In 2017 the BBC announced its intention to assemble a dedicated team “to fact check and debunk deliberately misleading and false stories masquerading as real news”. News chief James Harding proclaimed that the Reality Check team would be “weighing in on the battle over lies, distortions and exaggerations”. Harding continued: “The BBC can’t edit the internet, but we won’t stand aside either.” Harding goes further to say the corporation had been inundated by news in 2016 because the world was “living in an age of instability”.
It appears that the BBC has not coped particularly well with this excess of news and the methods employed by the Reality Check team have not generated the desired outcome. According to data compiled by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, the BBC has experienced a decline in public trust from 75% to just 55%, with other mainstream TV broadcasters and print news suffering a similar decline over the same period, from 2018-2022. Further to this, the most recent global annual report published by the Edelman Trust Barometer placed the U.K. in 26th position, ahead of only South Korea and Japan in terms of public faith in media. The survey clearly tells us that the U.K. remains one of the countries with the lowest faith in media.
So what is driving this decline in trust? Is fake news to blame? Or, paradoxically, could the efforts of the BBC to counter such stories be exposing its own limitations? A typical example of how BBC Reality Check chooses to ‘weigh in’ is illustrated in this 2022 report, ‘Does video show Russian prisoners being shot?‘ The report is unable to provide sufficient evidence to ‘debunk’ the authenticity of the footage, which, the BBC states, “has been claimed to show Ukrainian soldiers shooting Russian prisoners of war”. Instead, it offers the reader a discourse, the content of which is clearly riddled with omission, selection and presentation bias. The report reads like a crude attempt to defend a narrative, rather than an objective attempt to elucidate a news story.
Consider this shocking statistic: only two of every 10 people in the U.K. feel that the news media is “independent from undue political or Government influence most of the time”. This ranks us 16th among the 24 nations surveyed, on a par with Romania.
I do not mention this to slight other nations, but to illustrate the point that our much vaunted media landscape is not the envy of the world as we are often led to believe.
Against this background, with such a prolonged and substantial decline in trust, what action is our national broadcaster taking to rebuild it? One might expect the BBC to reflect on its output, a period of introspection perhaps, an honest assessment of mistakes that have been made, a promise to learn from them and do better in the future. But no – the BBC has concluded that the problem is you: your inability to separate fact from fiction and your inability to appreciate the hard work that goes into getting the truth to your television.
So in order to help us, the BBC has a launched a new initiative, BBC Verify, “a new brand within our brand” aiming to “pull back the curtain on our journalists’ investigative work and introduce radical transparency”.
Deborah Turness, the Chief Executive of BBC News and Current Affairs, writes:
The exponential growth of manipulated and distorted video means that seeing is no longer believing. Consumers tell us they can no longer trust that the video in their news feeds is real. Which is why we at the BBC must urgently begin to show and share the work we do behind the scenes to check and verify information and video content before it appears on our platforms. All day, every day, the BBC’s news teams are using ever more sophisticated tools, techniques and technology to check and verify videos like the Kremlin drone footage, as well as images and information… but, until now, that work has largely gone on in the background, unseen by audiences.
The implication being presented here is that the BBC’s output is not at fault, but it is our perception of its output that is defective and BBC Verify is designed to correct our misconceptions. It is with circular, or perhaps spurious, reasoning that the BBC chooses not to report on its own decline in trust and then circumvents any discussion of this fact by creating a unit to verify the trustworthiness of content available on other platforms.
Turness kindly provides us with a link to “give people a taste of what Verify will be doing, day in, day out”. The video, presented by BBC Verify editor Ros Atkins, analyses footage of the apparent attack on the Kremlin and one can assume that this is the best current example of the BBC’s forensic capabilities. I would urge readers to view this report and, like the roof of the Kremlin, prepare not to be blown away!
We are informed that BBC Verify will foster the investigative skills and open source intelligence capabilities of around 60 journalists and experts including the specialist ‘disinformation correspondent’ Marianna Spring.
Marianna helps us in the fight for identifying the perpetrators of misinformation online by listing the “seven types of people who start and spread falsehoods”.
Interestingly, Marianna lists politicians, jokers, scammers, conspiracy theorists, insiders, celebrities and even your relatives as people to be wary of, but fails to acknowledge the role of journalists in the dissemination of ‘fake news’. This is despite contemporary research informing us that British people have among the lowest level of trust in journalists, with only 37% of those surveyed saying that they trusted them, versus a global average of 47%. The report states: “That might indicate that developed countries either have people who are more prone to trusting conspiracy theories or they are experienced enough to know when journalists might be lying.”
The BBC offers no evidence that the former theory rather than the latter is more probable, but it is nonetheless working hard to push the former. A demonstration of this push is apparent in the publicity material for Marianna Spring’s podcast series Marianna in Conspiracyland.
The press release for episode six (airs June 19th Radio 4) states: “Marianna is uniquely equipped to navigate Conspiracyland, having found herself on the frontlines of the battle of online disinformation and hate since those early days of the pandemic. She herself has become a frequent target of this movement.”
Does the movement in question include the eminent doctors and scientists whose voices have been censored and ignored by the mainstream?
Will Marianna act impartially, exercise objectivity and engage with these experts? Will she discuss the substantial body of research that counters the mainstream pandemic and vaccine narrative? Will she detail how our Government delayed the release of statistics revealing that “for healthy 40-49 year-olds almost one million booster shots were required to prevent one ‘severe’ hospital admission”? Or the freedom of information releases from Japan and Australia revealing that vaccine trial data indicated widespread multi-organ bio-distribution of vaccine lipid nano-particles? This was known to authorities but not revealed and it runs counter to assurances given to the public at the time.
Surely, this knowledge is essential to obtain informed consent, especially from those at less risk from infection.
Legitimate concerns of deficiencies within the vaccine trials, regulatory failures and widespread data misrepresentation have been either censored or forced to the periphery of debate. It seems improbable that Marianna will take part in any substantive discussion on these issues, as she has already announced her intention, namely to construct a tenable narrative that links the “growing U.K. conspiracy movement and alternative media” to foreign, far-Right groups and ‘hate’.
To appreciate the ultimate purpose of this podcast and the underlying intention of BBC Verify, we must refer back to James Harding’s comment in 2016 when he intimated that the BBC was unable to fulfil its desire to “edit the internet”. Since then, much has changed; mechanisms that curtail the exchange of information between law-abiding citizens are now well established via the Trusted News initiative (TNI).
The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) is a partnership founded by the BBC in 2019. According to the press release:
TNI members work together to build audience trust and to find solutions to tackle challenges of disinformation. By including media organisations and social media platforms, it is the only forum in the world of its kind designed to take on disinformation in real time.
The public interest argument presented is that the TNI is essential “to protect audiences and users from disinformation, particularly around moments of jeopardy”.
A very basic question regarding this initiative by the BBC remains undetermined, namely: by what authority does the BBC exercise the power to create the TNI? The BBC Charter clearly states: “The BBC must be independent in all matters concerning the fulfilment of its Mission and the promotion of the Public Purposes, particularly as regards to editorial and creative decisions… and in the management of its affairs.”
The charter makes no exception to this rule. One cannot be “independent in all matters” whilst also engaging in discussions about media content with a vast network of international news providers and social media platforms. Currently the partners are listed as: AP, AFP, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Facebook, Financial Times, First Draft, Google/YouTube, the Hindu, Microsoft, Reuters and Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter and the Washington Post.
When our national broadcaster creates an international media partnership whose collective perspective is formed through the lens of official guidance then it becomes less able to fulfil its democratic function: to hold officialdom to account. This partnership makes a mockery of the notion of media plurality and the damage to our democratic values is confounded by its inconspicuous nature.
The editorial independence of the BBC also comes into question when it defines health disinformation as any view that runs counter to official guidance. By taking this stance it becomes unable or unwilling to act as an arbiter of truth in its own right. If the BBC only defines truth via the diktats of Government agencies then its role becomes that of an intermediary, like an arm of Government, acting in a similar fashion to a state broadcaster.
For a damning example of how the TNI creates bias within our media, listen to the story of Mr. John Watt outlined in this video.
Wow – WATCH 'TIL THE END
— BRING_THE_NOISE (@Nohj_85) May 26, 2023
From a Vaccine Injurred person's perspective The @BBCNews 'Disinformation & Social Correspondent' @mariannaspring seems somewhat confused
So I thought I'd help her out by telling some of OUR experiences, debunking some of HER myths & say who she… pic.twitter.com/gP6FYmNBqF
His experience of severe vaccine injury is purged from the internet by multiple platforms. Consequently, his voice and access to communications via the internet are restricted. Of equal importance, a challenge to the unscientific mantra of ‘safe and effective’ is removed from the discourse. John’s story is not disinformation and this type of censorship acts in opposition to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 is clear: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
The question of whether media platforms have the right to censor speech and ban people from communicating will become highly irrelevant once the Online Safety Bill and the EU Digital Services Act become law. Once this happens, Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights looks set to be of limited help.
The BBC should not be coordinating a publicity campaign that falsely implies the only speech these laws will affect are those of far-Right groups, purveyors of ‘hate’ and ‘conspiracy theorists’.
The public deserve a more thorough analysis of how the proposed limits to their communication will remove an essential balance within our society. When diverse voices are supressed, truth and transparency are often the first victims. It is this suppression of ‘unapproved’ viewpoints that has fuelled the rise in alternative media. If the BBC is to regain trust, it should set a path to a return to impartiality.
Shiraz Akram is a member of the Thinking Coalition, a pro-liberty group, highlighting and questioning Government overreach.
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I see the BBC as quite separate from the government. I think they have their own agenda. They are more closely linked to the state than the government. It’s state propaganda more than censorship per se. It’s part of a loose global coalition that is mainly politically left wing and very globalist.
Agreed. It’s the embedded state rather than the elected government. Since the EU took over in the 1990s, the role of elected government has become more ‘theatre’ with the real decisions being made by technocrats.
The only way to get on top of this is for the Civil Service, as is, to be abolished and for incoming governments to bring in their own people to take over. Companies have to be hired to perform particular tasks and, contractually do what the Minister or Secretary of State tells them, with the Secretary of State being in effect the CEO.
The Secretary of State needs to be able to depend on his workers, rather than constantly be on the look out for the far left undermining him. Baroness Thatcher creating the fast stream in order to get bright young people up the greasy pole faster was a good idea, except even by then the universities had been ideologically captured.
Indeed. Good summary.
My Grandfather, a pioneer of radio, was a BBC shareholder in 1921.
He’d be apalled at the what it has become – the UKs best funded political party.
The Unaparty will never defund it. It’s up to us to cancel the fee.
“the UKs best funded political party”
Brilliantly put.
It’s fascinating watching Marianna Spring’s hand and arm movements. With the sound off, she looks like a weather reporter. And I think she would be much more suited to that role and perhaps she should start shopping around now because ‘BBC Verboten’ is clearly not going to go the distance. I love the fact – is it a fact, Marianna? – that verify is a word that means ‘to substantiate’ which in turn means to have substance which in its turn means the very true nature of something. Its essence. And yet all I’m getting is opinion and bias. Anything that THEY do not like, is suddenly fake news and disinformation. They claim to be the trusted source of the truth and that people cannot be trusted to be discerning enough to tell what is truth and what is not and that is dangerous. Like having your own opinions is dangerous especially when backed up by facts. If the BBC was doing their job properly, they would encourage debate and free expression of ideas and then, if they wanted, be able to challenge those ideas by using actual facts. Verify, as it is, is just part of the cartoon fake world.
‘BBC Verify’ is pure Nineteen Eighty-Four ‘Ministry of Information’. They clearly don’t see how demented such a scheme is.
As for the hand movements, that’s BBC training. They all wave their hands and emphasise certain words in the same way. I remember when the year 2010 was spoken as ‘Two Thousand and Ten’, going right back to my childhood when the movie ‘2010: The Year We Make Contact’ came out, but the BBC changed it to ‘Twenty Ten’ and everyone copied them. Up to that point, years were spoken as ‘Two thousand and…’ but someone in that craphole did it to get a power rush. It’s a variant of the ‘Big lie’ which Goebbels used having studied British politicians and media: tell a lie often enough and people believe it.
If she was a weather “reporter”, I think we know what kind of “weather” she’d be reporting, and what she would focus on.
I think people like her just want to feel like they are changing the world, and their career choice comes down to whatever vehicle they can find that allows them to pursue their social justice political agenda. I think the same goes for a lot of people in media, advertising, academia and many other sectors.
Yes, it’s like they’ve all watched All the President’s Men at school, then been shown a lot of activist journalism. Thing is, Watergate was exceptional: it was a regular news story that blew up into something that just happened to change the world. Woodward and Bernstein were looking for a story, not to change the world. Journalism is now in a thrall to activism. It isn’t supposed to be like that. You even see this activist streak on local papers (hence the Plymouth Herald went after the nice couple running a coffee shop during lockdown and got the council and police involved, even stopping members of the public outside, in order to create a story that nearly caused the owners to be imprisoned.)
Good, old-fashioned journalism existed because it was usually dull! I come from a journalist family. I’m in video editing now, but I started in newspapers. A lot of the work is typing up press releases into correct newspaper language, listing cattle sale prices at the local agricultural market in 7pt text at the bottom of page 36, sitting in courtroom all day, because you know that at some point a particular police officer is going to make statement about drugs in the city, making endless phone calls for a story that goes nowhere.
I watched my grandfather phoning in stories to the Telegraph, dictating them over the phone, listened to my Mum interviewing people for feature articles, my Dad taught me how to sub-edit and lay out pages.
In fact, those endless dull hours, putting up with the grind, is where the real contacts are made and where stories can come from in the long term. Even taking an interest in everyday, nice people can bear fruit. Many years ago, my brother broke a big story, because a plumber who had fixed his toilet a couple of weeks earlier was working at a major business on a particular day and heard people gossiping in the corridor. The plumber phoned up my brother, my brother got the information confirmed and it hit the news within the hour, plus the plumber got a little bonus for the info!
That story came from exactly the sort of journalism that is no longer popular. Nowadays, it’s ‘crusading journalism’, which is just political activism.
A lovely summary. Very sad, very true.
It’s in the middle of repeating itself with the Biden bribery issue …. this time the media is bought and paid for.
The arrogance of the BBC is just mind-blowing. Their use of language should be shocking, but is no longer surprising. And BBC Verify’s ‘mission’ has already been declared: they want to find a way tie anything not part of their extremely biased, pink liberal, far left, extremist narrative, to the ‘far right’, which by their definition includes pretty much the entire population!
I’m afraid many authors, back in the 20th century warned us of what would happen, notably George Orwell, A;dous Huxley and Ayn Rand. The BBC is engaging in a ‘war on reality’ where what they want to believe becomes ‘The Truth’, the same way what politicians needed to justify their actions in 2020 became ‘The Science.’
I feel like I’m living in Atlas Shrugged.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/are-you-proud-of-what-we-have-become/
A blunt and honestly bleak appraisal of the thoroughly shit-hole status that this country has descended to and we are still a long way from the bottom.
BBC = Ministry of Truth. I cancelled my TV Licence shortly after their reporting of the plandemic..I haven’t regretted my decision and no longer watch or listen to any mainstream media. It was plain to see what the BBC was doing – ramp up the fear and keep Covid front and centre re the news cycle. Once I turned off the TV, the pandemic disappeared. The Clive Myrie report covering the plandemic in Italy was a low in neutral reporting (as far as I am concerned). I am reassured that the faith in the BBC is plummeting. I am doing my best to encourage friends and family not to watch this tripe and cancel their TV Licence. I hope that people will pull away from watching their TVs and go back to the days where we talk to each other more and read rather than be subject to TV ‘programming’ .
I’m a writer. My job is to tell, and argue for, the truth as I see it in my subject area, for the benefit of those who choose to read what I write.
That might sometimes involve denying someone else’s views where they contradict mine – in which case I’m duty bound to explain their error.
But since I have no parental custody over my readers, it is not my role to protect them in general from what is not true, but to inform them of what (according to me) is true.
It’s hard to see what gives the BBC more responsibility than any other public communicator to seek out lies to debunk, even were they to do it in an unbiased fashion. That it takes on such a role shows that, like the rest of the MSM, it has confused “information” with “authoritarian governance.” The most likely explanation for that seems to be that authoritarian governors, or would-be governors, are privately standing behind it.
The worst thing is the high-handed paternalist attitude to the public. The BBC believes it has the right to determine (and create) what it considers ‘truth’. In the meantime, it infantilises the public by assuming they’re all gullible fools, lacking any critical faculties. The BBC has to be cut off from the public pay purse; their arrogance is now off the scale.
I got this from Michael Wendling, a colleague of Spring’s, back in September 2020 in reply to a complaint I’d made that their coverage of the anti-lockdown protests was not impartial. I think it’s incredibly revealing of their mindset.
“Of course those who believe in conspiracy theories are not going to call their beliefs conspiracy theories, and are going to call themselves mainstream, moderate people.
We viewed footage of the speakers and spoke to people who were there.
We have no obligation to give a platform to erroneous ideas. We don’t, to take an extreme example, broadcast the manifestos of mass murderers alongside police statements so that people can “make up their own minds”.
I’m not saying the people there were violent. Some of them were (as the story reflected) were drawn by legitimate concerns. But the speakers (Mr Icke and others) were not expressing mainstream views that would benefit from airing and debate.“
The obvious solution to the BBC problem is to shut the organisation down. Clearly the general public are too thick to understand how great is the BBC news content so there is no point in continuing to waste taxpayers money on a product nobody wants when inflation is going through the roof.
If a large percentage of the British public wish to believe ‘the news’ put out by ‘far right conspiracy theorists’ it is not the responsibility or even the place of the BBC to seek to correct such wayward thinking. We live in a free country.
Whoops – correction, used to live in a free country.
The article is spot on IMO that the BBC is in breach of its Charter by being in a news cartel with other news organisations via the so called Trusted News Initiative. It’s “news fixing” akin to price fixing.
Any organisation saying they are ‘Trusted’ means they cannot be.
https://rumble.com/v2phe1y-marianna-in-conspiracyland-full-unedited-interview-with-darren-nesbit-edito.html
Even the title ‘Marianna in Conspiracyland’ is patronising and judgemental. It’s assuming people are ‘conspiracy theorists’ from the outset and that Marianna Spring is somehow better than everyone else. So arrogant.
Thank you, I was searching for this.
The problem with the BBC is simple: It sees its role as telling people what to think, rather than just reporting news. If they reported everything and allowed us to decide the truth there would be no problem, but now… Lord Reith will continue turning in his grave for a long time yet, until the censorius woke are completely removed from the BBC.
They went downhill when they believed their own publicity about their impartiality and started providing us with their opinions rather than the facts
The BBC, the Globalist Propagandist-in-Chief, carrying out a campaign about “disinformation” and expecting people to believe a word of it
Hilarious.
“Would that God the gift had gie us
Tae see oursel’s as others see us”
(Robbie Burns).
How nice of BBC Verify to share with us the benefits of a 27 year old’s inexperience. You have to wonder how she got the post? Perhaps it’s like the old cartoon showing one lady saying to the other “How did you get that mink coat?” and the other lady replying “The same way the mink got it”.
Rather like the aphorism that “You only see who’s swimming naked when the tide goes out”, all the Rona hysteria has demonstrated that those “envy of the world” organisations such as the NHS, the British Bobby and the BBC have been shown to be catastrophic failures, except to themselves of course.