BBC controversies
This article outlines, in chronological order, various controversies surrounding or involving the BBC. It includes arguments over political bias and impartiality, editorial mistakes and disputed broadcasts, misconduct by presenters, and wider institutional failings. The article also covers BBC responses to these controversies, including internal investigations, public apologies, leadership changes, and external scrutiny.
Early years
1926 general strike
In 1926, the General Council of the Trades Union Congress called a General Strike in response to poor working conditions and impending pay cuts affecting roughly 1.2 million coal miners. Labour Party politicians, such as party leader Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden, criticised the BBC for being "biased" and "misleading the public" during the strike.Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was coached by John Reith, then-managing director of the BBC, during a national broadcast about the strike broadcast from Reith's house. When Ramsay MacDonald asked to make a broadcast in reply, Reith supported the request. However, Baldwin was "quite against MacDonald broadcasting" and Reith refused MacDonald's request.
Baldwin's government blocked the BBC from broadcasting statements about the strike by the Labour Party and TUC leaders. When Philip Snowden, the former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote to the Radio Times to complain about the BBC's treatment of the unions, Reith wrote that the BBC was not completely independent from the government, which had imposed some constraints on what the BBC could do. Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, wished to broadcast a "peace appeal" to call for an immediate end to the strike, renewal of government subsidies to the coal industry, and no cuts in miners' wages. Reith denied his request because he believed such a speech would be used by Winston Churchill to take over the BBC. Churchill wanted to use the BBC as a government tool during the strike. Reith wrote in his diary that the government "know they can trust us not to be really impartial".
A post-strike analysis carried out by the BBC's Programme Correspondence Department reported that of those polled, 3,696 commended the BBC's coverage, whilst 176 were critical.
Between the wars
Since 1927, there have been arguments over impartiality at the BBC. In 1927, under a Royal Charter, the BBC became a public entity for the first time – with requirements including the need for impartiality and for staff not to express opinions on controversial subject matters.Prior to World War II, Sir John Reith excluded Winston Churchill from the BBC airwaves. At the time of the Munich Agreement of 1938, Churchill "complained that he had been very badly treated...and that he was always muzzled by the BBC".
1930s to Cold War: MI5 vetting
From the late 1930s until the end of the Cold War, MI5 had an officer at the BBC vetting editorial applicants. During World War II 'subversives', particularly suspected communists, such as the folk singer Ewan MacColl, were banned from the BBC. The personnel records of anyone suspicious were stamped with a distinctively shaped green tag, or "Christmas tree;" only a handful of BBC personnel staff knew what the 'Christmas trees' meant.1930s: Commercial radio controversy
Because the BBC had become both a monopoly and a non-commercial entity, it soon faced controversial competition from British subjects who were operating leased transmitters in Europe before World War II, to broadcast commercial radio programmes into the United Kingdom. John Reith, who had been given powers to dictate the cultural output of the BBC, retaliated by leading the opposition to these commercial stations. Controversy spilled over into the press when the British government attempted to censor the printing of their programme information. The pressure was created by the success of these stations.1930s onwards: Broadcasting jazz
In her biography of her father, My Father: Reith of the BBC, John Reith's daughter Marista Leishman said that he banned the playing of jazz music on the BBC and that he wrote in his diary that "Germany has banned hot jazz and I'm sorry that we should be behind in dealing with this filthy product of modernity."Post-war
1950s: Claimed involvement in Iranian coup d'état
A BBC Radio 4 documentary in 2005 claimed it had evidence that a radio newsreader inserted the word "exactly" into a midnight timecheck one summer night in 1953, as "It is now exactly midnight". This was said to be a code word to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, that Britain supported his plans for a coup. The Shah had selected the word, the documentary said, and the BBC broadcast the word at the request of the government. Officially, the BBC has never acknowledged the code word plot. The BBC spokesman declined to comment on a possible connection.1950s: Independent television controversy
Winston Churchill's government passed the Television Act 1954, which permitted the creation of the first commercial television network in Britain, ITV. This was criticised in the House of Lords by, among others, Lord Reith. Churchill explained to his doctor, Lord Moran: "I am against the monopoly enjoyed by the BBC. For eleven years they kept me off the air. They prevented me from expressing views which have proved to be right. Their behaviour has been tyrannical. They are honeycombed with Socialists—probably with Communists".1964: "Clean Up TV campaign"
launched her 'Clean Up TV campaign' in April 1964. In her view, Hugh Greene as BBC Director General was "more than anybody else... responsible for the moral collapse in this country." The campaign of Whitehouse and her supporters soon became the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association; Whitehouse was opposed to the policies of liberalisation pursued by Greene and largely sustained by his successors at the Corporation. Whitehouse's campaign focused much more on the BBC than on ITV, and she had a high public profile for several decades. The tabloid press also criticised the BBC for what it perceived as lapses in programming quality.1965: ''The War Game''
The War Game, directed by Peter Watkins, is a pseudo-documentary recounting the aftermath of a fictional attack on London with a one-megaton nuclear bomb. Intended for the twentieth anniversary on 6 August 1965 of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, The War Game was banned by the BBC, which said it was "too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting". The chairman of the BBC board of governors, Lord Normanbrook, wrote in a secret letter to the cabinet secretary, Burke Trend, that "The showing of the film on television might have a significant effect on public attitudes towards the policy of the nuclear deterrent". Although given a limited cinema release by the British Film Institute, and awarded an Oscar as Best Documentary, the film was not screened by the BBC until 1985.In 2012, John Pilger wrote that, in banning Watkins' film, the BBC was performing "the function of the state broadcaster as a cornerstone of Britain's ruling elite".
1969: Enhanced subscriptions
In 1969, Reuters agreed to open a reporting service in the Middle East as part of a British Foreign Office plan to influence the international media. In order to protect the reputation of Reuters, which may have been damaged if the funding from the British government became known, the BBC paid Reuters "enhanced subscriptions" for access to its news service, and was in turn compensated by the British government for the extra expense. The BBC paid Reuters £350,000 over four years under the plan.1971: ''Yesterday's Men''
Yesterday's Men is a BBC documentary first broadcast in June 1971 about the former ministers of Harold Wilson's Labour government who were now experiencing opposition. The approach of the programme makers, who included reporter David Dimbleby, angered Wilson and the Labour Party who saw it as displaying explicit Conservative bias. According to the official History of the BBC web page on the incident, the Labour politicians were "effectively tricked into taking part in a programme that would ridicule them". During his own interview, Wilson was asked by Dimbleby, in an untransmitted section of their encounter, about the money he had made from his memoirs, a question which led to a furious exchange between them. Wilson wanted the programme shelved, but it was broadcast with minor changes.1979–2000
1979: The Troubles / ''Panorama''
In November 1979, Panorama showed masked IRA men manning a roadblock in Carrickmore. The Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary withdrew their cooperation immediately and the Unionist leader James Molyneaux claimed that the filming was "at least a treasonable activity". The BBC governors issued a statement which blamed the Panorama team and admitted that the filming of the IRA roadblock "would appear to be a clear breach of standing instructions in relation to filming in Ireland". In the House of Commons the Conservative MP Tim Eggar requested that the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, "contact the governors of the BBC to express extreme concern about the way in which the Panorama team seems to have encouraged the IRA to break the law in Northern Ireland". Thatcher replied that the government contacted the BBC about the programme: "My hon. Friend will know that this is not the first time that we have had occasion to raise similar matters with the BBC. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I think that it is time that the BBC put its house in order".1982: Falklands War
During the Falklands War, the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and some Conservative MPs believed that the BBC was excessively even-handed between Britain and Argentina, referring to "the British" and "the Argentines" instead of "our forces" and "the enemy".On 2 May, during a report for Newsnight, Peter Snow remarked: "Until the British are demonstrated either to be deceiving us or to be concealing losses, we can only tend to give a lot more credence to the British version of events". The Conservative MP John Page complained that the programme was "totally offensive and almost treasonable". Answering a question from Page on 6 May, Thatcher said that "many people are very concerned indeed that the case for our British forces is not being put over fully and effectively. I understand that there are times when it seems that we and the Argentines are being treated almost as equals and almost on a neutral basis. I understand that there are occasions when some commentators will say that the Argentines did something and then "the British" did something. I can only say that if this is so it gives offence and causes great emotion among many people". The Sun newspaper published an editorial on 7 May titled "Dare Call it Treason: There are Traitors in Our Midst" which criticised Snow. The Daily Mirror came to Snow's defence in an editorial titled 'The Harlot of Fleet Street', calling The Sun "coarse and demented" and that it had "fallen from the gutter to the sewer...The Sun today is to journalism what Dr Joseph Goebbels was to truth".
The 10 May edition of Panorama also provoked outrage. The day after it was broadcast, the Conservative MP Sally Oppenheim asked Thatcher in the Commons: "Is she aware that for the most part, but not all, it was an odious, subversive, travesty in which Michael Cockerell and other BBC reporters dishonoured the right to freedom of speech in this country?" Thatcher responded: "I share the deep concern that has been expressed on many sides, particularly about the content of yesterday evening's "Panorama" programme. I know how strongly many people feel that the case for our country is not being put with sufficient vigour on certain—I do not say all—BBC programmes. The chairman of the BBC has assured us, and has said in vigorous terms, that the BBC is not neutral on this point, and I hope that his words will be heeded by the many who have responsibilities for standing up for our task force, our boys, our people and the cause of democracy".
According to the commander of the British Naval Task Force, Sandy Woodward, while the British were preparing to land on San Carlos, the BBC World Service broadcast that the Battle Group and Amphibious Group of the Task Force had joined up. Woodward later wrote: "I had hoped that this particular rendezvous at least could have remained a military secret until after the actual landing, but as ever the British media were more interested in the truth than in the consequences for our own people. We were infuriated". Some on the Task Force said that "if we got hit on the way and lost a lot of men, the Director General of the BBC should be charged with treason". Shortly before the attack on Goose Green, the BBC broadcast that an attack was imminent and that the 2 Para regiment were within five miles of Darwin. According to Woodward, there "are still some who believe that BBC report was directly responsible for the Argentinian 'ambush' in which Colonel Jones and many others died. Standing in the Ops Room of Hermes on the day the BBC effectively informed the Args of our position and bearing, I am sure we all felt the same". Thatcher later wrote: "Many of the public did not like the attitude particularly the BBC...My concern was always the safety of our forces. Theirs was news". She was also angry about the BBC's disclosure of 2 Para's position: "Can there ever have been an army which had to fight its battles against media reporting like that?"