BBC Internal Memo Admits Anti-Christian Bias
By Gudrun Schultz
LONDON, United Kingdom, October 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The British Broadcasting Corporation has admitted to a marked bias against Christianity and a strong inclination to pro-Muslim reporting among the network’s executives and key anchors, in a leaked account of an “impartiality summit.”
The Daily Mail reported Sunday on the secret London meeting of key executives, called by BBC chairman Michael Grade and hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley. The report revealed that many senior executives are deeply frustrated with the corporation’s commitment to “political correctness” and liberal policies at the expense of journalistic integrity and objectivity.
BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals. They acknowledged that ethnic minorities held a disproportionate number of positions and said the BBC deliberately encourages multiculturalism and is more careful to avoid offending the Muslim community than Christians, .
Tossing the Bible into a garbage can on a comedy show would be acceptable, they said, but not the Koran, and if possible they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden, giving him the opportunity to explain his views.
“The BBC is not impartial or neutral,” said Andrew Marr, senior political commentator with the corporation. “It’s a publicly funded, urban organization with a abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.”
Senior executives raised a chorus of complaints against the corporation for bias against the United States and strongly anti-national reporting. Justin Webb, Washington correspondent, said anti-American sentiment runs so deep in the corporation that the U.S. is treated with scorn and derision and given “no moral weight.”
“There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness,” said one senior executive. “Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture that it is very hard to change it.”
Mary Fitzpatrick, who oversees the corporation’s “diversity” policies, said Muslim women readers for BBC News should be permitted to wear veils while on air, if they choose, afterà a female newsreader caused a stir by wearing a visible cross on air. Ms. Fitzpatrick also defended the BBC against internal accusations of selective reporting on issues critical of the black community.
Andrew Marr, in an interview with the Mail, said, “The BBC must always try to reflect Britain, which is mostly a provincial, middle-of-the-road country. Britain is not a mirror image of the BBC or the people who work for it.”
During the recent international upheaval over Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on Islam, the BBC was accused by media watchers of deliberately inflaming the Muslim community worldwide through biased and inflammatory coverage. Political commentator David Warren, writing for the Ottawa Citizen, said the BBC was “having a little mischief. The kind of mischief that is likely to end with Catholic priests and faithful butchered around the Muslim world.”
The international uproar led to retaliatory attacks in Israel against Christian churches and clergy, and the murder of a nun in Somalia.
Read Daily Mail coverage:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=411846&in_page_id=1770#StartComments
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
BBC, NY Times and Guardian Appear to Have Stage-Managed Muslim Anti-Pope Hatred
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/sep/06091805.html
BBC Takes “Sensational, Misleading” Shot at Pope Benedict
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/oct/06100208.html