Tales from the Factory Floor

David Sedgwick's The Fake News Factory is a book that needed writing. 

For us, it might feel like a strange trip down Memory Lane at times, as David revisits many of the stop-off points of BBC bias that we've also recorded over the years, but - along with plenty of other examples - he gathers everything together in a juggernaut of hard evidence that is absolutely crushing.

The thing about a blog like this is that is provides endless instances - snapshots - of BBC bias in action but it's the threading of a thousand blogposts into a single tapestry that allows you to properly stand back and gasp at just how bad the BBC has become. 

Take one example: 

Chapter Two brings us to David's list of 'tells' - ways to spot the BBC getting up to mischief. The first 'tell' concerns how the BBC treats wrongdoers and whistle-blowers. 

Here David recounts the remarkable tale of how two BBC whistle-blowers - Meirion Jones and the late Liz MacKean - were slyly hounded out by the BBC in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

A senior press officer who vowed to 'drip poison' about Jones was later promoted. 'I will throw shit at him [Jones]' promised another senior BBC staff member. It was made clear to BBC staff attempting to establish the truth that should they continue to dig it would spell the end of their careers. 'When the Savile scandal broke,' recalled MacKean, 'the BBC tried to smear my reputation.'

I remember Liz MacKean. She once replied directly to a complaint of mine, and did so to my satisfaction. 

This was a shameful episode in the BBC's history and merits close attention. 

And what of the BBC 'wrongdoers' who got away with it, despite those pesky rulings against them? 

What about anti-Trump BBC dirt-disher Paul Wood, who helped lose the BBC a libel case brought by a former Ukrainian president but who's carrying on regardless at the BBC? 

And what about Dan Johnson, who was criticised by a judge over his involvement in the Sir Cliff Richard and is still a high-profile BBC correspondent? Or the BBC higher-ups judged untrusty and evasive in their testimony by the same judge? 

Or Jasmine Lawrence, the BBC News Channel editor pulled from local election duties in 2014 after ranting against UKIP on Twitter, subsequently promoted to be a Deputy News Editor on the Channel?

Or Emily Maitlis, rebuked by the BBC over her unfair treatment of Rod Liddle and now their award-winning golden (bronzed) girl? 

Or Jeremy Bowen, a man with a deeply personal grudge against Israel, continuing as the BBC's Middle East Editor despite the BBC itself ruling against him for violating guidelines on impartiality and accuracy in 2009?