Confession: First Step to Redemption

(John Hinderaker)

Is the notoriously left-wing BBC finally getting religion? The Telegraph reports:

The BBC chairman yesterday indicated “the BBC does have a liberal bias” but added “the institution is fighting against it.”

Richard Sharp, in an interview in the Sunday Times, said he and Tim Davie, the director-general, had drawn up a ten-point plan on impartiality, anti-bias training along with reviews of news output in a drive to tackle the issue.

The BBC says it especially needs to upgrade its reporting on business and finance, having been taken by surprise by Brexit and now being confronted with inflation. I suppose being a socialist doesn’t give you a very useful point of view when it comes to business and the economy.

What, after all these years, is driving the BBC’s pledge to reform itself? Money. There is a move afoot to abolish the time-honored “license fee” that generates three-quarters of the BBC’s revenue.

That prospect naturally concentrates the minds of those who run the Beeb, but the fundamental issue is that no democracy should have a state-run news media. BBC News is an anachronism whose time might finally be drawing to an end.