government control

Broadcasting House

DPAC at BBC - Tell The Truth! 2013 — *BBC security try to get a protester to move – but he refuses*

DPAC at BBC – Tell The Truth! Although the BBC has some excellent reporters and produces some great programmes, particularly on Radio 4 and in its World Service, in its coverage of the UK it too often acts as a government mouthpiece. In particular few if any protests get reported, and I would be fairly sure that this one on Monday 2nd September 2013 at Broadcasting House got no mention in the day’s news.

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and the Scottish Black Triangle campaign came to protest at the failure by the BBX to report truthfully the effects of government cuts – particularly hard on the disabled – blocking the main BBC entrance to Broadcasting House for an hour.

The BBC of course relies on the government to award the licence fee settlement and it also appoints the members of the trust which is responsible for its running. And many appointments of senior staff – from the Director General down are essentially made by the government, so it is perhaps unsurprising that the BBC as a whole fails to offer any radical perspective on UK affairs.

When the Tories came back into power – at first with the help of the Liberal Democrats to whom they threw a few minor carrots (including the 2011 rigged referendum on proportional representation) they instituted an austerity programme that in particular targeted the disabled.

They clearly thought that supporting the disabled was a waste of money and that they would be an easy target to reduce benefits. DPAC and others had shown them they were wrong, with a series of direct action protests – which the BBC largely failed to report, although some were covered by foreign media.

Disabled people had several advantages which aided their protests. Firstly they enjoyed a great deal of public support which meant in particular that police (who often also sympathised with their case) had to handle them with much more consideration and care than non-disabled protesters, particularly when the press were present. Batoning people in wheelchairs would not be good for the public image – and I never saw it happen.

And secondly they presented practical problems for the police, particularly in making arrests of protesters in wheelchairs or on mobility scooters. Police cars and vans are not generally equipped to handle these safely. I can only remember one protest where the police had hired a suitable vehicle – and it only accommodated a single wheelchair.

DPAC invited me to photograph this protest and I met them in a nearby cafe to discuss final plans before making their way with legal observers and a few photographers unnoticed to the main entrance of the BBC building.

Here they spread across the doors and brought out their banners. BBC security failed to stop them but did manage to keep one door at the end free so people could still enter and leave the building.

*Many of the protesters spoke about why they were there, calling on the BBC to do its job and report properly on the effects of the cuts on the disabled*

A number of the protesters then spoke in turn about the failure of the BBC to report the real hardship caused by ATOS assessments and the withdrawal of benefits, benefit cuts and caps and the bedroom tax. They were all fed up with the BBC repeating the lies and half-truths of government and asked why the real problems and numerous deaths from the austerity programme and the protests over these were not being properly reported.

*BBC security try to move the protesters but after some argument they backed off*

The situation was dire for many poor and disabled people, with over 500,000 having to resort to food banks set up by churches and charities to fend off starvation.

The protesters chanted ‘BBC, Tell the Truth’ and called for someone from the BBC to come and discuss the issue with them – but no one came. They made clear they were not asking for special treatment for the disabled but for the BBC to live up to the reputation it once had for impartial reporting.

*Mark Thomas congratulated the protesters and expressed his support for their attempt to get the BBC to report in an unbiased manner*

They were joined for some minutes by activist comedian Mark Thomas who had been at a meeting inside the BBC. He recognised some of the protesters, talked with them and gave a short speech in support.

Shortly after two of the protesters in wheelchairs moved to lock themselves in front of the remaining open door closing it for the remainder of the protest. BBC security then called the police and two cars arrived.

Police talked with security and then came and talked to the protesters. The told the police it was a one hour protest and they would then leave peacefully. Police stayed and watched until the end of the hour when the protesters got up and left.

Before they did so, a BBC cameraman arrived having been asked to film the protest – not for news but for possible use in the future. “I joked with him he might try and sell the footage to Sky or some other broadcaster who were rather more likely to use it.”

Many more pictures on My London Diary at DPAC at BBC – Tell The Truth.

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BBC Ban Gaza Appeal 2009

Listening to the controversy in the last few days over the BBC licence fee, frozen for the next two years by Nadine Dorries, who has also threatened that the fee will be abolished after the corporation’s current royal charter expires in 2927, my mind went back to January 24th 2009, when I photographed a protest which began at the BBC against their biased reporting of the Israeli attack on Gaza, and calling for an end to the blockade and of arms sales to Israel, for a free Palestine and for Israli war criminals to be brought to justice.

*Tony Benn leads a delegation into the BBC to deliver a letter*

Earlier that morning, for the first time ever, the BBC bosses had refused to run the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for humanitarian relief for Gaza. I’d listened with incredulity to their explanation that they had done so to uphold their reputation for impartiality – as if their were sides to be taken on delivering much needed humanitarian support.

Listening to the Radio 4 Today programme as I ate my breakfast I rose to applaud Tony Benn who in a live interview condemned the BBC for their ban and proceeded to make the DEC appeal on the programme for them. Quite clearly the Today presenters and editors were also appalled by the one-sided stance taken by their bosses, and though they felt unable to defy the management had created the opportunity for Benn to do so.

I was pleased later that morning to be able to congratulate Benn in person for his action, and to hear him speaking about the ban both before going in to deliver a letter of protest to the BBC and a few minutes later at a rally a short distance down the road. Unfortunately police prevented me from going in with him to the BBC to photograph him handing over the letter, but I was able to photograph him outside with others including Jeremy Corbyn, MP, Lindsey German and George Galloway, MP.

*A huge crowd at the rally before the march*

I don’t remember any report of the protest appearing on the BBC, who generally fail to report protests in London unless they involve violence, criminal damage or major celebrities, though it probably got a small mention. The Press Association also got things a little wrong, reporting the smaller press conference with its roughly 400 attendees while not noticing the 10,000 protesters a hundred yards or so down the road.

People often blame journalists for the failure to report protests and similar events, but this is seldom the case. Journalists report but editors fail to publish. This is even more true when it comes to protests in London about events in overseas countries, which some editors have been known to dismiss as “tribal matters”.

I was pleased at the rally to hear a message from the then General Secretary of my Union, the NUJ, condemning the BBC ban – along with many others. The problem with the press in the UK is not down to journalists, but to the ownership of the mass media, with 90% of the UK-wide print media is owned and controlled by just three companies, Reach plc (formerly Trinity Mirror), Murdoch’s News UK and DMG Media, publishers of the Daily Mail. Six billionaires own or have a majority shareholding in most of our national newspapers.

The BBC should be both independent and impartial, and the licence fee was seen as a way of giving it an income independent of government control. But in recent years this has seemed to be less and less effective. It operates under an agreement with the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, and is overseen by the BBC Board, with day-to-day operations being overseen by an executive committee of senior BBC managers.

Appointments to the Board (and its predecessor the BBC Trust, earlier the Board of Governors) and some BBC jobs have often been politically motivated. Its current chair is a former banker who was an adviser to Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London. We need a new model which guarantees independence from government while continuing to finance the BBC as a public service broadcaster.

The BBC in deciding on what is and what isn’t news has generally a conservative approach, not in a party sense, but in supporting the status quo and establishment views. It also generally follows the lines established by the billionaire-owned print media. It should be something that challenges their assumptions and reports fairly and independently, but while it retains an excellent reputation around the world for its World Service, confidence in its national news services has dropped considerably.

Now many feel that to get the kind of impartiality it should be delivering you have to treat it as just one source of broadcast news – along with ITV news, Sky and other questionable sources such at the Russian-owned RT and Qatari-owned Al Jazeera.

You will have to look hard to find much real investigative reporting now in the British media, either broadcast or print, though occasional examples appear. But the only place it appears with any consistency is now Private Eye, which publishes a great deal of serious reporting along with its often rather schoolboy humour.

More on the protest at the BBC and the march to Trafalgar Square on My London Diary. I didn’t stay for the final rally as I had already heard many of those speaking earlier.
Gaza: Protest March from the BBC.

Tag: government control

DPAC at BBC – Tell The Truth! 2013

BBC Ban Gaza Appeal 2009