Inside the BBC bias allegations

Read time: 6 mins

In brief…

• The BBC’s director general and CEO of news have resigned, after it broadcast a heavily edited clip of Donald Trump’s address ahead of the Capitol insurrection of January 2021.
• The News Agents, all of whom are former BBC employees, discuss why the national broadcaster takes claims of left-wing bias so seriously, and what they experienced working there.
• The BBC now faces an uncertain future, as various political factions and figures share widely differing opinions on where it has failed, and how it needs to evolve in order to survive.

What’s the story?

As the former host of the BBC's Newsnight and the one-time North America editor, Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel have experience of working at the top level inside London's New Broadcasting House.

Today, the national broadcaster stands shaken, with two of its most senior news employees – former director general Tim Davie, and former head of news Deborah Turness – having resigned after a series of incidents which have called the BBC's commitment to impartiality into question.

These include the editing of a speech given by Donald Trump, and claims of a bias towards Palestine during coverage of the Israel / Hamas war in the years since October 7 2023, and reporting on issues relating to transgender people.

The speech edit suggested Trump told followers directly to “fight like hell” at the Washington Capital building, cutting together two clips from different parts of the same speech.

“I covered the first Trump term, and we had an absolute motto – to be very careful and then be very bold. Make firm judgments but do so on the most solid of foundations – you do not edit two different clips together,” says Jon Sopel.

Donald Trump has claimed Davie and Turness’s resignations as a personal victory.

What’s The News Agents take on the situation inside the BBC?

Lewis Goodall, BBC Newsnight’s former policy editor, says the edit was “misjudged”, but firmly believes the Panorama documentary, Trump: A Second Chance?, which was first broadcast on 28 October 2024, was rooted in “truth and fact.”

“Trump lied about the outcome of the 2020 election, he continues to lie about it to this day, and Trump did incite the mob on January the sixth,” Lewis says.

“In the testimony of all the people arrested and sent to prison, many of them said the only reason they did what they did was because of what Trump said.

“Yet, if you listen to all of this, the conclusion that you would come to is that the sin of that day is a 10 second edit on a BBC programme.”

Emily Maitlis says the BBC is facing an “existential moment”.

“More people on the left still broadly believe in a public sector broadcaster than on the right,” she says.

“The position of the BBC is to lean into the complaints from the right, because they think that that's where their existence stands or falls.”

What was revealed in the press?

The Telegraph newspaper has led reporting into the edited speech, and had called for resignations at the BBC, before the government’s culture, media and sport committee became involved, escalating the “coup” even more.

The paper had obtained a leaked memo from former BBC advisor Michael Prescott criticising the edited video – and other aspects of coverage – following its broadcast.

Prescott's memo claimed use of terms such as "reproductive rights" when discussing abortion in the US inferred bias, looked unfavourably on BBC "emphasis" on Trump's 2024 campaign misinformation about migrants eating pets in Springfield, and was against describing the president as an "election denier", despite his continued claims of a stolen victory in 2020.

“We are treating this man like he's an arbiter of neutral reporting. He isn't,” Emily says.

“It is completely fine to put that viewpoint into the mix and say, ‘Oh, should we be looking at that? Should we be pulling in that direction?’”

“But actually, he's written a dossier from his own perspective, from his own very singular perspective of what is right and what is wrong.”

Who is Robbie Gibb and how is he involved?

The BBC is governed by a board of high-level executives, which works to ensure the broadcaster delivers for license fee payers.

One of the key names in the drama that has recently unfolded is BBC board member Robbie Gibb, who was on the panel that elected Prescott to do the job as an independent advisor.

“Prescott comes in as an arbiter of neutral reporting, with his own world view, which happens to represent the world view of very powerful figures on that board like Robbie Gibb,” Emily explains.

It has been reported Gibb initiated investigations into left wing bias in news coverage, but never right wing bias, into anti-Israel coverage but never anti-Palestine.

Gibb, Emily adds, comes with his own “commercial and political baggage".

Gibb used to work as a spin doctor in Downing Street, was one of the original founders of GB News and it is reported that he was behind the consortium that bought the Jewish Chronicle.

“How can somebody with so much commercial political baggage, call himself an impartiality czar? It absolutely makes a mockery of the whole idea,” Emily says.

Has the BBC been too influenced by the ‘liberal left’?

This is the claim made in reporting by The Telegraph and other media outlets which have covered concerns about BBC impartiality.

But for people who have worked at the BBC – such as all three hosts of The News Agents – the opposite is true.

“I think we all know, having worked there, that is not the case,” Lewis says.

“I felt that there was a very, very strong awareness, a constant pressure to be checking potential liberal left biases – and very few coming from the other direction.

He says politicians have every right to put political pressure on BBC journalists, but says a line must be drawn when that pressure is applied "from within, in an improper way".

"There is already a chill wind, because there will be a fear that whoever the new management is, that there is going to be pressure and extra scrutiny on those matters in one direction, but not in the other.

"And that is just not an acceptable place for an impartial broadcaster to be."

Is this about making the BBC a better broadcaster – or commercial rivalry?

Calls to “defund the BBC” come from the left and the right of the political divide – and this is a major problem for the future of the broadcaster.

“Everyone has got a slightly different view as to what that better version of the BBC looks like,” says Emily.

On the right, Nigel Farage says the BBC is facing its final chance to “stop being woke”, while Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats says its biggest problem is how much airtime it gives Reform UK.

“These are two different sides of the horseshoe who both think that the BBC is getting a lot of stuff wrong for completely different reasons,” Emily adds.

She believes many of the people hoping to shape the future of the BBC, do so because of their own broadcast or publication interests, and the huge, global success of its output.

“One of the things I don't think has been talked about enough is how much of a threat the BBC is to commercial opponents, particularly the website,” says Emily.

“The BBC does everything with public money, it is one of the most read, most-enjoyed websites in the world, and it operates 24 hours a day.

“The papers, frankly, cannot compete. That's the website that the Daily Mail or The Telegraph would like to have.”

She believes that, rather than taking issue with the BBC's news website by claiming its dominance threatens market competition, rivals have instead attacked its integrity instead.

“It has been reshaped, and reworded, to suggest licence-fee payers are being cheated by the BBC,” Emily adds.

“The papers don't criticise each other, and if they carry on as one telling the British public they're being lied to, then people start believing it.

“I think this is a culmination of the papers feeling very frustrated that they cannot compete commercially with the mammoth of the BBC.”

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.