BBC Bias - it is what they don't do

It is easy to think that Bias at the BBC is somehow put into a manifesto that you can print out as a PDF. No, of course, they are much cleverer than that. Bias at the Corporation is more along the lines of self-censorship. You would no more evince Right wing views at Broadcasting House than you would make jokes about Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin - you only have to read of the experiences of people like Jeff Randall, a former BBC business editor who wore Union Jack cufflinks to work, only to be told that he looked like a National Front sympathiser. Many insiders complain of not being able to come out as Tories.

And so to Lord Taylor of Warwick - whose case gives an insight into the inner points-scoring system that news editors have. Taylor has been the latest politician to be unmasked as a fraudster (See Here).

As the BBC news editors see it, Taylor is a Tory (Bad)
He is a peer (not so bad now that they are all political appointees)
And BLACK which is so good that all mention of him has either been expunged or it never existed, in clear adherence to the principles of the Ministry of Truth.

The Times has run with it, The Telegraph has run with it, as have the Daily Mail and the Birmingham Post. At the BBC it has been buried.

But in the interests of balance on this blog here is a quite bizarre (and neo-colonial) factoid.... The BBC employs more members of ethnic minorities than their true representation in the population - but they are mostly cleaners and domestic staff. As Stephen K Amos wryly observed on Black Talent at the BBC, "I am waiting for Lenny Henry to die".