THE problem posed by disinformation online is increasingly serious, the BBC’s director-general has said. Tim Davie told Radio Times: ‘Traditional journalism has been playing catch-up in the disinformation world.’
He added that 2020 repeatedly highlighted the dangers of the internet as conspiracy theories about coronavirus and the US election were circulated online.
‘News sources such as the BBC need to work harder than ever to expose fake news and separate fact from fiction,’ he said. ‘We need to take care that trusted news is not blown off course by claims that are unfounded, however widespread they become.
‘And we need to recognise that we are up against the well-funded, state-backed actors who see news as an extension of state influence and a tool for disrupting our societies and democracies.’
Davie said he was proud of the BBC’s effort to ‘stand up for integrity in news and fight disinformation on the front line’.
Could this be the same BBC which relies on Greenpeace for its climate change reports? Is it the same BBC which has just broadcast a woefully one-sided indoctrination programme, masquerading as a ‘Royal Institution Christmas Lecture’?
Or which trumpeted Christian Aid’s mendacious report on extreme weather without the slightest attempt to check or challenge it? Or broadcast a Panorama documentary on UK extreme weather that was so misleading it should have carried a warning label?
All these instances have occurred in just the last month, and many more examples can be found over the years of outright lies, misinformation, omission of relevant facts, bias and a stubborn refusal to report the views of those experts who don’t agree with the BBC’s climate agenda.
And that’s before we even get started on the BBC’s political and anti-Brexit bias.
What Mr Davie is really saying, of course, is that we must all get our ‘news’ from the BBC, and ignore other sources in case we discover the true facts.
This article first appeared on Not A Lot of People Know That on January 4, 2021, and is republished by kind permission.
