An internal British Broadcasting Corporation memo reveals senior figures admitted the national news agency was guilty of promoting left-wing views and anti-Christian sentiment.
News of the memo, reported by British media, comes as the BBC continues to struggle against claims of biased reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and distorted coverage of the global fight against terror, reports the Israeli YnetNews.com.
The admissions of bias were made at a recent "impartiality" summit the BBC held. Most executives admitted the corporation's representation of homosexuals and ethnic minorities was unbalanced and disproportionate, YnetNews.com said. The British news agency, the report said, leaned too strongly towards political correctness, the overt promotion of multiculturalism, anti-Americanism and discrimination against the countryside.
At the summit, executives were given a fictitious scenario in which they were asked to make a judgment.
In the illustration, Jewish comedian Sasha Baron Cohen would participate in a studio program in which guests were allowed to symbolically throw in a garbage bin things they hated. What would you do, the executives were asked, if Cohen decided to throw kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bible and the Quran in the trash. Everything would be allowed, the executives said, except for the Quran, for fear of offending the British Muslim community.
The BBC also revealed its executives favored interviewing terrorist leader Osama bin Laden if the opportunity arose, the Washington Times reported.
The executives were presented with a current hot-button issue in Britain, the wearing of Muslim veils. Should a veiled woman be allowed to present the news, they were asked. The BBC's diversity editor said yes, since news anchors were allowed to wear crosses. A senior BBC executive admitted to the British paper Daily Express, "There was a widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it."
Makes one wonder what else is being misrepresentated at the BBC, oh like, maybe the TRUTH about global warming? Or perhaps the full story of Iraq?How long now before the NY Times admits to a bias in its reporting???
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