BBC reacts to alleged bias

The BBC is currently holding a public online consultation to find out how the corporation’s viewers feel about its diversity strategy. The consultation closes on January 7.

The broadcaster has faced repeated accusations of showing an anti-Christian bias in its content in recent years.

Now the BBC has set up an online questionnaire that allows viewers and the corporation’s employees to have their say. The responses gathered will be fed into the corporation’s new diversity strategy that is due to be published next April.

In thinking how a diversity strategy could impact both the portrayal of Christians and traditional Christian beliefs on the BBC, a brief overview of the current representation of Christians is perhaps helpful. These examples are the extreme end of how Christians appear on the BBC, but, for many Christians, they may have been passed by as perhaps the programmes wouldn’t form part of everyday viewing. However, this type of programming is out there, so it is instructive to see the output of the BBC beyond Songs of Praise and The Big Questions.

EastEnders

Earlier this year the BBC was forced to defend an EastEnders storyline after outraged viewers accused the corporation of anti-Christian bias. The complaints centred around a plotline on EastEnders which portrayed a Christian Pentecostal pastor as a deranged killer whose deeds were motivated by his Christian faith. Viewers watched the pastor failing to help his ex-wife when she was dying, strangling a love rival to death, and attacking his current on-screen wife.

Fanatical

In January 2009, in an episode of Hunter, a pro-life group, given a very clear ‘religious’ edge, were seen kidnapping and murdering a young child in order to further their pro-life aims. Although not a direct attack on Christianity, it was a fanatical tactic attributed to those with widely held (formerly mainstream) ethical views, that of protecting life in all its forms.

In June 2009, it was revealed that the BBC Trust had rejected complaints against a TV drama that showed a fanatical British Christian beheading a moderate Muslim. The episode of Bonekickers was aired in July 2008. The BBC Trust rejected suggestions that the drama associated fanatical Christianity with evangelicalism and gave an offensive portrayal of evangelical Christians.

Ignorance

Daily Telegraph writer, Damian Thompson, said: ‘We are deep into the realms of BBC bias and ignorance here. Only a BBC drama series would, to quote the complainant, “transfer the practice of terrorist beheadings from Islamist radicals to a fantasised group of fundamentalist Christians”’.

Nutters

In April 2009, Jonathan Wynne-Jones, a national newspaper journalist, warned that the frequent television portrayals of Christians as absurd make it more difficult for believers to defend themselves. Writing on his blog, Mr. Wynne-Jones warned that a spate of recent storylines had sent the clear message that ‘Christians are nutters’.

New guidance

In October, new editorial guidelines were unveiled which said that the BBC must show due impartiality when covering the topic of religion.

The BBC’s editorial guidelines, which cover TV, radio and the internet, are reviewed every five years. The editorial rules also brought in restrictions on the use of humiliating and derogatory remarks.

In 2008, Mark Thompson, the Director General of the BBC, said that Islam should be treated more sensitively than Christianity because Muslims are less integrated and more of a minority group.

In 2006, Andrew Marr, the BBC’s former chief political correspondent, said: ‘The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias’.

The questionnaire

So, equality, diversity and the BBC. After reading the above, one might be left wondering where the equality for Christians is in the BBC’s output when the impression being given is that Christians are perhaps ‘nutters’? Does the questionnaire allow space for a Christian response? Well, yes, if one is wise and notes the bias in the questions being asked.

Among a number of questions, the survey asks respondents whether they consider the BBC to be a ‘fair and inclusive organisation’ and what is considered to be ‘the most pressing equality and diversity issue’ for the BBC. With a bit of imagination one can answer the questions very helpfully so that a Christian worldview and opinion on such representations as detailed above can be politely expressed.

Consultation biased?

Some will feel that the poll itself is as biased as a Crown Green bowling ball! The phrasing of the questions, as in many polls of this kind, shows the innate bias of the poll itself. If, however, this wasn’t clear during the questioning, then perhaps the usual data collection exercise at the close of the questionnaire makes the bias more explicit.

Being unbiased is surely impossible within any organisation, but it is the nature and extent of the bias which should perhaps concern Christians. One may feel that the BBC is past ‘help’, citing Jerry Springer the Opera or any of the examples above, or conversely that the problem really isn’t that bad. One can’t expect the BBC or any other secular organisation to reflect Christians, Christian values or even ‘traditional values’ (whatever they may be) in all its programming, ridding the stations of immorality. However, if one takes a few moments over the holiday time to fill in the survey, being led to fill in the boxes using one’s own bias — that of being a follower of Jesus — then perhaps, just perhaps, Christians may be represented less often as ‘nutters’ and extremists and Christianity held up as irrelevant or just limited to Songs of Praise.

Ruth Woodcraft / The Christian Institute

The survey can be found at http://www.perceptor.com/perceplive/survey/BBC_EQ_P and takes about 15 minutes to complete.