The BBC Can’t Be Reformed – Its Purpose is Propaganda and Disinformation

The BBC has announced that its Director-General Tim Davie and the CEO of BBC News Deborah Turness are to step down. This comes in response to a leaked memo alleging that BBC news and current affairs producers were wilfully doctoring footage to fabricate a false narrative, a scandal worsened by senior executives’ indifference to the allegations when brought to their attention. In further news, the Telegraph reports that “The BBC is preparing to launch an investigation to assess bias in its climate change coverage, amid a growing crisis at the corporation.” It sounds like much is changing everywhere. But is it? Are institutions merely adapting to their immediate crisis, and is that enough? Should we require more? What will the BBC be? What do we want it to be? Should it be anything at all?

I have, in recent weeks and months, been writing here and elsewhere about the inadequacies of the climate ‘epiphany’, as for example demonstrated by the Conservative Party’s row back from Net Zero. Though we are all relieved that the party of government of 14 of the previous 15 years is now somewhat cognisant of its earlier failures, this has been in my view inadequate. Here’s why, in a nutshell:


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Grahamb
6 months ago

It has a good back catalogue of stuff I would pay for. The current stuff is rubbish. I know the people behind creating the BBC digital archive and perhaps they saw this day coming.

Solentviews
Solentviews
6 months ago
Reply to  Grahamb

Except you already paid for that back catalogue when it was made (through your licence fee). Paying again for it seems unjust.

Grahamb
6 months ago
Reply to  Solentviews

Fair point. The cost to make it digital was also in the past.

Stewardship
Stewardship
6 months ago
Reply to  Solentviews

That was the argument in favour of free TV for the over 75’s. You are mainly watching repeats, which your prior licence fees have covered many times over.

Monro
6 months ago

The only reform of the bbc that will work is reform of the funding model.

Many if not most households watch their programming via subscription.

The bbc licence fee should simply be altered to a voluntary subscription.

Done.

transmissionofflame
6 months ago
Reply to  Monro

I think they must be forced to remove the word “British” from the company name, and the charter should be scrapped or if they want to keep it then it’s entirely voluntary. Get rid of Ofcom too, and the requirement for “balance”. All of these things are just devices to try and trick people into thinking it’s a fount of truth.

MajorMajor
MajorMajor
6 months ago

The BBC cannot be reformed.
The problem is not just the chairman or the news editor.
The problem is that during many decades of selective recruitment, the entire organization has been filled with people who religiously adhere to every tenet of the “progressive” left ideology.
Even if you replace a few top guys, the remaining 20,000 employees will still follow the same pattern.
The BBC is not a broadcasting company. It is a church, a religious cult, an echo chamber of the “righteous”.
It deserves to disappear. It had its days and it produced some quality content, but in its present form it is just an aberration.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
6 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

You are right, I did some work for them many years ago, not media related. They all have their heads in their own fundaments. A nauseating bunch.

johnn635
johnn635
6 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

Biased in the extreme. Just heard a Belgian professor modelling climate and ‘Carbon’ being interviewed. It was tautological claptrap with no opposing arguments.

Smudger
6 months ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

Much of your excellent analysis of the BBC could be applicable to the Tory Party. They too are just an aberration and need to disappear.

Dinger64
6 months ago

“What will the BBC be? What do we want it to be?”

Independent, End of!

Gezza England
Gezza England
6 months ago
Reply to  Dinger64

Gone!!

For a fist full of roubles
Reply to  Dinger64

Self funding

mickie
mickie
6 months ago

The BBC cannot be reformed and it is beyond such mending. I look forward to its scrapping.

varmint
6 months ago
Reply to  mickie

You might think if it stops doing the news then that will be enough. But no, their documentaries are all full of climate activism and their dramas full of diversity. It all has to go, or they fund it themselves.

transmissionofflame
6 months ago
Reply to  varmint

Even the sports reporting has a political agenda

Sarony
Sarony
6 months ago
Reply to  varmint

A frustrated writer complained some time ago that, unless the play offered conformed to the BBC’s DEI agenda, there wasn’t a hope in hell of it being accepted. Thus a shining star of the corporation was thoroughly dimmed and became unlistenable. The refuge was the then Radio 7 which broadcast repeats of old drama. But even that, under its new guise of R4 Extra, changed.

V Detta
V Detta
6 months ago
Reply to  Sarony

Yes, but Radio4X is still a shining star of the way things used to be. It is free of news needless to say one should avoid any programmes made after 2020 then it is easy to find classics not influenced by DEI.

Smudger
6 months ago
Reply to  mickie

People can accelerate that day by not paying their licence fee otherwise the political class will not either scrap the BBC or scrap the TV licence fee.

varmint
6 months ago

When and if there is an apology to Trump and to the public here, it cannot be an apology for “an error of judgement”—-OH NO You are not getting away with that. An error or a mistake is when you do something you did not mean to do. In other words it was an accident.—— This was none of these things. It was DELIBERATE. They can only therefore get way with apologising for DELIBERATELY misleading their viewers and trying to influence their opinion of the US President.
The apology should go something like this. “We edited a piece of film to make it appear Trump had incited insurrection. This was deliberate and we apologise unreservedly for it”

Sparrowhawk
6 months ago
Reply to  varmint

Even if they say this, they should still be sued to high heaven. Words mean little; they should be made to suffer, intensively, and in public.

huxleypiggles
6 months ago
Reply to  varmint

I do not believe the crime committed by Al-beeb can be redeemed simply by virtue of a worthless apology. And a crime has been committed let’s not try to pretend it hasn’t.

varmint
6 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Neither do I, but if an apology comes it cannot be for “an error of judgement” It was not an error, it was deliberate.

transmissionofflame
6 months ago

“Excesses of Fox News” – some people like Fox, others not. All TVs have an off button, and a button to change the channel.

The state does not own newspapers (well, not in “democracies” it doesn’t) – why should it own a media empire?

Gezza England
Gezza England
6 months ago

Nobody is forced to watch Fox News and nobody is forced to fund it under threat of a criminal prosecution, however unlikely.

transmissionofflame
6 months ago
Reply to  Gezza England

For the “elites”, freedom of choice for the plebs just won’t do.

stewart
6 months ago

That is very true when it comes to things they consider essential to keeping the plebs under control. So media and education. They want to make sure they control the programming of the little brains of the plebs

Bettina
Bettina
6 months ago
Reply to  Gezza England

Yes but the sheer nastiness of the threatening letters when you don’t watch TV would shame the Mafia. They are relentless too.

Sarony
Sarony
6 months ago
Reply to  Bettina

No-one has yet investigated how much these threatening letters are costing the licence payers, of which I am not one.

Mikael
Mikael
6 months ago

Ben Pile never fails to deliver. Another masterpiece.

Howard Arnaud
Howard Arnaud
6 months ago

The BBC is, and always has been, a tool of the state with the express purpose of shaping narratives.

It exists to give the public a carefully curated view of events, while at the same time concealing from them anything of real significance.

This is why it will never change.

Ever see anything substantive on the BBC questioning the UN or its myriad agencies, or the real aims and workings of the EU, or of the WEF, or the Gates Foundation, or any of the other globalist forces which increasingly shape our lives? And that’s only scratching the surface.

Has the BBC made clear to the British public that the real aims of the current COP30 jamboree is the construction of a dystopian digital world control grid?

https://open.substack.com/pub/drjacobnordangard/p/cop30-proposal-global-public-digital

You’d think the public might be interested, especially when someone tells them they can’t take the kids on holiday to Spain because they turned up the heating last winter…

Epi
Epi
6 months ago
Reply to  Howard Arnaud

Absolutely agree 100%. Problem with your last point although again 100% true is when I point this out to family and friends all I receive is derision.

Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
6 months ago

The man senior controller Jonathan Munro was also involved in the Martin Bashir and Cliff Richard scandaI, I wonder if he will survive.

it does seem that proof is emerging that news has been doctored for years to suit the BBC narrative, the whole news organisation is rotten to the core, of course most people who comment here already know that.

Epi
Epi
6 months ago
Reply to  Bill Bailey

I particularly remember the lying deathporn put out by Clive Myrie during the scamdemic.

varmint
6 months ago

Davie always has what can only be described as a smug self satisfied Liberal Progressive SMIRK on is face. It is a smirk that says “I am poisoned with utter contempt for the public”

Hester
Hester
6 months ago

The BBC employee are from the same narrow Left thinking, in fact extreme Left thinking cadre, because they are all the same and are narrow in their group in terms of even allowing for alternative facts, the result is, is that they can see nothing wrong in their behaviour, or their adherance to beliefs and forcing them on others, they are seriously incapable of believing that they could be wrong, on anything. The second problem arising from these beliefs is that they have an elite complex, wherby they truly think they are the keepers of all that is good and righteous, and therefore it is their job to ensure by whatever means (example the Trump video doctoring, the anti semitism, the insistence that biological men are women at the say so, the David Attenborough programmes promoting false information) to make the public comply with and follow their opinions of what is good and what is bad. They believe themselves to be superior and better beings than those who pay the licence fee and watch and listen, and because of this the ends justify whatever means they choose to use. The same is applicable to the U.N. The BBC is the… Read more »

Boomer Bloke
6 months ago

Demonitise
Dismantle
Dispose of
Delete

JohnnyDownes
6 months ago

The BBC appears to be offering the Morecombe and Wise defence.
They accurately reported the President’s words… but not necessarily in the right order.

RW
RW
6 months ago
Reply to  JohnnyDownes

They did report them in the correct order. They just cut some intermediate bits which weren’t relevant for the new report they planned to deliver.

Epi
Epi
6 months ago
Reply to  JohnnyDownes

Brilliant!

NeilofWatford
6 months ago

I’d go further.
The Book of Revelation describes Pergamon as Satan’s Seat. It was excavated by German archaeologists and can be seen in the museum in Berlin.
Satan’s Seat here in the UK is the BBC. What better position than the world’s largest, best funded media and news organisation?
It’s overarching goal is the eradication of Judeo-Christian values from Britain.
Everything it does is for this purpose.
The destruction of family, the perversion of infants, the promotion of Islamism, the demonising of Israel, the misrepresentation of Christianity with homosexual vicars.
Bear in mind the British Empire, the single greatest in world history, was founded upon Christian principles. Education, health, welfare, justice, police and science.
All now subverted by the BBC.
Know your enemy.

RTSC
RTSC
6 months ago

It cannot be reformed.

The only people who are loudly proclaiming their support for “the brilliant, impartial, and no-way Institutionally-biased and corrupt BBC” are those who work for it in a senior capacity and left-wing members of the Establishment who are desperate to maintain their control over their preferred narratives.

I hope Trump sues them for £1 billion; wins his case and the BBC is forced to report it: impartially, of course.

Norfolk-Sceptic
Norfolk-Sceptic
6 months ago
Reply to  RTSC

If that is the case, it will be the licence payers, the British public that will be out of pocket.

No, don’t complain: it’s just the responsibility we have for owning a nationalised industry, just like Steel, Coal, and the rest that drained the coffers in years gone by

And it’s another reason to ditch and dismantle the dismal BBC, in it’s entirety.

DiscoveredJoys
DiscoveredJoys
6 months ago

I’ll argue that the state of the BBC is not terribly important, but like the War of Jenkins Ear
https://grokipedia.com/page/War_of_Jenkins'_Ear
the latest kerfuffle could be a crystalising moment for recognising when the disinformation of the State broadcaster has become unacceptable.

If The Powers That Be are sensible (!) they will see that a couple of high level resignations are not enough to avoid blame. My guess is that there will be announcements about the Licence review or even an official Inquiry to reduce public concerns (and incidentally keep the BBC running – it’s too useful to give up).

I welcome Trump’s involvement, but I suspect defunding the BBC will be necessary.

WillP
6 months ago

Katie Razzall has been very busy hand feeding leading questions in desperate interviews.
The insider coup was my favourite.

WillP
6 months ago

katie razzall, leading the defence of the BBC with searing questions like: “It wus just right wingers, wurn’t it?” has some form – see below

Screenshot-2025-11-11-at-10.57.51
RW
RW
6 months ago
Reply to  WillP

A brilliant exercise in missing the point: This is illegal under UK law. You’re living in the UK. Hence, you must not do it. That other people also broke this law before is completely irrelevant. If you see someone being punched in the face and than proceed to punch him himself, “But I thought this was ok because the other guy did it, too!” will not count as valid excuse.

Howard Arnaud
Howard Arnaud
6 months ago

If anyone is still sceptical about the BBC’s role as an instrument of state control, just consider the relentless cajoling of listeners to get a “smart speaker”, which has plagued Radio 3 for months now, and I think also its other channels.

This is a prelude for the state to be able to bark its instructions directly into your home, telescreen style, the next logical step on from those phone alerts sent out recently.

All for your “safety” of course.

I can’t say I’m looking forward to endless renderings of ‘Oceania, ’tis for thee’.

Gezza England
Gezza England
6 months ago

There is a book by a British author who decided to look at public services around the World and who looked to have the best system. No great surprise that none of the entries were from the UK but the book has provided a good template for reforming our services.

Bettina
Bettina
6 months ago
Reply to  Gezza England

Sounds interesting- do you recall the title/author?

For a fist full of roubles

Perhaps the BBC needs a new top person from Disney, Jaguar or BudLite, someone with their finger of the pulse of the viewing public.

Sforzesca
Sforzesca
6 months ago

It needs to be treasured – like the Guardian.
Both bastions of fearless journalism, totally independent from any outside influences such as Gates,Soros, WEF, bigpharma, wokeism, the EU, NATO, the WHO, HMG, etc.

JXB
JXB
6 months ago

The point missed by the likes of Simpson about FoxNews, is it does not exist by taxing the public, it has to attract sufficient audiences to attract advertisers, and subscriptions and thus revenue. This is also true of the likes of CNN. Since US viewers can chose which they watch, and they don’t have to pay for what they don’t want to watch, and this places the US broadcast media in competition with one another. FoxNews ratings far exceed CNN’s which have declined significantly and rapidly just as FoxNews ratings have climbed. The result is major changes at CNN, people fired, programmes taken off air, to counter its left-leaning, anti-Trump reputation which clearly many in the US don’t like. Those promoting the BBC don’t want change to a commercial funding basis because they know what will happen, either the BBC will have to reform significantly or go bankrupt – the likes of Simpson know that in either case they will be out of a job. The BBC and NHS are ugly State-run sisters both of which we are forced to pay for no matter how bad, or whether we want something else. Neither can be reformed, but need to be… Read more »

Climan
Climan
6 months ago

The Australian version of the BBC is ABC, their version of BBC Verify is ABC Media Watch. Taxpayers money is spent attacking other media companies, none of whom gets a penny of of taxpayers money. It is even worse than BBC Verify, as it gets its own TV programme.

But, we in the UK should be grateful to our Aussie cousins, Media Watch features a Brit (Paul Barry) who is insufferably smug, he would be on the BBC were it not for ABC.

Mark Splane
Mark Splane
6 months ago
Reply to  Climan

At least the Aussies have the consolation that their Sky News is nothing like its British namesake.

myk
myk
6 months ago

Any program put out by bbc news begs the question is it fake or fact

Bettina
Bettina
6 months ago

Fantastic article 👏🏻

Sarony
Sarony
6 months ago

If, as I once read, the BBC structure is modelled on that of the Civil Service, then reform is impossible. Its claim that it is the sole purveyor of truth is part of the territory.

marebobowl
marebobowl
6 months ago

How could anyone be lost without the bbc? Kristi Alsopp said she would be. Honestly, thee bbc is simply the gov’ts brainwashing tool. That is it folks.

Epi
Epi
6 months ago

The whole license fee funded TV is a thing of the past. If people want to pay for the sort of guff that comes from the BBC then fair enough. But I don’t see why I should have to pay to watch/listen to their nonsense. As a result I haven’t watched/listened to the BBC (or any MSM) since the beginning of the scamdemic. Much prefer to subscribe to various other media outlets UK Column, Lotus Eaters, various podcasts and of course the DS. The Light newspaper is also a good source of THE TRUTH!