The British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) implosion should serve as a warning to Western media about the perils of government-run journalism, The Wall Street Journal editorial board argued this week.
In the Nov. 11 piece titled “The Bias Meltdown at the BBC,” the Journal said the taxpayer-funded broadcaster is in crisis after Director-General Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness resigned amid accusations that its “Panorama” program doctored footage of President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech before the Capitol riot. Trump later threatened to sue the network for $1 billion over the edited footage.
According to whistleblower Michael Prescott — a former adviser to the broadcaster’s internal standards committee — producers spliced together clips filmed roughly 50 minutes apart to make it appear that Trump urged supporters to storm the Capitol. Prescott first alerted The Telegraph to the edited footage.
The Journal said “Panorama” compounded the deception by running footage of the Proud Boys marching toward Capitol Hill after the fake clip, “creating the impression they had heeded his call to action.” In reality, the Proud Boys footage was filmed before Trump’s speech began.
“Forget media bias – this is an alternate dimension of reality,” the editorial board wrote.
The paper also cited Prescott’s leaked memo, which outlined multiple cases in which political activism appeared to drive the network’s reporting.
According to the Journal, the memo shows that the BBC’s coverage of “transgender” issues was driven by an “‘LGBTQ’ desk within the newsroom that suppressed liberal orthodoxy.” Prescott also said the network produced a “surprisingly high number of stories about drag queens,” while dismissing concerns over medical interventions for people experiencing gender dysphoria.
He further charged that the BBC’s coverage of the war in Gaza relied heavily on reporting critical of Israel and that its Arabic-language service routinely failed to translate or publish stories showing Israel in a positive light.
“[T]his is a parable about the perils of public ownership of the means of producing anything, especially news,” the Journal argued.
All British households that watch live television — regardless of whether they view BBC programs or not — must pay a £174.50 annual “license fee” or face a fine of £1,000, the Journal reported. The tax generates £3.8 billion each year.
“The reality is that once you’ve created a publicly owned company of any sort, it’s all but impossible for a conservative to control,” the Journal added. “Mr. Trump, having had his own brush with the BBC this weekend, can reflect on that as he pursues big-government industrial policies in plenty of other industries closer to home.”