Looking back

WARNING: This is one of those posts that got more confusing the more I wrote. And you may feel the same by the end of it. Apologies in advance...

The Defund The BBC campaign group tweeted the following this afternoon:

Surprise, surprise, the BBC’s ‘impartiality guru’ has locked his Twitter account after being found to be completely biased against both Boris and Brexit calling Brexit result ‘utterly stupid’. It’s no wonder the BBC is so shamelessly partisan!

They are a bit out-of-date though...by over two years. 

They linked to a 15 June 2020 Guido Fawkes article BBC IMPARTIALITY ADVISER’S ULTRA PARTISAN ANTI-BORIS, ANTI-BREXIT TWEETS where Guido did a spot of 'Twitter archaeology' on Richard Sambrook, the former BBC executive turned Cardiff University media professor turned BBC official reviewer tasked with assessing whether the BBC's social media accounts are going against the BBC's impartiality policy. 

Guido found a string of partisan tweets, all in the usual direction, from the man appointed to assess BBC impartiality on Twitter and other social media.

An update that day on Guido Fawkes said:

Following our story this morning about his clearly partisan public tweeting, [Richard Sambrook] has now locked his Twitter account making his tweets private.

...which was an absolute joke and should have led to the BBC dropping him instantly.

Prof. Sambrook was appointed to review the BBC's social media on 29 May 2020. Guido was on it just over two weeks later on 15 June 2020.

I remember all this because - not to blow our own trumpets, while actually blowing them like Dizzy Gillespie  - looking back, we were actually well ahead of Guido there. On the 29 May 2020 itself I posted a piece where I wrote:

Salford, we have a problem.  The Times reports today that the BBC is so concerned about their journalists discrediting them by expressing their views on Twitter that they've now hired their former head of news, Richard Sambrook, to look into the problem. Mr Sambrook was, you may recall, the co-author of a much-cited, BBC-backed Cardiff University report which 'found' that the BBC didn't just not have a pro-EU bias but 'actually' has a pronounced anti-EU bias. His own Twitter feed reveals him to be anti-Brexit. Wonder what he'll find and recommend?

And Sue, that very same day, wrote: 

Hiring Richard Sambrook to review how the BBC “maintains impartiality on social media, amid concerns that journalists are discrediting the corporation by revealing their opinions” is a bit like getting the Supreme Court of Injustice to adjudicate on the lawfulness of something Lady Hale isn’t keen on.

We'd even done a piece in November 2019 on one of Richard Sambrook's impartiality-free 'chats' on Twitter, when he was a mere Cardiff University professor overseeing monitoring of BBC impartiality, which ended with the line:  

The people traditionally presented by the BBC as those worthy of holding them to account aren't exactly reassuring me here about their own impartiality.

It's still worth returning to all of this though because the 15 June 2020 Guido Fawkes piece ended with this:

There will now be no confidence in his review, as a former journalist he should know that cover-ups always backfire and transparency would have been better. He will surely have to step aside from the impartiality review…

What happened next? Well, as per various BBC reports from later that year that mentioned his review in passing, he didn't step aside, and he and the BBC seem to have carried on regardless. New guidance on social media use by BBC staff was issued on 29 October 2020, though that apparently came before the Sambrook review itself was finished. 

And that's where things get cloudy. Was the Sambrook review ever published? If I ever knew, I've forgotten. 

[That's what comes of closing the book and losing your page].

If anyone knows please let me know below. 

Does the BBC suffer from a left-leaning bias?

Well, does it?

More on the BBC's re-hiring of Richard Sambrook

This is interesting from Channel 4's former doorstepper-in-chief Michael Crick:

[Richard] Sambrook was asked by the board of Channel 4 to do a similar inquiry into bias on C4 News, though it was all a bit rushed. His report - kept secret - concluded there wasn’t enough diversity in the backgrounds and outlooks of people on the programmes, especially senior staff. 

Among Sambrook’s recommendations was that the programme make a “senior counter cultural appointment” - either a top presenter or editor - to balance “the uniformity of editorial attitude and approach in the [C4News] newsroom”. I’m not sure that would have worked.

“Senior counter cultural appointments” at, say, Newsnight? It's an intriguing suggestion, but I'm not sure it would work either. Such outsiders would probably get a very frosty reception. 

Maintaining impartiality

Hiring Richard Sambrook to review how the BBC “maintains impartiality on social media, amid concerns that journalists are discrediting the corporation by revealing their opinions” is a bit like getting the Supreme Court of Injustice to adjudicate on the lawfulness of something Lady Hale isn’t keen on. As soon as anyone cites the Cardiff University study as definitive (on BBC impartiality) they’re on a sticky wicket.

“Maintains"? I think that train left the station some time ago. 

Never mind “social media”, what about directly on the *actual* BBC? Surely everyone knows the BBC acts as an unofficial wing of the Labour Party?   Do we just have to take that into account forever because that’s the way it is?  Or will someone somewhere do something about it?

Douglas Murray says:

“Of course, plenty of media figures are open about their political views. Several have left Newsnight in the past and pursued modestly successful careers in Left-wing activism. 

[...] “After the declining standards of recent years, I know many who no longer bother to appear on Newsnight when asked, and not just when Maitlis is presenting. Many believe it has increasingly come to resemble the unwatchable Channel 4 News and, more importantly, they feel that it is no longer worth it. Fifteen years ago, when Jeremy Paxman was the presenter, being on Newsnight was an event for guests and viewers alike. Commentators would come off air to find their phones buzzing with congratulations or commiserations.

Today, the buzz has long stopped and the programme has now come to feel like it is being broadcast into a great silence.”

Douglas Murray is a fine fellow, but even he is not as BBC-geeky as some of us. Holding Jeremy Paxman up as a representative of ‘better times’ strikes a bit of a bum note with me. Maybe go back much further and try, say, Robin Day?

Anyway, it’s a bit sad being BBC-geeky. So I’ll leave it there.

Salford, we have a problem

The Times reports today that the BBC is so concerned about their journalists discrediting them by expressing their views on Twitter that they've now hired their former head of news, Richard Sambrook, to look into the problem. 

Mr Sambrook was, you may recall, the co-author of a much-cited, BBC-backed Cardiff University report which 'found' that the BBC didn't just not have a pro-EU bias but 'actually' has a pronounced anti-EU bias. His own Twitter feed reveals him to be anti-Brexit. 

Wonder what he'll find and recommend?

The people who hold the BBC to account have a chat

Richard Sambrook, Director of the Centre of Journalism at Cardiff University, was, as regular readers will know, previously Head of Newsgathering for the BBC. 

He now heads a media department which, as regular readers will also know, both the BBC and Ofcom rely on to analyse the BBC's output for things like bias, and which produces reports that often seem to perform somersaults and loop-the-loops in the face of reality. 

Well, here's the great man engaging in a Twitter chat today with Samira Ahmed's predecessor as host of the BBC's 'hold-us-to-account' Newswatch, Raymond Snoddy:

Dick Sambrook: The fake factcheck, dodgy video edits, false opposition websites - The Tories are taking deceiving the public and active disinformation to new lows in this campaign. At some stage they will pay a price. 

Ray Snotty: Sooner rather than later I hope. 

Dick Sambrook: Its [sic] the most cynical campaign I've seen - and we've weeks to go! 

Ray Snotty: The only thing journalists can do is to continue to call out the lies - but as with Trump this natural optimist is pessimistic that the public is listening. 

Dick Sambrook: Agree Ray. The question for those fuelling the collapse of trust and mushrooming of cynicism is - after the entire house has burned to the ground, what do you do the next day? 

Ray Snotty: That's deep the only "solution" is to continue to engage however long it takes. BBC chairman slightly started at VoL&V [the pro-BBC Voice of the Listener and Viewer] yesterday that normal "friends of the BBC" are concerned at where the current line is drawn. Enemies from the centre for first time.

The people traditionally presented by the BBC are those worthy of holding them to account aren't exactly reassuring me here about their own impartiality. 

The Great European Disaster Movie III

News-watch's David Keighley has posted an article today which casts a good deal of extra light on the subject of the previous post [Update: Er, actually he posted it in March when the programme originally sent out. So much for my ability to read a date!]. 

He says that when the BBC said that no EU money was used "in the making of the programme being aired on the BBC" they were technically correct but were choosing their words very carefully - or, as David puts it, using "weasel words":

The reality is that post-production, the film-makers Bill Emmott and Annalisa Piras – both of whom are pro-EU fanatics – have told the outside world they are receiving EU money for the transmission of the film in other languages. So put another way, it is an EU propaganda project. 

And the BBC were co-producers of that film.

So it's not quite as simple as I first thought.

(Darn it! Those BBC spokesmen make Sir Humphrey Appleby seem like a rank amateur at times). 

And it gets even less simple as the question still remains: Who did fund the making of the film? 

Given that the funding of the small company behind it (owned by Ms Piras) remains a mystery and that such a glossy documentary wouldn't come cheap, David says:

Someone with deep pockets and a deep desire to spread massively pro-EU propaganda was behind it. The BBC should tell us who this was so we can make up our own minds about the decision to show it.

(As per the comments on the previous thread), he then says that more questions arise due to former BBC top executive-turned Cardiff University professor Richard Sambrook's involvement with the Wake Up Foundation, of which Professor Sambrook, Ms Piras and Mr Emmott are all trustees.

Professor Sambrook was the co-author of a much-cited, BBC-backed Cardiff University report which 'found' - to general astonishment - that the BBC didn't just not have a pro-EU bias but 'actually' has a pronounced anti-EU bias!...

...and this report fed into the BBC's widely-reported Prebble Review:

So, put another way, the BBC commissioned a rabidly pro-EU programme from a programme making duo who have close professional and organisational links with a former Director of BBC News who, in turn, has been appointed by the Corporation to tell the outside world – on a supposedly ‘objective’ basis – how balanced and impartial the BBC’s output in relation to the EU is. 

The linkage raises several awkward questions.  Was Sambrook directly involved in the making of the European Disaster Movie? Was he involved in any way in persuading the BBC to show it and to become co-producers? To what extent is he involved in the dissemination of the pro-EU propaganda of the Wake Up Foundation? Were the BBC aware of his links with Emmott when they commissioned his department to do the Prebble survey? 

Something in the state of Denmark, if not rotten, smells very fishy indeed.

Doesn't it just!