The BBC rules against their Gender and Identity Reporter

This is a rather cryptically-written ruling by the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit but it involves Megha Mohan, the BBC World Service Gender and Identity Reporter, and says she didn't comply with the BBC guidance that says, “Staff should also not post offensive or derogatory comments or content on social media and avoid abusing their position as a BBC employee in personal interactions”.

Obviously, the original tweet has gone but a quick scan of Twitter for Ms Wolstencroft's name shows that she was on the receiving end of an intensely aggressive Twitter pile-on by hardline trans activists. It looks as if Megha Mohan couldn't help but join in.

It's far from the first time her tweets have strayed from BBC impartiality.

 

Tweet by Megha Mohan

30 November 2021

Complaint

Megha Mohan, the BBC World Service Gender and Identity Reporter, posted a tweet sharing an online story from the BBC’s Washington Bureau about a transgender teenager, commenting on how well it had been edited but not soliciting ideas.  Edwina Wolstencroft, a former BBC Radio 3 Editor, responded with a different but related story idea, to which Ms Mohan replied in terms which implied criticism of Ms Wolstencroft’s relations with minority groups while at the BBC.  Ms Wolstencroft complained about what she considered a defamatory statement, and called attention to her award-winning record of promoting work by under-represented composers, including women and minority groups. 

---

Outcome

The ECU cannot offer a view on legal questions such as defamation, which are for the courts to decide, but is tasked with making a judgement on whether the BBC’s editorial standards and the Guidelines and Guidance which express them have been complied with.  Accordingly, it considered the complaint in the light of the Guidance on Social Media, which says: “Staff should also not post offensive or derogatory comments or content on social media and avoid abusing their position as a BBC employee in personal interactions”.  In the ECU’s judgement, the tweet’s reference to Ms Wolstencroft’s alleged record at BBC did not comply with this Guidance.  Though the tweet was deleted within five days of being posted, the ECU considered that, in the absence of a further posting to explain why the original tweet had been deleted, this did not suffice to resolve the issue of complaint.

Upheld

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Further action

The finding was reported to the management of BBC World Service and discussed with Ms Mohan

Where credit's due

Tim, of 'More of Less' fame, smiling and sporting a leather jacket

Over the years I've given mixed reviews to Radio 4's statistics show More or Less, especially as regards bias. 

For me though, the latest series is proving (pleasingly) to be much stronger on the pluses than the minuses.

And I'm particularly enjoying the programme's increasing focus on whistle-blowing rubbish BBC reporting.

Episode 1 used Radio 4's Today to illustrate silly "apocalyptic" media headlines and hyped-up 'nanny state' reporting about 'rising' child sugar consumption, suggesting that it was largely fake news.

It then moved on to media misreporting of the rising train fares story, ruling that, in the specific instance of BBC reporting cited, "the fault lies not with the rail industry but with the BBC, which misquoted the industry body The Rail Delivery Group".

Ouch!

Episode 2 then investigated the BBC website for a short documentary on 'intersex surgeries' for saying that that the UN believes as high at 1.7% of the world's population has 'intersex' traits, "roughly the same as people with red hair" [a comparison the programme judged deeply misguided and unhelpful].

The BBC reporter behind it was Megha Mohan, the BBC's BBC Gender & Identity Correspondent.

She cited a UN website, which guestimated that the figure could be as high as 1.7%,

But, as More or Less pointed out, "if you dig a little bit further", that website also says it could be as low as 0.05%.

That's a massive difference. It's the difference between 1 person in 60 [Mogha's version] and 1 person in 2000.

Megha Mohan, leader in global breaking news

And More or Less, on digging further, found that that 1.7% guestimate came from an ideological academic - namely the author of Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality.

More or Less also criticised Megha Mohan's piece for focusing on situations where surgeries are debated, which the programme judged "rare". And, on looking into the surgery figures, More or Less presenter Tim Harford said, "So not 1.7%, but 0.017%". So rare indeed.

Alas, Megha herself had been so proud of this documentary:

Oh dear!

Episode 3, in contrast, showed the BBC News Channel's Carrie Gracie actually doing the right thing and expressing shock at a wild statistic from the charity Refuge's Sandra Horley claiming that domestic violence costs the UK public £66 billion a year, a story the BBC had made a headline story on 21st January. The stats don't add up - as per the BBC's head of statistics - and it's pretty much nonsense..At best Refuge trebled the costs. Carrie - the BBC's most famous wage equality campaigner - clearly knows her stats, even if others in the BBC newsroom don't.

Episode 4 made BBC reporting of the '1/20 UK people are Holocaust deniers' story the starting point for its main story. More or Less cast serious doubt on this figure, for many, many, many reasons - all of which (perhaps hopefully thinking) sounded plausible to me - including a potentially deeply confusing question in the survey. It appears, the programme concluded, as if we're in the still grim but significantly less scary 1-2% territory when it comes to the actual number of Holocaust deniers.

And this week's edition, Episode 5, went a good deal further than I ever expected it too in debunking the BBC's Brexit coverage, specifically the BBC's headline claim (across many platforms) that one-third of the UK's businesses are considering moving operations abroad because of Brexit. Tim Harford described those claims as "bizarre", "not so much Project Fear as Project Wrong", and "not worth taking seriously", and duly outlined why. It's well worth listening to. 

So bad it's (almost) good

“The UK government is completely controlled by Israel” 

asserts Palestinian poster girl Ahed Tamimi. 

“The UK is completely controlled and occupied by Israel and is supporting Israel to kill innocent people who are demonstrating for their rights.” 

she continues.

“They [Zionists] want nothing but to kill all Palestinians so they can take all their land. They believe that all Palestinians should also be killed which shows that they're racist.”

What is it about those people who unintentionally reveal their own thoughts and wishes through this uniquely infantile type of projection? This example is such a blatant ‘reversal of the actualité’ that it’s quite comical. It’s so bad it’s (almost) good. I wonder if the oleaginous Afshin Rattansi from R T agrees with Ahed. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.

The BBC is undeterred by the negativity surrounding this foolish little liar. (Foolish to tell such obvious lies, but smart enough to manipulate others.)  No wonder Ahed Tamimi is dazed and confused. She has been indoctrinated from birth by professional agitators, the Tamimi clan, but she’s wise enough to tailor her message to suit the audience.

The BBC is promoting Ahed and two other ‘minors’ in a nasty little propaganda film. The producer, Megha Mohan, the BBC's "gender and identity correspondent", has an openly anti-Israel agenda, and with this, the BBC is openly encouraging inflammatory propaganda and violating its remit. It’s quite appalling that it was ever approved.

Tamimi didn’t seem to have had much to complain about in prison, but Krishnan Guru-Murthy manages to prise something detrimental to Israel out of her in this interview. She’s wearing her silver pendant in the shape of ‘One State’ 

Guru-Murthy believes Israel has treated her too harshly for the crime of ‘just a slap’. Who knows whether or not he’s aware of her and her family’s record. Not that she’s responsible for her terrorist Auntie  Ahlam who’s being protected by Jordan,  but she certainly sees her as a role model.

Honest Reporting

“While the BBC shows footage of Tamimi attacking an IDF soldier, for which she spent eight months in an Israeli prison, it fails to give any real background on the Palestinian poster girl for terror. For the real tragedy is not Tamimi’s experience with the Israeli military court system (what the BBC terms a “childhood”). 

Ahed Tamimi’s entire childhood has been spent in an environment permeated with Palestinian terrorism: terror  in which her family has long played an active and prominent role.  For example,  Ahed’s aunt helped plan the horrific Sbarros Pizza restaurant bombing, and her mother posted anatomically precise tutorials on how to most effectively stab Israelis. 

Ironically, this very terrorism is the reason Israel has security measures in the first place.
Since childhood Ahed has learned from her family that all of Israel is occupied Palestinian land, including Tel Aviv, and that she must fight to gain all of it. Hardly a path to peace. And Ahed’s family have placed her personally in danger over and over, for the benefit of cameras. 

Her appearance for the BBC is just the latest in a global propaganda tour, milking her iconic status.

“The rights of children are undoubtedly extremely important. If the BBC were so concerned for the rights of Palestinian children, it would be focusing on the incitement that drives Palestinian minors to confront Israeli soldiers, carry out terror attacks or promote violent extremism. 

Instead the BBC in typical fashion attempts to portray Israel as a militaristic child abuser backed up by the claims of an iconic professional propagandist, a terrorist-affiliated NGO and its own efforts to muddy the legal waters of international law. 

UPDATE
Former IDF military prosecutor Maurice Hirsch, who featured in the BBC film has responded directly on Twitter to the BBC’s Megha Mohan, the journalist responsible. The thread of multiple tweets is a devastating take down from an expert whose insights were clearly edited out of the film in order to favor the Palestinian narrative.

Yes, if you can bear to look at the Twitter timeline of the producer of this programme you can see the agenda. There is no attempt whatsoever to conceal it. No pretence of impartiality or genuine fact-finding. She willfully misunderstands why Palestinian ‘children’ go through military rather than civilian courts.

“Israel says that this is due to an article in the Geneva Convention saying that they are an occupying force” she tweets. I understand that putting Palestinian citizens through Israel's civil courts would necessitate annexation of the West Bank. So that's why. (She probably knows that.)

Another of the children featured claims that she was made to sign a confession in Hebrew. But this is untrue. Maurice Hirsch responds:

But this is something Col Maurice Hirsch refutes. As the Israeli military's chief prosecutor in the West Bank prepared indictments against thousands of Palestinians - including hundreds of children. pic.twitter.com/b7TIPLp3Nu

— Megha Mohan (@meghamohan) August 28, 201

Sadly, you piece is just another example of biased BBC coverage. While we spoke extensively about teenage Palestinian murderers like the murderers of Daphna Meir, the Fogel Family, Ari Fuld and others, you shamefully omitted any reference to them. 1/12

— Maurice Hirsch (@MauriceHirsch4) August 29, 2019

What is a 'gender and identity correspondent' for? How does this role relate to pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism? Does the BBC intend to redress the balance at any point?

Update:
BBCWatch has more on this.  Do read. The fact that this film is proving so popular is very disturbing.

Trouble at the BBC

As noted on the Open Thread, Julie Bindel has a fascinating article at The Critic which raises serious questions about BBC standards and BBC agenda-pushing. 

Julie - as you'll probably know - is a feminist presently at war with transgender militants, and as far as trying to strike a balance in this bitter 'war' goes, she reckons that the BBC is far more one-sided even than The Guardian. "The BBC appears not to even try", she says. 

Her immediate targets are (1) Megha Mohan, the corporation’s first “gender and identity correspondent” and (2) Ben Hunte, the BBC's first “LGBT correspondent”.

Both express strong opinions and sometimes act and sound more like activists than journalists.

(We have, of course, been following this here).

Julie Bindel says she's heard from BBC journalists that "there is some dissatisfaction in the coverage that Mohan and Hunte are responsible for", what with both of them being "young and junior journalists" and yet being appointed to cover "one of the most contentious issues of the day for one of the world's biggest media outlets". 

She says they've also ignored attempts to broaden their range of issues. 

So, it seems, the big BBC programmes like Today won't feature them. "They’re more likely to be found on the BBC website among articles about YouTube stars and Jeremy Corbyn", she says. 

More broadly, she blames BBC executives "obsessed with generating 'content' that chimes with the mores of a younger audience". 

Plus: 

Privately, some BBC suits give an explanation closer to home. Internal staff surveys show that as many as 2 per cent of all BBC staff “identify” as transgender. The corporation’s LGBT staff forum is willing and able to flex its muscles over editorial decisions that displease members. “We have to tread very carefully to avoid complaints from them,” says one of the BBC’s most senior editors. Some say tensions are growing within the BBC between an older generation of journalists and the younger breed of activists with microphones. 

Very interesting. 

And finally...

...before I go to bed...

...yet more examples of BBC reporters tweeting from the Left, courtesy of the ever-diligent DB at Biased BBC.

First, here's BBC Senior Broadcast Journalist Megha Mohan:

My aunt got me @NaomiAKlein 's book on link between capitalism & climate change for Xmas. Read it in 2 days. Buy it. pic.twitter.com/LKk7ADiKx5

— Megha Mohan (@meghamohan) December 27, 2014

And, second, here's one from one of the BBC's regional Middle East editors, Lina Sinjab (familiar from her reporting from Libya - her home country if memory serves me right):

#Cuba #Havana, for the first time ever! Glad to head there before it gets into Globalisation. More to come when I manage to find internet!
— Lina Sinjab (@LinaSinjab) December 20, 2014

Such opinions really do seem to be 'in their genes'.

Megha Mohan - another update

So the BBC's first global gender and identity correspondent Megha Mohan, who appeared to have deleted her Twitter account after being told off for failing to comply with BBC guidance that “staff should also not post offensive or derogatory comments or content on social media and avoid abusing their position as a BBC employee in personal interactions”, brought her account back to life on 7 December and is busy tweeting again. And Jess Brammar, head of the BBC's news channels, has been singing her praises. She's still working at the BBC. Indeed she's been covering ''the first female Samoan PM'' and the former president of the Marshall Islands who was the first female leader of a Pacific island, and reporting on climate change in places like Samoa, the Marshall Islands and Fiji. There's no stopping her. 

Mama

An American woman tweets a picture of herself and her two year old son.

You might think nothing of that but another woman at the Guardian regards it a malicious act (and, being a photo of a white mother and her white son, thinks it's racist too). 

Yes, seriously.

Even the Guardian's online commentariat found this very hard to swallow and have been calling the Guardian reporter out in large numbers...

...but (h/t DB) a 'Senior Reporter at BBC Stories' called Megha Mohan didn't just fail to call the Guardian writer out on that but instead chose to endorse her views by not only tweeting a link to the Guardian piece but also name-checking its writer author and quoting her too (without any distancing/balancing caveats): 

Is this the tip of a BBC iceberg?

*******

Now I see, Googling around, that the BBC has also posted an online article about this (inevitably).

I've not read it yet so I don't know which way it will go - if it goes any way.  So this is 'live blogging'...

Clicking into it the headline is US child migrants: Ivanka's mother and child photo sparks backlash, and the piece begins:

As the daughter of one of America's most divisive presidents, Ivanka Trump is no stranger to controversy. 

But on Sunday, she sparked backlash by sharing a photo of herself holding her two-year-old son, Theodore.

i.e. the daughter of the 'divisive' president 'sparks' (i.e. causes!) a backlash. 

I think I can already guess where this is going (not so much 'slut-shaming' as 'daughter-of-Trump-shaming'!)...

Reading on...

We then get two paragraphs outlining 'the prosecution case' against Ivanka followed by two paragraphs saying that Ms Trump hasn't yet responded to the criticisms and had previously said she'd not work against the administration's policies (points that also help 'the prosecution case'). 

Then comes a section headed What prompted the current outcry? and if you expect the suggested answers might include 'anti-Trump hysteria spreading into hatred against Trump's daughter' and 'media groupthink' then think again...

...because the entire section is spent reinforcing the concerns of critics of the present US government's migration policy, especially as regards child migrants - complete with a link to a BBC video report headlined The missing - consequences of Trump's immigration crackdown (which is just the kind of report you'd expect from such a headline). The entire section is also part of 'the prosecution case'. 'The defence case' doesn't get a look-in.

What's next? Well, a section headed What are social media users saying? And, guess what? Yes, 'the prosecution case' wins out again by a large margin. The BBC reporter here gives us a 4:1 ratio of tweets against Ivanka. The one pro-Ivanka tweet is introduced by saying, "However, not everyone linked the post to the debate on immigration, with some praising its beauty."

Next comes a section headed What has the government's response been? Is this going to be the 'balancing passage'? Well, no. Within two paragraphs President Trump is getting it in the neck for "incorrectly" blaming the Democrats and a "fact check" by the Associated Press is then cited 'proving' the Trump administration to be the bad guys. And then various previous government statements are outlined before the closing image bearing the caption 'Around 700 minors have reportedly been separated from their parents by US immigration authorities' with a child's hand shown grasping a metal fence. 

The BBC has thrown so much detail at us here that it's hard to cling to the fact that there are at least two ways of seeing Ivanka's tweet of her and her son: One is to see it as a harmless photo of a mother and son; the other way is to see it as a malicious political act. 

If you support the first point of view you'll invite people to view the tweet and see it as a lovely tweet. If you support the second point of view you'll make it all about what Ivanka's critics claim it was about. 

The BBC here made it all about what Ivanka's critics claim it was about. It was a partisan piece, little better than the Guardian piece much criticised by those Guardian readers.

Did Megha Mohan write this piece? 

(For more on Megha from ITBB piece click here).

P.S. Katty Kay, the face of the UK in the US, is also on Ivanka's case today:

And a BBC News website article appeared today also containing criticism of Ms Trump. 

Oddly, it also seems to debunk itself. 

Please read it for yourselves and see what you think. It reads to me like a would-be carefully-hedged smear. 

P.P.S. There was a huge, widely-discussed flurry of social media activity this weekend where various high-profile opinion-givers (including a former Obama speechwriter, a New York Times editor-in-chief, a prominent CNN journalist and prominent Muslim rights campaigner (Linda Sarsour) were caught out tweeting an image of suffering child migrants in the USA and denouncing Donald Trump for their plight. 

The image turned out to be from four years ago, when Barack Obama was president. 

Despite being 'fake news', it trended 'bigly'.

I was hoping to read something from Mike Wendling & Co. at BBC Trending about it, who usually love a 'bigly'-trending bit of fake news. But I just somehow knew that Mike Wendling & Co. at BBC Trending, however much it was trending, would not be interested in it. And they haven't been (so far).

For goodness sake, Donald Trump - whose tweets they follow - even tweeted about it, gloatingly. And they've still managed to 'miss' it!

And I think that's easily explained: It was a clear example of 'fake news' from the anti-Trump camp, and it doesn't embarrass the people they enjoy seeing embarrassed so they choose not to report it. 

As Simon the Cat says: Simples!

Once more unto the breach of the BBC's editorial guidelines, dear friends

  

Fiona Lamdin

Just over a year ago the BBC director of news Fran Unsworth sent out a strongly-worded email telling staff they could face disciplinary action if they publicly criticised colleagues. 

With the rise of the new breed of opinionated, campaigning journalists at the Corporation that warning stands even less chance of being heeded now. 

Maybe she needs to carry through with her threat and set a few examples? 

The Telegraph today has a report about a white BBC reporter - social affairs correspondent Fiona Lamdin - using the 'n-word' in a piece broadcast on the BBC News Channel and Points West. The paper says she 'told viewers “Just to warn you, you’re about to hear highly offensive language” before immediately using the term'. 

As is its hedgehog-like way, the BBC initially stood by the report by arguing that (a) the family of the victim involved had asked for the n-word to be used and (b) that a warning had been given...but the pulled the report from its catch-up service nonetheless. 

Enter the BBC’s gender and identity correspondent, Megha Mohan, publicly criticising both her colleagues and her employer: 

By not saying the N-word, you send a clear signal that you will not normalise the most violent of language. It blows my mind that this is open for interpretation or being justified - especially this of all times. 

I suspect she'll escape unscathed though. Fran Unsworth would probably provoke a damaging mutiny among the newer, 'woker' ranks if she took her to task.

"It's important for people to understand the difference"

There's an article on the BBC News website that's dividing opinion:

For some this is a case of the BBC "normalising regressive cultures again"; for other's it's the BBC living up to its mission to inform and clearing up "misapprehensions" about arranged marriages. 

The BBC reporter behind the piece, Megha Mohan, does indeed have that purpose, having tweeted:

The reaction to this tweet has been split too. She's getting plenty of 'thank yous', but others are accusing her of being "patronising" and complaining that the headline is racist against white people.

Update on a wayward BBC tweeter

We noted on Wednesday that the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit ruled against Megha Mohan, the BBC World Service’s first gender and identity correspondent, for a tweet on the transgender issue. They ruled against her for failing to comply with BBC guidance saying “Staff should also not post offensive or derogatory comments or content on social media and avoid abusing their position as a BBC employee in personal interactions”. And now this highly prolific BBC tweeter has deleted her Twitter account. If you click on @meghamohan now you'll get the message This account doesn’t exist. I'm wondering if she's still the BBC World Service’s gender and identity correspondent.

"Don't be seduced by the informality of social media into bringing the BBC into disrepute"

Like Sue, things are proving a bit hectic this week - so apologies for the lack of posts.

I'd just like to point out that we forgot to mark the first anniversary of BBC Head of Newroom Mary Hockaday's email to BBC staff (echoing an email sent out just a few years earlier from her predecessor, Helen Boaden):

Social media is now a vital part of our work, allowing us to get our journalism to new audiences, connect with people, and gather news as it happens.

But the guidance is clear when it comes to personal activity: 'As a BBC member of staff – and especially as someone who works in News – there are particular considerations to bear in mind. They can all be summarised as: 'Don't do anything stupid.'

"I'd also specifically draw your attention to the following section: 'You shouldn't state your political preferences or say anything that compromises your impartiality. Don't sound off about things in an openly partisan way. Don't be seduced by the informality of social media into bringing the BBC into disrepute.'

Of course, many BBC members of staff have carried on regardless.

Here's a quick trip around some of the latest tweets from BBC journalists who have featured here at ITBB before.

Do any of them state political preferences, say anything that compromises their impartiality, or sound off about things in an openly partisan way?

Interviewed Tony Blair a few times.Off camera I felt he didnt have much understanding of Palestinian issues but on camera he was convincing.

— Jon Donnison (@jondonnisonbbc) May 27, 2015

Today, I'm extraordinarily proud to be Irish. #theysaidyes #worldfirst #justequal pic.twitter.com/Ggv0rXBNy4

— declan harvey (@NewsDeclan) May 23, 2015

http://t.co/qwZn02Y2cx As usual the US isn't afraid to legislate on key issues unlike our own spineless public servants locally & Whitehall

— Louise Greenwood (@LouiseGreenwoo1) May 26, 2015

How many refugees can Britain "handle"? Politicians playing with people's futures to make a point about EU membership is shameful..

— Steph Hegarty (@stephhegarty) May 28, 2015

Our Lord, surely You will gather the people for a Day about which there is no doubt. Indeed, Allah does not fail in His promise. #Quran 3:9

— Nasidi Adamu Yahya (@Nasidi_Kura) May 21, 2015

💚🍀 #Ireland

— Megha Mohan (@meghamohan) May 23, 2015

So having taken a step forward in gay rights, Ireland takes a step backwards by voting for Russia. #eurovision

— Jane Bradley (@jane__bradley) May 23, 2015

2021 in a nutshell

It's been a funny old year here at Is the BBC biased?  We closed and then re-opened.

Here's a far from exhaustive review of some of the things we caught - and some we didn't catch. 

So Memory Lane, here we come!

If we've missed anything major please let us know:

January

The BBC began the year by broadcasting fireworks from London in tandem with Mayor Sadiq Khan. Their broadcast - featuring NHS worship, praise of multiculturalism and Sir David Attenborough lecturing us on climate change - was described as “soulless propaganda”. BBC One ended their New Years Day Doctor Who with a two-minute message from Sir David Attenborough about the need for urgent action on climate change. Radio 4 marked New Years Day with a BLM-inspired poem calling for “a true history, true democracy and true racial equality” which Jonny Dymond called a “message of hope for racial equality going forward”. Mark Easton popped down to Dover to report post-Brexit problems at the border posing in front of a sign saying "No access to the docks". Dad's Army was given a 'trigger warning' on BBC Two. Emily Maitlis's first Newsnight of 2021 saw her use her 'monologues' to advocate for tougher lockdown restrictions and criticise Donald Trump's “embarrassing” behaviour. Everyone clearly started as they meant to go on. Radio 5 mishandled the Laura Duffel's scaremongering about children hospitalised through Covid. Nick Byrant compared Donald Trump to Mussolini and James Landale compared him to the Nazis after the trouble on Capitol Hill. After YouTube [temporarily] 'terminated' talkRadio's YouTube channel a Marianna Spring 'analysis' that justified the removal by Big Tech was replaced by a far less sympathetic analysis by James Clayton. BBC Two's Bitesize programmes for secondary school children began with a Big Read - a book called The Extraordinary Life of Greta Thunberg. The BBC got a new Executive Sponsor Safeguarding Impartiality, paying him £325,000 a year. Jon Sopel was talking about "a socially distanced inauguration for a nation tearing itself apart" just as viewers were watching Kamala Harris hug both Barack and Michelle Obama, another couple (at some length),another man and then two more women. Roger Harrabin's campaign to prevent a new coal mine in Cumbria fully swung into action and Jon Sopel described the likes of GB News as a greater potential threat to democracy than Britain’s already openly biased newspapers. The BBC gracelessly withdrew its '100-plus genders' BBC Teach video blaming others.

February

The Jewish Chronicle laid a charge list again BBC Arabic for a "fawning" portrait of a Hamas terrorist, describing Jerusalem as “the occupied city”, calling the Israeli army the “Israeli Occupation Forces”, describing the PLO as “the Palestinian Resistance” and referring to nine victims of a terrorist attack as “nine Jewish settlers”, though four weren't Jewish and none was a settler. Roger Harrabin continued his campaign against the new coal mine in Cumbria. Outgoing BBC chairman Sir David Clementi said, “We are one of the very few British institutions to be seen as world class... it would be a colossal act of national self-harm if regulators or governments were to take steps which diminished the role of the BBC”. ignoring the fact that there are many British institutions seen as world class. Jeremy Bowen said during the Iraq War that he'd “wondered what might have happened to an Iraqi news team if Saddam's men had somehow managed to kill 400 civilians in London or New York. I thought they'd be strung up.” Lewis Goodall tweeted that cancel culture isn't a real problem at universities and then deleted his tweets. Emily Maitlis 'liked' a tweet condemning the government and then deleted that 'like'. Radio 4 broadcast a 3-part programme on "the unbroken thread of fascism in Britain," originally describing fascism as "a central and on-going part of the British story" before editing that out. Nick Bryant did a long From Our Own Correspondent piece on New York's experience of Covid, having a pop at Donald Trump along the way but failed to mention Democrat governor Andrew Cuomo or the nursing home scandal. BBC TV news failed to report President Biden's bombing of Syria. Ski Sunday did a feature where its white presenters gave viewers a lecture on white privilege.

March

Naga Munchetty presented a Panorama called Let’s Talk about Race. On Breakfast Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty mocked Robert Jenrick's use of union flags, with Naga having to issue a half-apology after liking a tweet that said “The flag shaggers will be up in arms.” Radio 4's Today misreported Meghan's racism claims against a member of the Royal Family and Emily Maitlis misreported an “attempted suicide” by Meghan on Newsnight. A landmark report into racism in the UK by ethnic minority thinkers that found that we're by and large a tolerant country was assailed by the BBC with Mark Easton saying the report “risks deepening distrust and division”. Roger Harrabin's campaign to prevent a new coal mine in Cumbria was won.

April

The BBC had to apologise to Sir James Dyson after “twisting the truth” about his ties to the Tories. Samira Ahmed said she was 'haunted' by a fear that the BBC's coverage boosted Nigel Farage and Ukip. The BBC's coverage of the Duke of Edinburgh's death provoked some 100K complaints after being across all channels. The BBC went after Boris over Wallpapergate. Clive Myrie presented a Panorama on racism in the Church of England. The National Beef Association wrote to Tim Davie accusing the BBC off anti-meat bias after Blue Peter launched a “one-sided” green initiative. The BBC dropped the anti-meat message in response. Anti-lockdown protests in London saw the BBC's Disinformation Unit emphasize the cranks in the crowd rather than the concerns of ordinary protestors. BBC diversity chief Miranda Wayland complained that Idris Elba’s Luther “isn’t black enough to be real”.

May

The Dyson Report into the Martin Bashir scandal was published, a day after Mr Bashir resigned from the BBC. The BBC somehow survived the scandal and moved on. Relations with the Royal Family chilled and got worse as the year went on as the BBC antagonised them further. Huw Edwards was forced to delete a tweet after laying into other media outlets for criticising the BBC over Bashirgate. The BBC provoked criticism by delaying a Panorama about the affair, apparently because they were looking out for Mr Bashir's mental health. Aleem Maqbool, a Muslim later to be appointed BBC religion editor, presented a misleading and inaccurate report on events in Jerusalem. Mark Easton informed BBC One viewers that “the role of BBC News is to hold the powerful to account”. The BBC issued a video on how to hug safely.

June

Gary Lineker tweeted, “If you boo England players for taking the knee, you’re part of the reason why players are taking the knee.” James Naughtie was banned after admitting drink-driving. The BBC accentuated the negative when the UK-Australia trade deal was announced. The BBC adopted a 'no whites' policy when advertising an £18,000 trainee job on Springwatch and The One Show.

July

The BBC revealed that their diversity tsar June Sarpong is being paid £267,000-a-year for a three-day week. more than the PM. Mark Easton returns to the south coast to look at the crisis in the English Channel and asks us to please think of the children. Emily Maitlis told the BBC off in the Press Gazette for criticising her over impartiality and got told off again for doing so. It was announced that Gary Lineker is to boost his huge BBC salary by hosting a new quiz show at ITV called Sitting on a Fortune. The sausage wars and the NI protocol saw the BBC's John Campbell and Chris Morris doing their usual thing, the former attacking “the juvenile British banger rhetoric [that] seems to play well in English newspapers”, the latter fuming that the UK action would make for poisonous politics. The BBC News website saw the BBC report Ben and Jerry's decision to not sell ice cream in the Palestinian territories and give 11 paragraphs to pro-Ben and Jerry's/Unilever/pro-BDS points and just 3 paragraphs to anti-Ben and Jerry's/pro-Israel points. The BBC heavily reported “racist graffiti” on a mural of Marcus Rashford and then heavily underreported the news when it turned out that it wasn't racist at all. Tala Halawa, the BBC journalist who tweeted ‘Hitler was right’ about Israel, left the corporation. The BBC ran an advert on BBC One at 7.55pm Hate won’t win, a public information message about racism. An Emily Maitlis 'monologue' said, “The Home Secretary called taking the knee a show of 'gesture politics'. Now England's footballers have shown her why it wasn't. How far can those in power be held responsible for what happens on the ground?” The BBC News website ran a piece headlined 'Rural racism in Dorset: Why is our countryside 98% white?'. Naga Munchetty got a 30% pay rise.

August

BBC Sport tweeted that it would report to the police those who expressed hateful comments on its threads across eleven subject areas, but seems to have been particularly targeted at women critical of male-to-female trans militancy. Tim Davie ruled out releasing the Balen report into the BBC's coverage of Israel, having discussed it with other BBC people who'd previously resisted its release. Martine Croxall said that what Extinction Rebellion are saying “isn't exactly controversial.” The BBC, without mentioning her by name, issued a correction clarifying a mistake by Emily Maitlis that smeared Israel over vaccines and Palestinians. Jon Sopel, having largely withdrawn from covering the Biden administration, returned to briefly condemn them over Afghanistan before going quiet again. John Simpson also railed against the withdrawal but blamed Donald Trump for it. Listen very carefully, 'Allo 'Allo! got a trigger warning from the BBC for jokes about French and German stereotypes and the high number of sexual innuendos. 'Woke' arrived at Woman's Hour with a tweet that talked about “people who struggle with heavy periods” rather than 'women'. BBC Three launched a programme called Transitioning Teens said to have skewed the stats and presented a one-sided 'woke' case. A BBC briefing on how to target climate change messages to particular segments of society was revealed, proving activist/propagandist intent on the BBC's part.

September

BBC DG Tim Davie's salary increased by £75,000 to £525,000, nearly 3 times what the UK's PM earns. The former editor of the Left-wing Huffington Post UK Jess Brammar is confirmed as executive editor of the BBC’s news channels despite the controversy over her anti-Brexit, anti-Boris, pro-woke, pro-BLM political views. The BBC was typically reluctant to report the Albanian background of the man charged with murdering teacher Sabina Nessa. Jeremy Vine described GB News replacing Andrew Neil with Colin Brazier as “like replacing a shark with a goldfish” but then deleted his tweet. The Mail on Sunday reported how Martin Bashir took one of the Babes In The Wood victim's bloodied clothes from her mother and then lost them and then lied about it. The BBC continued to downplay the Biden administration's failings, either not reporting them or not specifically tying them to Joe Biden. The BBC repeatedly forgot Margaret Beckett when describing Liz Truss as the UK's first female foreign secretary. The BBC's reporting of the Aukus deal between the US, UK and Australia was overwhelmingly negative. The BBC used the HGV drivers' shortage to attack Wetherspoon's Tim Martin over Brexit. The BBC shamed the town of Driffield over a mural featuring only white people despite the town being 98.7% white and the mural featuring shopkeepers, restaurant owners and other local personalities. The coverage of a major report on sexual abuse among UK faith groups received the BBC treatment with the BBC avoiding mentioning Islam on its News at Ten, unlike Sky or ITV, with Mark Easton focusing on Jehovah’s Witnesses and Orthodox Jews. The BBC gave many the impression of campaigning hard for 12-15 year olds to be vaccinated. BBC staff were offered an “allyship” test which identifies whether they are more privileged than their colleagues as part of diversity training. Ben Hunte, the BBC's activist-like ‘LBGT Correspondent’, left BBC News for Vice News. Fran Unsworth, head of news, announced her departure.

October

Sir David Amess MP was murdered and the BBC treated his killing as if it was a re-run of the murder of Jo Cox, keeping the focus firmly on the tone of political discourse and even more firmly off Islamism. Dominic Casciani was accused of downplaying the suspect's Somali background. The BBC-commissioned Serota Review into the BBC's editorial processes, governance and culture was published. It was led by BBC board member Sir Nick Serota and set up following the Dyson Report into the Bashir scandal. It largely located the BBC's problems in the rather distant past and mostly claimed that the BBC is presently getting things largely about right, though there's always room for improvement. Tougher questions about BBC editorial processes came from the BBC's Stephen Nolan whose podcast about the BBC's relationship with the campaign group Stonewall argued that the BBC is too close to Stonewall, prompting the BBC to partially distance itself from them. The BBC accentuated the negative when the UK-New Zealand trade deal was announced. John Simpson advocated for “the repayment of a £400m debt the UK owes to Iran” in order to get Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe freed. Matt Wiessler, the designer scapegoated by the BBC in the Martin Bashir/Princess Diana Panorama scandal, finally received compensation - some £750,000 apparently - 'from the BBC' [i.e. the licence fee payer]. This was on top of the £1.5 million for the Dyson review into the scandal and the £1.5 million paid to a charity chosen by the Royal Family. Full Fact ruled Andrew Marr “wrong” to claim Boris Johnson wasn't telling the truth about wages during another frosty interview. Nick Robinson told Boris Johnson to 'stop talking' during a Today interview where the BBC interviewer himself talked for over 40% of the time. The BBC reported the death of Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who'd spent 14 years under police protection against Islamists intent on murdering him, with an article that went out of its way to respect the founder of Islam [“the Prophet Muhammad... the Prophet Muhammad... the Prophet Muhammad... the Prophet...the Prophet”]. Former BBC controller of daily news programmes Gavin Allen, ousted from the BBC board in February this year, moved on to work as 'executive editor in chief' for the highly controversial Chinese tech giant Huawei. Jonathan Munro, the BBC's Deputy Director of News, put in a slippery performance on News-watch over 'the panic at the petrol pumps'.

November

The month was dominated by BBC reporting of the Yorkshire Cricket Club with the BBC siding with Azeem Rafiq, even after his antisemitic past was disclosed. It almost rivalled their exhaustive COP26 coverage for intensity. On climate change Justin Rowlatt claimed Boris Johnson looked “a little bit weaselly not answering the coal question” during an interview with the PM while Laura Kuenssberg called Ed Miliband “an expert in this field”. The One Show lectured on eating less meat, having less children, not travelling by air and having better insulation. Andrew Neil said the BBC has becoome “the PR department of Greenpeace” and had colluded in the “conspiracy theory” that the Kremlin helped Donald Trump to win the presidency of the United States, and refused to tell the truth about the origins of Covid-19. Despite weeping on air while reporting on the impending famine in Afghanistan, John Simpson took great care not to mention the B-word [Biden]. The BBC reported the not guilty charges against Kyle Rittenhouse with a pronounced bias against him, including Americast. The attack on the Waukesha Christmas market march by a black racist was downplayed and deracialised by the BBC. Many people took exception to republican Amol Rajan's The Princes and the Press, not least the non-Sussex parts of the Royal Family, further deepening and embittering the split between the BBC and the Royal Family. The BBC obfuscated the Liverpool bombing, placing emphasis on the suspect being a 'Christian convert'. Doctor Who [aka 'Doctor Woke'] featured Mary Seacole and praised her to the skies. Ex-BBC reporter Martin Bell said that parts of the BBC's output “are now so lopsided that they need serious review through the lens of the principles that guided us.” Huw Edwards was “spoken to” by the BBC after tweeting that he felt uncomfortable about a portrait of a Waterloo 'hero' being taken down by an art gallery. The BBC partially distanced itself from Stonewall but their new diversity training scheme was described as Stonewall ‘in all but name’. The BBC's reporting of Claudia Webbe MP's sentencing was very low-key, not making that day's Newsnight or News at Ten. Andrew Marr announced his intention to leave the BBC to be free of BBC rules so he can speak out on climate. On the migrant crisis in the Channel, Mark Easton argued that it's not a big deal, the government's pandering to pro-Brexit sentiment over the issue, and what problems exist are because of Brexit, and there's nothing we can legally do to stop the poor migrants in their dinghies, and don't even mention concerns about terrorism. and please think of the migrant children. Newsnight's Ben Chu dismissed concerns as a “gut reaction”. Following the tragedy in the Channel, the BBC fired on all cylinders to spin the story in particular directions and Mark Easton attempted a statistical sleight-of-hand over asylum seeker numbers. Roger Harrabin announced he was leaving the BBC and Jon Sopel left the USA.

December

This was the month of Partygate. Andrew Marr presented his final BBC show, leaving to become a chief writer for The New Statesman, among other things. Michael Buerk said that Radio 4 is becoming “increasingly woke”. The BBC was late on parade reporting the antisemitic incident in Oxford Street and then caused a furore when its reporting cast slurs on the victims. The Simon Wiesenthal Center placed the BBC third behind Iran and Hamas on their Global Antisemitism Top Ten List, believing the corporation to be guilty of several instances of antisemitism this year. The BBC ruled against their gender and identity reporter Megha Mohan for disobeying the BBC guideline saying “Staff should also not post offensive or derogatory comments or content on social media and avoid abusing their position as a BBC employee in personal interactions” after she joined in an intense Twitter pile-on by hardline trans activists against a woman. She then deleted and un-deleted her Twitter account. Mike Wendling, editor of BBC Trending and the BBC News team investigating disinformation, got into another Twitter spat defending an indefensibly biased article about mandatory vaccinations. In the wake of research by the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity the BBC committed themselves to avoid the BAME acronym “wherever possible”. The 100 Women 2021 featured two trans women [i.e. men]. The BBC upheld a complaint against Justin Rowlatt after he said the UK offshore wind industry is “now virtually subsidy free” and a viewer complained that wasn't true. The BBC reported the outcome of the Jussie Smollett trial by omitting details and deracialising the story. New BBC culture editor Katie Razzall has presented biased reports on a transgender row and cancel culture in comedy this month. The BBC's Ros Atkins found fame with his “assertive impartiality”. Ex-BBC editor Rob Burley objected to a “class of super-managers who have become v powerful” at the corporation. A BBC whistleblower wrote a piece for The Spectator about how the BBC “lost its way” and “failed in its reporting on the pandemic”. Two former senior BBC editors, Roger Mosey and Richard Sambrook, told Parliament that younger BBC journalists do not understand impartiality and confuse it with “social justice”. It emerged that 56% of the BBC’s television output is repeats. Laura Kuenssberg confirmed that she's stepping down as BBC political editor.

Sue and Craig's Festive Christmas End of 2019 Quiz

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The BBC's Mark Easton has a quiz prepared, and was tweeting about it yesterday:

When you emerge on Thursday, please check out my Boxing Day Family Puzzler - an antidote to festive quizzes. No-one is expected to know any of the answers. Points for the least wrong. Available on the BBC News website with a picture of me in a Christmas hat.

He always does a quiz at this time of year, and I admire him for that. I myself love preparing quizzes, so Sue and myself have been preparing one for you too - and, going one better than Mark, you won't have to wait till Boxing Day.

So, today, on Christmas Day (when we've timed it to pop up), if everything you're seeing on TV is over-familiar and over-predictable and you've eaten too much and are fed up of board games and people texting you and are starting to get bored, then why not try this fun-filled, festive, full-length flibbertigibbet of a quiz instead?

The answers will be posted below. (No cheating!)

And, again, Merry Christmas!

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Sue and Craig's Festive Christmas End of 2019 Quiz

Questions

January 2019

1. Which BBC football programme presenter was shamed into deleting a tweet (without admitting as much) after embarrassingly falling for a 'scaremongering' hoax about post-Brexit medicine shortages?

2. Which BBC programme appointed as its economics editor someone who'd previously, whilst in a similar position at The Independent, attacked Brexiteers as “xenophobes” and called politicians like Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg “intellectual and moral pygmies”?

3. Which BBC Breakfast presenter, talking to an EU-sympathetic think-tanker, opined "I don't understand, or lots of people don't understand, why we spend so much time talking about Nigel Farage"?

4. Which Today presenter was dispatched to Gaza, with predictable results?

5. Who was new Question Time host Fiona Bruce accused by Corbynistas of joking about in the pre-programme audience warm-up, especially over her sexual relationship with Jeremy Corbyn?

February 2019

6. Which BBC Panorama reporter was recorded (via undercover filming) saying "Here I am on expenses in the boozer, with a dog and a fire...I think we should have one more bottle of wine. F*ck it. No expense spared! Two brandies, two lemoncellos. Urm. this is Creme de Cassis. Er, urm, the Kir royale. Even better is another version which is, urm, er, blackberry. Blackberrent...liqueur and Champagne. Kir royale. How you got any flaming Sambuca? And then two Kir royale. And then the bill"?

7. Which BBC flagship news programme had to apologise to Richard Tice, formerly of Leave.EU, for "unintentionally" suggesting he was subject to an Electoral Commission investigation when he wasn't?

8. The team behind a long-running BBC Radio 4 programme was 'given impartiality training' in the wake of one of its main presenters "showing bias against US Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh". Which presenter? And which programme?

March 2019

9. Which BBC documentary presenter was accused of being a "white saviour" by David Lammy MP?

10. Which controversial item of clothing was chosen and shown in a positive light as part of the BBC's "Wardrobe of Rebellion" feature for International Women's Day?

11. On From Our Own Correspondent, which European leader did Stephen Sackur call 'vain' and 'shameless' and accuse of 'dog-whistling' over George Soros?

12. Parliament's Public Accounts Committee accused the BBC of "complacency" after a £87 million project to rebuild the set of which BBC TV programme ran £27 million over budget and five years behind schedule?

13. Which senior BBC figure said we should stop using the phrase 'mainstream media' because it's "a term of abuse" and "an assault on freedom of expression"?

14. After seven months of going through the BBC's complaints process, a viewer's complaint that a senior BBC reporter’s statement “210 million containers a year will be potentially added to those requiring customs checks” was misleading was upheld. The senior BBC reporter was reminded to be more "careful" with statistics. Which senior BBC reporter?

15. The BBC agreed to pay substantial libel damages to the president of which country after wrongly claiming he had been involved in making a secret $400,000 payment to Donald Trump’s lawyer in return for access to the US president?

April 2019

16. Which "literally a communist" 'journalist' made her first but far from final appearance on Question Time?

17. Which BBC fact-checker got his figures wrong over US food safety while berating the US ambassador for doing the same on the Today programme, forcing a BBC retraction?

18. Which BBC Breakfast presenter provoked Fran Unsworth into another plea for BBC journalists to stop sounding off in non-impartial ways on Twitter after he objected to an audience member on Question Time being allowed to ask, "Is it morally right that five-year-old children learn about LGBT issues in school"?

19. Which 'Maze-guarding' former BBC foreign correspondent/newsreader accused he BBC of excluding working-class talent in favour of "gilded youth", and said that the BBC is dominated by "a metropolitan middle class" and that it has a "world view" that's "bound to reflect the collective set of assumptions of those who work for it"?

20. Which Radio 4 journalist/presenter declared that his holiday reading would be Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Corbynista Aaron Bastani?

May 2019

21. From John Simpson to John Sweeney, from Danny Shaw to Quentin Somerville and Emily Maitlis, which then minister and future Conservative leadership contender received accolades galore from admiring BBC journalists? 

22. Who was sacked by the BBC after posting an image on Twitter of a couple holding hands with a chimpanzee dressed in clothes, adding the caption: "Royal Baby leaves hospital"?

23. Which party leader got dropped at the last minute from Have I Got News For You because of the start of the European election campaign, provoking fury from #FBPE types on Twitter?

24. After the appointment of a working-class Yorkshire man, Simon Armitage, to the post of Poet Laureate, which BBC journalist asked him, "Did it cross your mind, even for a moment, when you were offered the post to say, 'you know, actually, I don't think this is right at this stage for a white male. Maybe someone from a different point of view, a different background, would be better for this role at this moment?"

25. During an interview, who did Andrew Marr insist had never said 'No deal is better than a bad deal' before June 2016 ("I've gone back, and if you said it, you said it away from the cameras and the microphones", "Because I can't find examples of you saying this...", "We can't find it"), despite it being very easy to find footage of that politician saying exactly that in front of cameras and microphones?

June 2019

26. Who had to delete a tweet that described Donald Trump as "an embarrassment who lacks any kind of dignity and has interfered outrageously in our national affairs"?

27. Which TV programme had a segment on UK land ownership and tax avoidance which featured campaigners from Friends of the Earth and the Tax Justice Network and ended with the BBC reporter saying "It's clearly very important that the countryside doesn't simply become a tax haven for the super rich"?

28. During her introduction, which BBC Two presenter described Donald Trump as an "angry toddler"?

29, Who did Paul Danahar, BBC News' Americas Bureau chief, get into a Twitter spat with after tweeting "unless you have 30 mins to kill you can skip this one" about the other man's exclusive interview with Donald Trump?

30. Who got into trouble after making a joke about throwing battery acid over politicians she didn't like?

July 2019

31. Which host of the BBC's Dateline London proved herself to be no Gavin Esler by telling her guests "We don't have a firm Brexiteer on this panel today, so I'm not going to let you make any Remoaning speeches"?

32. Which BBC reporter said of Tommy Robinson, “He became obsessed with his belief that Muslims were predisposed to violence because of the Koran. It was his ticket to a new way of making money”?

33. Which six-letter word did the BBC's Nick Bryant repeatedly use to describe Donald Trump's tweets about the four left-wing US congresswoman of colour?

August 2019

34. Which Radio 4 presenter posed this question: "Key question: if we (in the media aspiring to be neutral) call Marine Le Pen "far right", should we not call President Trump the same?"

35. Who is the BBC's "gender and identity correspondent", responsible for for producing what Sue called "a nasty little propaganda film" about Israel.

September 2019

36. Of which Labour MP and former Mastermind contestant was Andrew Neil speaking when he tweeted that "he has an agenda that doesn’t involve facts. Quite Trumpian really"?.

37. Which woman who endorsed the spray painting of anti-Israel slogans on the remaining Warsaw Ghetto wall was invited to appear as an expert in the BBC Two series The Rise of the Nazis, to the horror of many?

38. Who is the President of the European Broadcasting Union?

39. A film by BBC Teach told teachers in charge of pupils aged 9-12 to teach that there are how many gender identities?

40. Speaking at an event just after new PM Boris Johnson, which BBC Breakfast presenter quipped " I am a girly swat and I'm proud of it... Let's see who's in the job the longest!"? (She left her job at the BBC for Channel 4 a month later, while Boris won the election in December!).

41. Who was the subject of the BBC Two documentary Conspiracy Files: The Billionaire Global Mastermind?, a fierce defence of its subject?

42. Which veteran BBC reporter declared on his podcast, "I find myself, against my will really but, thinking and arguing in favour of the old ways where an elite is responsible for putting out the news"?

43. Who, immediately after retiring from the BBC, revealed that the expressions on BBC bosses' faces on the morning after the EU referendum "were as grim as the look on the face of a football supporter when his team’s star player misses the penalty that would have won them the cup...Leave had won — and this was not what the BBC had expected. Nor what it wanted"?

44. What job at the BBC does Ben Hunte hold? And who criticised him for saying that he would be a "mouthpiece" for a certain section of society?

45. The BBC's Executive Complaints Unit ruled against which presenter for "the persistent and personal nature of the criticism" during her interview with Rod Liddle?

46. During a phone-in which BBC presenter said "Yawn" to a member of the public when they raised the subject of BBC bias?

47. Which Radio 4 presenter described Boris's prorogation of Parliament as a "wheeze", a "dodge" and a "trick"?

48. Who personally intervened to overturn a BBC ruling against Naga Munchetty for expressing a critical opinion about Donald Trump?

October 2019

49. Who left the BBC after 17 years, later saying that the BBC's failure to show his Tommy Robinson film led him to seek psychiatric help?

50. Who stopped doing Radio 4's Thought for the Day in protest at the BBC stopping one of his scripts commemorating an executed Sikh guru who had opposed the forced conversion of Hindus to Islam under India's Mughal emperors “because it might offend Muslims”?

51. The BBC ruled against which BBC presenter for misspeaking Jeremy Hunt's surname on Radio 5 Live and not apologising promptly enough?

52. Which ardent Remainer has been appointed the BBC's first Director of Creative Diversity?

53. Which Radio 4 presenter put the following question to Rory Stewart: "You mention you're proud of the diversity of the mayoral race in London. You are a white guy, an old Etonian. It's not very 2020, is it really, to be challenging a black man who is the Conservative candidate and the Muslim mayor?"?

54. Which Radio 4 presenter gave John Humphrys "a hard time" for reading the Daily Mail, according to John Humphrys?

55. Who complained to the BBC when they described him as a "Labour activist" in a report, describing it as "a grotesque level of bias"?

56. Who did Andrew Marr tell off, live on air, for laughing - even though she wasn't laughing?

57. Who did Nick Robinson say shouldn't be a presenter on LBC, saying his two-hour show there is a "great danger"?

58. Of whose use of Facebook to speak directly to voters did Nick Robinson say "And they say that’s democracy. It ain’t democracy. It is a form of propaganda used by dictators down the ages"?

59. A few days before Boris Johnson negotiated a new withdrawal deal with the EU, which BBC editor proclaimed that was "not going to happen", doubling down on her prediction the week before that "the chances of getting a deal now, between now and the EU leader's summit is zero, let's be honest"?

60. Who told his listeners, "Boris Johnson got a deal that many of us thought was impossible. The EU did move, contrary to its own assertions, to those of many experts and to the assumptions of many of us in the media"?

61. Who took the BBC to court because she gets paid around £2,500 less per edition than Jeremy Vine for doing what she considers equivalent programmes?

November 2019

62. Which BBC Breakfast presenter mishandled an interview with Harvey Proctor forcing him to have to fight for an apology, which he eventually won?

63. Who saved the day for the BBC when the Berlin Wall came down, at least according to John Simpson in his documentary The Fall of the Berlin Wall with John Simpson?

64. Which former Labour Party activist turned Sky reporter was announced as Newsnight's new policy editor?

65. What do Greta Thunberg, Lady Hale, Grayson Perry, George the Poet and Charles Moore have in common?

66. Who told Peter Oborne that he sounded "crackers" after he compared the BBC to "state TV in Soviet Russia"?

67. The BBC asked which political party to remove 'BBC content' from their election adverts?

68. Which BBC interviewer wrote "to go for ‘car crash’ moments would be folly and a disgrace. It’s a temptation (just wallow in the Twitter applause) which must be resisted. If I’ve fallen into it, I hereby apologise"?

69. During the election footage emerged of which party leader telling Iranian TV that pressure from Israel was responsible for the BBC having "a bias" in favour of saying that Israel is a democracy and has a right to exist?

December 2019

70. According to this blog, how many times did Andrew Marr interrupt Boris Johnson during that interview? (You're allowed ten out either way!)

71. Who tweeted the following: "Enjoyed Andrew Marr's combative interview with Boris Johnson, but if BJ doesn’t now commit to a grilling from Andrew Neil, he’ll be vulnerable to Thatcher’s old accusation of being ‘frit’"?

72. Which BBC comedian got booed and a bread roll thrown at him while performing his Radio 4 humour in front of a non-BBC audience?

73. Who ended his interview programme by saying, "But the Prime Minister of our nation will at times have to stand up to President Trump, President Putin, President Xi of China, so it was surely not expecting too much that he spent half an hour standing up to me"? And did the Prime Minister spend half an hour with him as a result?

74. Who got into trouble for 'liking' a video bearing the GMB logo which ended with an attack on the Tories over the NHS but excused himself by saying he'd not watched it to the end before adding that he'd never apologise for supporting the NHS?

75. During an interview, Andrew Marr told Brandon Lewis MP that he is Security Minister, Justice Minister and Conservative Party Chairman. How many of those three positions does Mr Lewis actually hold?

76. Towards the end of the election who said, "How long can you justify a system whereby everybody who has a TV has to pay to fund a particular set of TV and radio channels, that is the question"?

77. Which senior BBC reporter was accused of breaking electoral law (something the BBC denies) by passing on 'hints' from people on both sides that postal votes were "looking grim for Labour in lots of parts of the country" and accused of bias and inaccuracy for tweeting fake news about a Conservative advisor being punched?

78. During election night, who tweeted "Another battle verdict: social media - overwhelmingly livelier and funnier on the pro Labour side - thumped in terms of influence by dull, dreary, pro-establishment old media...Who’d ‘a thunk it?"?

79. During election night, which Newsnight stalwart tweeted, "Time for soul searching in political parties - but also for big media. Has quest for 'gotcha' moments become meaningless? Did the boy in Leeds hospital or BoJo blanking Andrew Neil move the dial in any way?" before veering back and adding, "Voters are in their own silos now, social media battleground key"?

80. Who, late on election night, got a real bee in his bonnet over Boris Johnson talking of "the people's government", saying, " We don't like 'the people's' used in that context, in this country. It's a bit French or even possibly Russian. 'The people's' - it's slightly odd...We have a parliamentary democracy and the people are represented by all sorts of other people", then demanding, "Huw, could we just dwell a little bit more on that phrase "the people's government?" and, after being allowed to do so, ending, "It rings slightly oddly in my ears"?

81. Which senior BBC reporter's main initial response to the election result was to retweet the Electoral Reform Society?

82. Which famous funny man [disputed] said of the BBC, "They would rather have a dog do Doctor Who than a black person”?

83. Which BBC flagship programme is Downing Street reported to be avoiding, post-election, over concerns about bias?

84. Newsnight's Kirsty Wark, recalling "shared moments" of the past decade, named which controversial rap singer, who the BBC then chose to crown their Christmas Day programming with?

85. Which senior BBC figure ended the year on a note of supreme BBC complacency by writing, "Around 27m people in the UK came to the BBC website to find out about the election results. It was a reminder of the trust people place in the BBC. Yes of course we faced some criticism for our election coverage. That is to be expected as the national broadcaster. Where we can and need to improve we will. But the fact criticism came from all sides of the political divide shows to me that we were doing our job without fear or favour"?

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Answers 

1. Gary Lineker

2. Newsnight (Ben Chu)

3. Naga Munchetty

4. Mishal Husain

5. Diane Abbott

6. John Sweeney

7. Newsnight

8. Jane Garvey, Woman's Hour

9. Stacey Dooley

10. The niqab

11. Viktor Orban

12. Eastenders

13. Lord Tony Hall

14. Mark Easton

15. Ukraine

16. Ash Sarkar

17. Chris Morris

18. Ben Thompson

19. Michael Buerk

20. Mark Mardell

21. Rory Stewart

22. Danny Baker

23. Change UK/TIG's Heidi Allen

24. Will Gompertz

25. Nigel Farage

26. John Simpson

27. Countryfile

28. Emily Maitlis

29. Piers Morgan

30. Jo Brand

31. Carrie Gracie

32. Dominic Casciani

33. racist

34. Evan Davis

35. Megha Mohan

36. David Lammy

37. Ash Sarkar

38. Lord Tony Hall

39. 100, "if not more".

40. Steph McGovern

41. George Soros

42. John Simpson

43. John Humphrys

44. LGBT correspondent. John Humphrys

45. Emily Maitlis

46. Emma Barnett

47. Evan Davis

48. Lord Tony Hall

49. John Sweeney

50. Lord Indarjit Singh

51. Nicky Campbell

52. June Sarpong

53. Justin Webb

54. Sarah Montague

55. Owen Jones

56. Priti Patel

57. Nigel Farage

58. Boris Johnson

59. Katya Adler

60. Evan Davis

61. Samira Ahmed

62. Naga Munchetty

63. John Simpson

64. Lewis Goodall

65. Guest editors on 'Today' this Christmas

66. Huw Edwards

67. The Conservative Party

68. Andrew Marr

69. Jeremy Corbyn

70. 91

71. John Simpson

72. Nish Kumar

73. Andrew Neil. No.

74. Huw Edwards

75. One (Security Minister only)

76. Boris Johnson

77. Laura Kuenssberg

78. Andrew Marr

79. Mark Urban

80. Andrew Marr

81. Mark Easton

82. Sir Lenny Henry

83. Today

84. Stormzy

85. Sir Tony Hall