The BBC has turned down an an appeal against its rejection of a complaint that it has again shown bias against republicans. The biased report was on the acquittal of Colin Duffy on charges of killing British soldiers. The state broadcaster referred to Duffy, without qualification, as a “leading republican”. Duffy is, in fact, little known outside of Northern Ireland. He is not associated with any well known republican group, such as Republic, the SDLP or Sinn Féin.
In its response to the first complaint the broadcaster’s only line of defence was to say that “He (Duffy) is a republican who is prominent and well-known in Northern Ireland.” This explanation was rejected by the complainant, J P of the Centre for Citizenship. He argued that by its failure to distinguish Duffy from the majority of republicans the BBC was effectively helping the monarchists side of the argument between feudal privilege and democratic rights.
The BBC rejected the appeal with the new claim that the “story was about Northern Ireland and reported on the BBC Northern Ireland news site”. There is, in fact, no separate “Northern Ireland news site”. The report appeared in what is a section of the main BBC News site. This section is no more distinct than the sections for politics, business or health. And readers, who might be from anywhere in the world, finding the report through a Google search, were not likely to have seen the story as belonging in a Northern Ireland ghetto, distinct from the rest of the UK.
The BBC often defends its privileges as a state-sponsored broadcaster by reference to a claimed superior journalism. But its journalists seem unable to write with enough clarity to distinguish between mainstream republicans and extremists at the periphery.
It is often accused of a left-wing or liberal bias, but when it comes to monarchy it is firmly on the side of the “establishment”. It worships the super-rich Windsor clan that holds the egregious privilege of providing the country’s head of state. A former chairperson of the trust that oversees it once claimed that its “royal charter” made it, like the Windsor clan, independent of the will of the people. He declared that he and the other trustees were appointed by the Queen, through the Privy Council “rather than just at the dictate of ministers”.
As the BBC continues to deny its bias it confirms itself as one of the biggest obstacles to a head of state with democratic legitimacy. The Republic group is campaigning against the BBC’s anti-democratic bias and will be demonstrating outside its Broadcasting House HQ at 11 on Saturday 11 March.
The complaint will be taken to the third stage.