A leaked recording reveals the BBC’s Director General Tim Davie expressing pride in the corporation’s progressive agenda, stoking the ongoing debate over the Beeb’s impartiality. The Telegraph has the story.
In a leaked recording, Tim Davie said the BBC walked a “joyous tightrope of the culture wars”, and said “being progressive” was something staff “should be proud of”.
He made the remarks during an online question and answer session with employees, in which he said the corporation was “fair and balanced technically in terms of impartiality” in its coverage and did not have “party political bias”.
However, critics of the BBC reacted angrily to Mr. Davie’s comments, which came to light after the Telegraph acquired footage of the meeting in January 2021, claiming they amounted to a political position.
In the recording, a BBC employee told Mr. Davie there was “a real perception out there that we haven’t done enough to tackle impartiality, that we need to ‘de-woke’,” and asked him: “How would you respond to that?”.
Mr. Davie said: “We do a reasonably good job of walking along the joyous tightrope of the culture wars where, being progressive, diverse, doing the things we should be proud of, is not woke. But meanwhile, we’ve got to make sure that we are clearly representing views from across the board.”
Responding to the Telegraph’s findings, a BBC spokesman said the Director General meant progressive “in relation to areas like market-led technological change” and that “any other interpretation is wrong”.
Dame Priti Patel, a former Home Secretary, told the Telegraph: “The BBC once again have serious questions to answer over their political bias and culture.
“The public expects this taxpayer-funded broadcaster to be impartial, balanced and fair. But these latest revelations show they are obsessed with promoting a liberal metropolitan elitist agenda that most of the country disapproves of.”
Worth reading in full.
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