Criticism ebbs and flows at the BBC, and then suddenly engulfs the corporation in waves. It happened with the Gary Lineker controversy, which prompted a standoff, a mutiny and yet another bout of BBC bashing over impartiality. Typically the hardest kicks have come from figures on the political right, complaining that the BBC is leftwing.Thirty-five years ago, when I joined the corporation, they would have had a much stronger case. Back then, the default framing for much of the news agenda was indeed set by the Guardian: there was no shame in spouting what may have been described as Guardianesque views at the morning meeting of the World at One or the PM programme.Rightwingers were regarded as a curiosity; the BBC found it hard to recruit them. Still, even then, a few influential Tory supporters strode the corridors of Broadcasting House. I remember, on the verge of an election, one Conservative-leaning editor boosted the incumbent government by broadcasting a ludicrously optimistic economic forecast. It was an outrageous moment of scheduling, and when the Tories were re-elected he openly triumphed: “We did it!”But if the predominant BBC bias in those days was inarguably anti-Conservative, there was later a massive shift, partly prompted by the arrival in 2001 of a new business editor, Jeff Randall – previously of the Sunday Telegraph. He judged (rightly) that BBC news coverage was anti-business, and he set about changing attitudes and agendas, supported by senior managers.The message percolated. One senior executive on the Today programme, for instance, warned his team that on the way in from home, his reading of choice was the Telegraph. There was cause and effect: a right-wards shift in news values, framing and priorities. It was a correction that was needed, and successful – so now it’s time for the attacks to be toned down.Take Brexit, when both sides argued that the BBC was against them. I felt the BBC appeared to be pro-Brexit. It regularly brandished the term “Brexiteers” – with a buccaneering suffix also applying to musketeers and grenadiers. “Brexiters” would have been more neutral.The Today programme’s business editor was told, perfectly reasonably, to ensure that half the interviewees in the business slots were pro-Brexit. When he replied that only a handful of business leaders favoured leaving the EU, the overall Today editor was told to make up for the deficit by featuring extra Brexiters in the main body of the programme. That may have had a significant effect. Repeated appearances by a small group of anti-EU business voices may well have helped the audience to know and trust them.And still the pressure from the right continues, partly to achieve ideological compliance, but also via complaints designed to keep pressure on the organisation, a long favoured tactic. A few years back, one noted Conservative influencer was in a debate with a leftwing broadcaster on The World Tonight. The opponent was shocked at the Tory’s full-frontal assault on BBC impartiality. “You don’t really think all that, do you?” the broadcaster asked as they left the studio. “No,” replied the Tory, “but you’ve got to keep these buggers on their toes.”Complaining, even overcomplaining, often works, as a small band of climate-denier activists have proved over the years with their incessant complaints to the BBC. These attacks through the editorial complaints unit devour editorial time, so some editors prefer to appease the complainant by altering an online story, perhaps, rather than standing firm and facing possible rebuke from the unit.The BBC, in fact, is generally susceptible to bullying through attrition. In a 2011 report, I mentioned the vast carbon emissions caused by HS2. An editor told me to tone it down. I complied, but he insisted that my revised version was still not neutral enough. The firm responsible for HS2 (with its army of PRs) always complained, he said – and he simply didn’t have the time to deal with it.Then there’s the issue of interviewee choice. It’s relatively easy to seize air time if you’re on a Conservative thinktank, but people on the left of Labour are often treated with caution or distain. The Guardian’s George Monbiot, one of the world’s leading green leftwing thinkers, tells me he’s been on Radio 4 just a handful of times in a decade. By contrast, his nemesis Minette Batters from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) is given frequent air time as if she is an independent analyst. I was once asked not to say in a script that the acronym NFU stands for the farmers’ union. No reason was given.The BBC is certainly nervous of being described as “Guardianista”. I argued before leaving the organisation that we should use other terms to refer to “climate change”, such as “global heating” and the “climate crisis”. I was told that as the Guardian had adopted this vocabulary, the BBC couldn’t be seen to be following their lead.The truth is that BBC staff overwhelmingly strive for political impartiality. Over several years, I infuriated my colleagues on the science desk by regularly including comments from Nigel Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Forum in my online stories – until it had been proved wrong on so many issues.More recently, the corporation’s green coverage has come under fire from the other direction, with the radical campaigners Extinction Rebellion accusing it of failing to accord the planetary crisis its proper prominence. They worry about the effect of outside forces on the coverage, but the science team’s biggest challenge is much more mundane. The reason the climate crisis doesn’t lead the TV news every night is because, while it is hugely important, it’s not new.Former colleagues say there is still an acknowledgment of the seriousness of the issue, and an effort to promote environmental stories such as today’s ominous assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But it’s hard to be forever creative enough for the stories to have the impact they deserve.I left the corporation last July, and in my post-BBC role as a speaker/facilitator on the environment I was asked at a recent conference whether I thought Labour would be better than the Conservatives on the climate agenda. As I opened my mouth to answer, I sensed the familiar BBC impartiality filter descending. Then I remembered that it no longer applies. “Yes,” I said. “Labour will almost certainly be better than Tories on climate – Ed Miliband committed himself to the low-carbon economy years ago.”I felt a physical sensation of relief at being able after decades to give an unambiguous political answer. Having left the BBC, I could tell that simple, obvious truth.
- The views on this post is of Roger Harrabin who is an energy and environment analyst and a former BBC correspondent.
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