulations, keep it up.