The BBC has been accused of feeding viewers “a steady diet of woke bias” after new research uncovered scores of examples of the broadcaster failing to abide by its own impartiality rules.
The corporation’s news and drama departments both came in for criticism in a new report by The Campaign for Common Sense.
It found that in 2023 the BBC News website published on average more than one article per week on the slave trade.
Examples included: “How a flood led family to discover slavery link” and “Jamaicans call for Gladstone slavery reparations”.
The BBC sparked a backlash in January after it referred to the iconic explorer Sir Francis Drake as a “16th-century slave trader” in a news article on its website. It later amended the story.
BBC Radio 4 also apologised a month later when it had a discussion with transgender activist guests who branded JK Rowling transphobic but failed to give any opposing view.
Television dramas were accused of divisive and provocative story lines.
The BBC has faced criticism for its Christmas production of the Agatha Christie thriller Murder Is Easy after extra scenes were added to make it an allegory for colonialism.
Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, had previously vowed to restore trust
PA
Meanwhile, episodes of Doctor Who from this year include a transgender character, implications that the Doctor is gay and also a discussion about an alien and whether they have preferred pronouns.
A spokesman for the Campaign for Common Sense said: “This research reveals that, rather than upholding those high standards of impartiality, parts of the BBC continue to peddle a steady diet of woke bias both through the plot lines of popular dramas but also in some of its news coverage.
“The Impartiality Plan, unveiled in the wake of a BBC scandal over trust, was supposed to mark a turning point for the corporation.
“Instead this research reveals the same old woke world view is still very much in operation.
“Two years ago, the BBC set itself very high standards to help restore viewers’ trust.
“It has singularly failed to meet those standards.”
Hitting back, the BBC said: “Cherry-picking a handful of examples or highlighting genuine mistakes in thousands of hours of output does not constitute analysis and is not a true representation of BBC content.
“We are proud that our output seeks to represent all audiences and a range of stories and perspectives.
“Across the entirety of our services there will, of course, be occasions when people disagree with or want to challenge what they have watched or heard and we have well-publicised routes for them to do that.”
