BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a public broadcaster funded by a television licence fee on consumers. It started in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd., then incorporated and nationalised in 1927 as The British Broadcasting Corporation.
British media watchdog Media Lens regularly critiques the pro-corporate bias of the BBC.
- Lord Hall of Birkenhead - Director General (from March 2013)
Contents
Spooks On The Job Selection Panel
Archived internal BBC documents from the 1980s, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph under Freedom of Information legislation, have revealed that until the late 1980s the British spy service, MI5, was used to vet existing and potential staff at the public broadcaster. The paper reported that the documents revealed that "at one stage it [MI5] was responsible for vetting 6300 BBC posts - almost a third of the total workforce." The BBC adopted "categorical denial" as its "defensive strategy" to deflect questions about the practice by unions. A March 1, 1985, memo suggested the best approach was "keep head down and stonewall all questions." [1]
Board (2020)[2]
- David Clementi - Chairman
- Tony Hall - Director-General
- Elan Closs Stephens - Member for Wales
- Tim Davie - CEO, BBC Studios
- Shirley Garrood - Non-executive Director
- Tanni Grey-Thompson - Non-executive Director
- Ian Hargreaves - Non-executive Director
- Tom Ilube - Non-executive Director
- Ken MacQuarrie - Director, Nations and Regions
- Steve Morrison - Member for Scotland
- Nicholas Serota - Senior Independent Director
- Ashley Steel - Member for England
- Francesca Unsworth - Director, News and Current Affairs
BBC Trust
Accessed March 2012: [3]
- Lord Patten - Chairman
- Richard Ayre
- Diane Coyle
- Anthony Fry
- Alison Hastings
- Patricia Hodgson
- Rotha Johnston
- David Liddiment
- Bill Matthews
- Mehmuda Mian
- Elan Closs Stephens
- Nicholas Kroll - Director
BBC Trust (2009)
Accessed April 2009: [4]
- Sir Michael Lyons Chairman
- Chitra Bharucha Vice Chairman
- Diane Coyle
- Anthony Fry
- Alison Hastings
- Patricia Hodgson
- Rotha Johnston
- Janet Lewis-Jones
- David Liddiment
- Mehmuda Mian
- Jeremy Peat
- Richard Tait
Executive Board (2009)
Accessed April 2009: [5]
- Mark Thompson (BBC) Director-General and Chair, Executive Board
- Mark Byford Deputy Director-General
- Jana Bennett Director, Vision
- Tim Davie Director, Audio & Music
- Erik Huggers Director, Future Media & Technology
- Lucy Adams (from 1 June 2009: see press release) Director, People
- Zarin Patel Group Finance Director
- John Smith (BBC) Chief Executive BBC Worldwide
- Caroline Thomson Chief Operating Officer
- Sharon Baylay (from 5 May 2009: see press release) Director, Marketing, Communications & Audiences
- Marcus Agius Senior Independent Director
- Val Gooding CBE Non-executive Director
- Mike Lynch OBE Non-executive Director
- David Robbie Non-executive Director
- Samir Shah OBE Non-executive Director
- Robert Webb (BBC) QC Non-executive Director
Critical Books
- Robert Waller, Shadow of Authority (1956).
- Tom O'Malley, Closedown?: BBC and Government Broadcasting Policy, 1979-92 (Pluto Press, 1994).
- Simon James Potter, Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British World, 1922-1970 (Oxford University Press, 2012).
Contact Details
Websites
- About the BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/info
- BBC UK: www.bbc.co.uk
- BBC's International Commercial TV Channels: www.bbc.co.uk/tv
- BBC World Service (Radio): www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice
Resources and articles
Related Sourcewatch articles
- BBC World Service Trust
- BBC World Service
- BBC Children in Need
- Yogesh Chauhan - the BBC's Chief Adviser on Corporate Responsibility and Environment
- John Birt - was Director-General of the BBC from 1992 to 2000
- Gavyn Davies - former chair (2001-4)
- Richard Deverell
- Jonathan Drori
- Penny Young - former head of audiences
- William Rees-Mogg - former vice-chair
- Jenny Abramsky - former governor
- Baroness Deech - former governor
- Alan Hayling - former head of documentaries
- Sir Christopher Bland - former chair
- Tony Hall (UK) - former head of news
- Greg Dyke - Former Director General
- Heather Rabbatts
- Howell James
- Michael Grade - chair
- Paul Hamann - former head of documentaries
- Anna Ford - spent 32 years in news department
- Liz Forgan
- Nicholas Kenyon
- Ronald Neil - former director of news and current affairs
- Peter Kellner - Newsnight
- Shirazuddin Siddiqi - Afghanistan
- Sir Mark Tully - India
- Ian Skelly - radio broadcaster
- Carolyn Fairbairn - former Director of Strategy
- Lucy Adams - Director of Business Operations
- Sue Farr - former Marketing Director
- Mihir Bose - Sports Editor
- Rodney Baker-Bates
- Kim Shillinglaw - Commissioning Editor for Science and Natural History
- Etienne De Villiers
- Alex Kirby - former head of environment
- Brian Cox - Science Presenter
References
External links
- Paul de Rooij, Worse than CNN? BBC News & the Mideast", CounterPunch, 16 May 2002.
- Tim Llewellyn, Why the BBC Ducks the Palestinian Story", Electronic Intifada, 6 Feb. 2004.
- Paul de Rooij, The BBC and the Quiet Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians, DissidentVoice, 12 February 2004.
- Claire Cozens, "Israel condemns â??biasedâ?? BBC coverage", The Guardian, March 31, 2004.
- TARGETING IRAN: The BBC Propaganda Begins, Media Lens, 21 January 2005.
- Alex Doherty, Propaganda and the BBC, Zmag, February 7, 2005.
- Chris McGreal, BBC says sorry to Israel, Guardian (UK), 12 March 2005.
- David Miller, Did the BBC Broadcast Fake News Reports?, CounterPunch, 14 March 2005.
- Chris Hastings, Tinker, tailor, broadcaster, spy - BBC had MI5 watch its staff, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 July 2006. (Originally from The Telegraph).
- George Monbiot, Pundits who contest climate change should tell us who is paying them: Covert lobbying, in the UK as well as the US, has severely set back efforts to combat the world's biggest problem, Guardian (UK), 26 September 2006.
- Nafeez Ahmed, More pontification, more propaganda on Iraq: Notes on John Ware's BBC Iraq fiasco, Nafeez Ahmed Blog, 4 November 2007.
- James Silver, Interview: Justin Webb: 'I'm a real admirer of American patriotism', Guardian (UK), 7 January 2007.
- Stephen Lendman, BBC's Pro-Israeli Bias, Global Research, 13 June 2008.
- Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, Watching the War on BBC: Another Chorister for Israel, Counterpunch, 7 January 2009.
- Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, The BBC's Nadir: The Way of Izvestia, Counterpunch, 3 February 2009.
- Brian Wheeler, Dyke in BBC 'conspiracy' claim, BBC, 20 September 2009.
- Lee Salter, A Decade of Propaganda? The BBC’s Reporting of Venezuela, Venezuelanalysis.com, 14 December 2009.
- Asa Winstanley, "Revealed: producer of propaganda BBC report on Gaza attack has history of fabrication", The Electronic Intifada, 26 July 2012.