Should Christians trust the BBC?

Is the BBC your home page?
For many years I have had the BBC as my Firefox homepage. And for all those years, my mind has run a continuous "ethics and truth filter" on the content.

Let me say from the start, that when it comes to "facts" such as how many people died in this conflict, how many attended that parade, the BBC is reliable. So why the ethics filter?

Robin Aitken worked in the BBC for 25 years at all levels, and has written a book, whose title comes from some words written by the ancient philosopher Plato. The Noble Liar is subtitled, "How and why the BBC distorts the news to promote a liberal agenda."

The book reveals how though the BBC began as an institution that was at least even-handed towards, and perhaps even promoted Christianity (CS Lewis was able to give a remarkable set of talks on the radio in the early 1940s), it has been taken over by a liberal elite who see their task, consciously or unconsciously (either way they are culpable), as promoting the politically correct agenda of - the western liberal elite.

When I read this book last week, nothing surprised me, for every Christian filtering the BBC through a mind renewed by the Holy Spirit will have picked up this bias on a daily basis.

The skewing of the news is expressed as much in story-selection as in viewpoint bias. Concerning viewpoint bias, whenever there is an article on homosexuality or gender, you could write the article in advance: you know where it's going, you can prophecy what will be said. Utterly predictably, without any critical thinking, it takes the narrow party line.

(The journalists who write this stuff could get a software programme to churn it out, and it would cost a lot less, and with regular tweaks to the algorithm it would probably be twice as interesting).

Concerning selection, there is an almost unbelievable proportion of stories designed to promote the liberal agenda.

Take for example a story on their website today about some Muslims (are they real Muslims?) who want Islam to embrace a gay life style. Here's the BBC's homepage click-bait image:

What is wrong with this news item? Why is it "fake-news"?

(i) Story-selection bias. Of all the thousands of interesting events going on in the Muslim world today, the BBC have chosen one which promotes homosexuality. This would be fine if this kind of event was taking place in every city across the Muslim world, or if that statistic wasn't true, it would be fine if  the story had been balanced, ratio-wise with say 1000 other stories, alongside it, of all the other events going on in the Muslim world. Then the BBC would be reporting in a balanced way, in proportion to reality on the ground. But no, let's pick one which promotes our agenda.

(ii) Content bias. Then there's the content. No mention is made of the reasoned defence a conservative Muslim might up for opposing homosexual behaviour. No hint of the reasons a Muslim might give rationally against, not the people, but the homosexual acts themselves.

Robin Aitken puts it like this:

"The BBC has closed down debate on many issues that are important to social conservatives; on things like abortion, divorce and gay rights, the BBC does not willingly allow dissident voices to be heard, although in truth, these are issues where people in a free society should be allowed to exercise freedom of speech - and conscience." (page 208)

A label designed to damn
If you disagree with the PC consensus, you are given a label which automatically damns you:

"A special lexicon has even developed comprising a short list of words which are sued to vilify social conservatives; it includes racist, homophone, misogynist and Islamophobe. By deploying these terms it is possible to undermine the credential of anyone making a counterargument and then to justify denying them opportunities to explain their position." (p. 209)

He gives some general examples of this labelling in action:

"...having misgivings about mass immigration does not make you a racist, having moral qualms about homosexuality does not make you homophobic; refusing to accept radical feminist ideology does not make you misogynist and fearing aspects of Islam does not make you Islamophobic." (page 209)

Should Christians trust the BBC?
Yes, when it relates general indisputable numerical and statistical facts. Today it told me that the Supreme court found Boris Johnson guilty of calling off Parliament - that is true, that's what happened, the BBC were accurate. But when the BBC talks about anything to do with philosophy, ethics or religion, we should automatically be sceptical.

None of this should surprise us.

We live in a culture, which though deeply shaped by the Christian worldview has now turned its back on it, and in many areas of life today, while claiming to be wise, this lost and needy world are revealing themselves to be fools (Romans 1:22).