Former BBC journalist Robin Aitken believes that the dominant progressive worldview of British journalists can lead them to be hostile to, and ignorant about, Christians and issues that are important to them.
He’s authored two books on bias at the BBC after being closer to the inner workings of the media giant than most of its critics.
His 2007 book Can We Trust the BBC? alleged pervasive and institutional left-wing bias at the BBC.
It was written after the corporation’s managers responded to his long list of complaints about impartiality, by offering him a generous pension for life at the age of 50.
He accepted the payout and moved on to other endeavours over the next two decades, including the establishment of the Oxford Foodbank for which he was honoured with an MBE.
Robin Aitken also followed his Christian faith to pursue his campaign against anti-Christian bias in the media.
He told Christian Today that global persecution of Christians is ignored by mainstream media in the West.
Atrocities against Christians in places like Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo seldom rate a mention in most Western newspapers and news broadcasts, he noted.
THE BIAS PROBLEM AT THE BBC
“The problem in the BBC is that anything which can be categorised as right wing or populist, the BBC is against, because its staff are overwhelmingly on the side of ‘progress’, albeit progress that many of us have described as backwards.”
“Many BBC journalists strive to be impartial and to live up to the core doctrine of the BBC.”
“But impartiality is a very tough thing to ask of people. ”
“It’s almost impossible for a thinking adult to divorce themselves entirely from their core beliefs.”
“I can’t, and I don’t think many people can. ”
“The only way of correcting that imbalance in our media coverage is to ensure there are equal numbers of left and right wing people in your organisation.”
“That would be a very difficult thing to achieve.”
“PROGRESSIVE JOURNALISTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND CHRISTIANS”
“There is a deep set and structural imbalance in the media which is dominated by highly educated people who have had their political and psychological formation under the tutelage of progressive opinion in universities and schools.”
“In a materialistic culture the secular majority does not understand what we use among ourselves as Christians to explain the world and the way it is. ”
“Our belief in a God, a Creator, in that which is ineffable and spiritual, and in the realm of the supernatural, that language and vocabulary does not sit right in the media’s representation of the world as it is.”
“To us, there can be no understanding of the world without acknowledgement of a Creator God, and to what God has explained to us is the right way to live.”
“Bridging that gulf is difficult in reality, and in language it’s difficult too.”
“A bunch of secular journalists sitting in a TV newsroom is perfectly comfortable dealing with the nuts and bolts of left-right politics.”
“But they are unable to explain the motivation of people who have religious belief.”
MEDIA HOSTILITY AND ANIMOSITY TOWARDS CHRISTIANS
“There is a lot of hostility in sections of the media towards religion itself.”
“That is manifested in a disregard and an uninterest in what happens to Christian minorities whose persecution doesn’t strike them with the same force as when other religious minorities are persecuted.”
“A good example of that is the persecution of the [Muslim] Rohingyas in Myanmar. What happened to them was not pretty. But there are worse examples of the persecution of Christians going on which don’t command any headlines at all,”
“Some British journalists feel a residual animosity towards the position of the Church of England (CofE) which is seen is part of the establishment and easily mocked.”
“There’s also a historic hostility towards Catholicism in England. You can still uncover quite a visceral dislike of Roman Catholicism.”
“Most staff in the BBC are drawn from a particular demographic They are young, highly educated and they incline left.”
“Their formation was in an education system that is dominated by progressive thinking.”
