Peter Moore: Will BBC bias lose us our greatest public export?

Donald Trump is amazing; the best President the USA has ever had.

I may not entirely believe that, but I cannot afford to be sued for $1 billion.

I am not a lawyer. My only legal training was to learn a bit about criminal law for my exams as a police surgeon, but we did touch on the principles of civil law. 

Before trying to sue there are two important caveats. First of all, ensure that any libel or slander is not true. This is how Oscar Wilde came to grief. The Marquess of Queensbury accused him of being gay, to use the modern term. He sued even though the allegation was true. Not only did he lose but ended up in prison for the “offence” of homosexuality. 

Secondly any damages are only to compensate for any losses. “Punitive Damages” designed to punish a defendant are rare in England. 

The selective editing of a Trump speech gave the impression that he was calling for violence. This may have been overegging the pudding but was not entirely fanciful. He denied that he lost the 2020 election despite the overwhelming evidence. He also said “fight fight fight” but an hour later. 

After he became president, he granted blanket clemency to everyone, nearly 1,600 people, convicted or awaiting trial for the offences committed on 6th January Capitol riots. Many of these people claim they took violent action because they believed they were carrying out Trump's wishes.  The BBC were wrong to imply that he encouraged the riot with an inflammatory speech but his behaviour since coming into office could be interpreted as tacit support. 

It is also hard to see how he suffered $1 billion losses. The programme was British, not American. After it went out he won the election with an overwhelming majority. 

President Trump has a track record in America of suing media organisations. It is possible that the underlying reason for this behaviour is to silence the media? Will any news organisation dare to publish anything critical of Trump however accurate the journalists are? 

In the past I thought that the BBC had great unbiased news coverage. When Jeremy Corbyn complained that they were too right wing and Nigel Farage complained they were too left wing I concluded that they must have it about right. 

The BBC does have a problem. Recently the newsreader Martine Croxall was found guilty of bias when she added “women” after the script said, “pregnant people” and pulled a face. She was showing her views so was guilty of bias but wasn’t the person who wrote “pregnant people” instead of women also showing bias. It could be argued that she was correcting bias. She was also using language which is probably supported by the majority of the viewers. 

There is also evidence that they were biased toward Hamas in the war in Gaza. 

Some of the criticism of the BBC is coming from news organisations which have a clear political agenda. There is even righteous indignation coming from papers which have been found guilty of phone hacking. 

When I first started writing in a local paper the editor told me to avoid party politics. Readers will be from all parties. Any obvious support for party X will upset all the readers who support parties Y and Z. 

With the echo chamber of social media many people only read opinions which match their own. Anything which does not mirror their prejudices they see as biased. We need to learn from WS Gilbert who was asked why he only read the bad reviews of his shows. “I know how good I am, but I do not know how bad I am”. 

The BBC has relied on being seen as the most trustworthy news outlet. They are also one of our best exports, trusted worldwide.  I desperately want them to survive but this can only be guaranteed if they are seen to be objective. We will know when that day arrives when they upset both extremes.