Charlie Walsham is the pseudonym of a BBC News employee who has worked at the Corporation for several years.
The grandly titled CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, Deborah Turness, described Donald Trump’s re-election as ‘a dramatic night that changed everything’. She made that claim in an internal email to staff, lauding the Corporation’s ‘unmissable’ US election results coverage. Her email though raises an interesting question: if Trump’s victory has changed everything, will
Coverage of the death of Chris Kaba – and the acquittal of the police officer Martyn Blake tried for his murder – has raised more troubling questions about editorial decision-making at the BBC. Kaba was shot dead during an armed vehicle stop in south London on 5 September 2022. Because Kaba was black, it appears the BBC’s
This week, the BBC was accused of breaching its own editorial guidelines on more than 1,500 occasions and displaying a ‘deeply worrying pattern of bias’ against Israel in a report that drew its findings from an analysis of four months of BBC output. Editorial bosses at Broadcasting House have questioned the methodology of the research,
The BBC’s coverage of the Notting Hill carnival has been almost relentlessly positive. But the rosy view of the festivities was finally shattered this weekend when the Metropolitan Police released a statement confirming the death of two people who were attacked at the event. The force said both killings were now being treated as murder
It’s not a pleasant feeling to know there are colleagues in your workplace who think you should be summarily dismissed and marched out of the building, flanked by security. Yet I learned this week that this is my predicament. As reported by GB News, unidentified BBC employees have been trying to identify me and have me fired
What must it feel like to realise you are part of an organisation that has placed so-called progressive values ahead of evidence, risking real-world harms to countless vulnerable young people? In the wake of the publication of the Cass review into gender identity services for under-18s in England, I know exactly how that feels.
As an increasingly jaded BBC hack, I reacted to the creation of BBC Verify last May with temple-rubbing despondency. The definition of ‘verify’ is to ‘to prove that something exists or is true, or to make certain that something is correct’. This is, in essence, the most basic rule of journalism. Yet here we were,
It’s been a truly surreal, disturbing and darkly comic week at the BBC. Much remains obscured, but one thing is crystal clear: longstanding institutional failings over the way the Corporation handles serious complaints remain unaddressed. On a more positive note, however, the events of the last few days have again showcased one of the BBC’s
As Gary Lineker resumes his duties as the BBC’s highest-paid employee, it is worth appreciating that one of the Corporation’s greatest strengths is that its own journalists are willing and able to criticise the organisation in their coverage without professional repercussions. The broadcaster’s many critics should recognise this self-flagellation for what it is: a vital
I recall the newsroom conversations during the dark days of the pandemic only too well. They were upsetting at the time. Now, as we see a disturbing rise in excess deaths across the country, the thought of them fills me with horror and outrage. ‘You do realise these lockdowns and restrictions will end up killing
During Pride month this year a banner has been emblazoned across the BBC’s internal staff website used by every single employee. It features the following text: ‘BBC Pride 2022: Bringing together LGBTQ+ people of all genders, sexualities and identities at the BBC.’ Most people who work at the BBC aren’t concerned about this. But the
As a journalist, it’s never a comfortable feeling when the news organisation you work for becomes the story. But with No. 10 desperate to throw some ‘red meat’ to the green benches — to take the spotlight off the rotting carcass of ‘partygate’ — it was inevitable that the BBC would end up being fed
I have been a BBC journalist for many years, and in that time I have been committed to impartiality and the corporation’s Reithian values to inform and educate. My despair about the BBC’s one-sided coverage of the pandemic though has been steadily growing for some time. And in early December, as I listened to a
