- Biased Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) again - 25th November 2025
- The joke’s on you! - 24th November 2025
- Georgia on my mind - 21st November 2025
Disturbing news that a BBC board member resigned over “governance issues”, the corporation itself asking whether time was running out for the beleaguered chair, while ANOTHER programme by the giant broadcaster was accused of manipulating an edit, have again put centre stage the REFUSAL by executives to answer The Eye’s questions about the unbelievable scandals that have engulfed the giant broadcaster.
For an investigative journalist like me, it seems to be the gift that keeps on giving!
The BBC (where I was for 23 years) is under scrutiny as never before after the astonishing series of scandals.
The incredible ‘bias’ controversy rumbles on after the shocking ‘re-edit’ issue (with now details of ANOTHER one), a board member has resigned over “governance issues”, and now there is talk of the chair Samir Shah having to go as well as the Director General (DG) Tim Davie because of what has happened.
Sir Craig Oliver, former editor of the BBC Six o’clock and Ten o’clock News, who was later director of communications at Number 10 under David Cameron, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme “the stakes were already high for Samir Shah and they just got even higher”.
In The Guardian Pat Younge the chair of the British Broadcasting Challenge has written: “We need a more open, confident and responsive BBC, liberated from the nervousness engendered by years of bullying, that genuinely listens to its viewers and listeners and finds new ways of engaging with audiences. We can achieve this through a new governance system that recognises the BBC’s worldwide reputation for independence…”.
Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has called on the UK Government to remove Sir Robbie Gibb, an ex-BBC executive and former director of communications (a department that needs shaking up anyway) to Theresa May, from the board.
BBC’s Newsnight was warned that it edited a Donald Trump speech in a way that ALSO made it appear he gave a more explicit call for violent protest ahead of the Capitol riots (as well as Panorama, where I have worked).
Meanwhile Shumeet Banerji notified the board of his resignation on Friday citing “governance issues” at the top of the corporation, saying in a letter that he was “not consulted” about the events leading up to the resignations of Mr Davie (which The Eye have been demanding for MONTHS because his organisation has been beset by a series of extraordinary scandals), and the head of news, Deborah Turness.
Yesterday Mr Gibb and Mr Shah were grilled by MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee. It was denied there any left-wing bias at the BBC, and Mr Shah said he ‘regretted’ the mistakes, while Mr Gibb complained that he had been ‘weaponised’.
However these statements are unlikely to satisfy critics in the light of what is now emerging.
It’s been revealed that in addition to Panorama, Newsnight, too, put together a section of President Trump’s speech on the day of the riots, in January 2021, in which he urged supporters to walk to the Capitol building, with a later segment of the address where he urged them to “fight like hell”.
A former White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, criticised the BBC on air at the time , declaring: “Your video actually spliced together the presentation. That line about ‘and we fight and fight like hell’ is actually later in the speech”.
But the huge corporation has often hit the headlines for the wrong reasons accused of bias, quite apart from the string of unbelievable scandals it has been engulfed in.
Attention has focused on Wales recently, with Nigel Farage posting a video online condemning how a former Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru (Plaid) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is today a senior corporation executive being paid £190,000 a year.
In the video he declares: “Well, what a dramatic day for the BBC, two major resignations, President Trump now even threatening to sue them for what they did.
“The BBC defend by saying, ‘No, no, no, no, no. There’s no bias in the BBC.’ But try this for size: Rhuanedd Richards was the chief executive of Plaid. She worked, during the Labour-Plaid coalition, for the Government of Wales.
“She is now a director of BBC Wales on just over £190,000 a year. This is living proof, right the way to the top, that the BBC is infected with left-wing bias.”
Mr Farage is not the only one to have drawn attention to this situation. Huge condemnation of the corporation has struck social media too, with one critic saying there was pro-Plaid bias generally to be addressed in BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW).
Unwisely on getting her highly-paid job, Ms Richards had thanked a man online for congratulating her, despite the fact that he had been placed under police investigation, and the nationalist paper he went on to found, only lasted EIGHT months!
But she has appeared unflatteringly on the internet before. Emails about her were posted by another Welsh figure who has been at the centre of a storm of controversy at the BBC (Wynne Evans), showing how a journalist at BBC Radio Wales Breakfast had asked: “Would Wynne Evans be available to speaK to us anytime between 7-9am?”.
However Mr Evans was informed soon afterwards: “Unfortunately we won’t be able to come to you tonight for a considered interview and do justice to the story and. for obvious reasons we won’t be able to offer a live interview tomorrow morning on radio”.
Afterwards a bemused Mr Evans told his followers online: “Yesterday I was offered an interview on Radio Wales and BBC Wales News about the BBC process and my new show. I emailed the director of BBC Wales (Rhuanedd Richards) to say I’d be delighted to do the interview ………weirdly after my email to the director they then emailed to say they didn’t have time to do it justice …..also for obvious reasons. I’m not sure what the obvious reasons are.”….
Perhaps the ‘obvious reasons’ refers to earlier controversies. He apologised over an obnoxious “spit-roast” comment – but denied that it was a sex slur .
Worries have been raised in the past, too, about the corporation’s impartiality, despite Mr Davie declaring in Cardiff soon after his appointment: “If you want to be an opinionated columnist or partisan campaigner on social media then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC”.
BBC rules underline this, and announce that staff should also avoid using disclaimers such as ‘My views, not the BBC’s’ in their biographies and profiles, as they provide no defence against personal expressions of opinion.
It seems, though, that taking disciplinary action earlier against him was tempered by the knowledge that there were few alternatives, but the decision has now been taken out of the hands of senior officials
Details of what has happened alarm Phil, and Mr Davie’s position had long appeared untenable.
Politicians apart from Mr Farage have been highly critical of past events. The Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) committee Dame Caroline Dinenage, said that the resignations were “avoidable”.
She stated: “…there is no escaping the fact he (Tim Davie) was very slow to act on this particular issue”.
The BBC reported: “This is seismic. To lose both the director general and the CEO of BBC News at the same time is unprecedented. It’s an extraordinary moment in the history of the BBC”.
The Guardian published: ‘In an announcement that caused shock within the corporation, Davie said his departure was “entirely my decision” and it comes as the BBC prepares to apologise for the way it edited a Trump speech’.
The Daily Mail said: “…the scandal-hit broadcaster was this week plunged into a fresh crisis after an internal dossier exposed a string of incidents that demonstrate serious apparent bias in the Corporation’s reporting”.
The Daily Telegraph first broke the story of bias in Panorama and ‘splashed’ on the Newsnight alleged mistake, but the BBC (where Phil was for 23 years) seemed unable to get on the front foot in the face of a deluge of damaging headlines about claims that it was systemic.
It appears there has been a rift between the BBC board and the news division with some arguing the corporation has, for too long, failed to address institutional bias. and others questioning whether what’s unfolded has been an orchestrated – and politicised – campaign against the organisation which has claimed two big scalps.
The BBC allowed the story to fester – and the White House has called a scene in the Panorama programme “fake news”.
The US President himself made his views very clear by saying in a post on his Truth Social platform, that he celebrated the resignations and accused the BBC of “doctoring” his speech as well as of “trying to step on the scales of a presidential election”.
Ms Richards’ high-profile position, her controversial background with Plaid, and now the Farage video, may feature in a potential legal action brought by President Trump.
The legal letter calling for compensation from the BBC proclaims that “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” made about President Trump must be retracted immediately.
It was sent by President Trump’s counsel Alejandro Brito.
It warns that should a deadline be missed, the President will be “left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than 1,000,000,000 dollars in damages”.
This staggering action and stupefying amount for ‘damages’ is just part of the fallout from the resignations, amid allegations of ‘bias’.
Perhaps there will be similar demands and bad headlines after a board member resigned, citing “governance issues”, revelations of what Newsnight has done, and calls for Mr Shah also to consider his position…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s remarkable decades long award-winning career in journalism (including his years at the BBC), as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – how for Phil number crunching is often essential, but he worries about the way figures are being massaged by Governments, or even given out falsely, to present a rosy picture of what is happening.
