BBC's Biases, Africa & Imperial Truths

BBC's Biases, Africa & Imperial Truths

by Tajudeen Raheem

THURSDAY POSTCARD 5 FEB 2004

The BBC is going through a very rough time at the moment. The chairman of the board and the Director General of the Corporation both resigned last week. This was a consequence of the Hutton Enquiry set up by the Blair government last year to look into the circumstances leading to the death by suicide of a Ministry of Defence WMD expert, Dr Kelly and allegations carried on a flagship BBC domestic programme, the Today programme, that Tony Blair and his government 'sexed up' an intelligence report on Iraq's weapons of Mass Destruction in order to persuade an unwilling British public and anti war global opinion that the threat from Saddam was real and imminent. The investigative journalist, Andrew Gilligan, at the midst of all the controversy, has also resigned.

The good Lord, Hutton, in his controversial wisdom found that
Tony Blair's government, was whiter than white and had no responsibility directly or indirectly in exposing the identity of its own civil servant, DR Kelly and the precipitate tragic developments that followed. Instead the Law Lord put the BBC in the dock and found it guilty of maligning the government and carrying inaccurate report.

The verdict has produced a backlash in Britain. More people today trust the government much less than they trust the BBC.

But trust about the BBC is not just limited to the British public.
The corporation has a global presence and influence, broadcasting in more than 40 languages across the world. It is the only window of the world for many people. It has strengthened its global dominance through the new information technology's multi media and liberalisation of the airwaves that ensures that you can hook up to the BBC locally on an FM station for 24 hours. In Africa the jury must still be out whether this is good or bad. Even without the multimedia we have been too influenced by the BBC. So strong is the influence that in those decades of coup-prone
Africa many heads of state, life presidents and other assorted
dictators that we have endured will not believe that they have
been overthrown until they hear it on the BBC.

If somebody tells you something and you showed some doubt they think they have finished you by saying: 'I heard it on the BBC, 'they said it on the BBC' or 'the BBC said it'. And because the BBC said so it must be true!

Many people do not even know that the government of the United Kingdom owns the BBC. Worse still the most influential part of the BBC, internationally, the World Service, is not only owned by the government but unlike the rest of the BBC, financed largely from obligatory license fees, it is financed by the Foreign and Commonwealth office (in lay man's terms, the British ministry of foreign Affairs!).

Therefore the BBC and its World service in particular is part
and parcel of the British establishment and its hegemonic propaganda both at home and abroad. But it is done with such subtlety that its consumers believe they are getting knowledge instead of ideology. It has achieved this through a liberal agenda that makes many to believe that they are and can be heard. Many do not even believe that those journalists at the BBC are as human as them with their prejudices, insecurities and uncertainties. They are considered as experts but how much do they know themselves about the world they are reporting?

The BBC has been able to achieve this level of influence globally largely because it is and perceived as less biased than its global competitors. For instance the Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts to Africa are meant for Africa only and by law (now difficult to implement in the era of ICT multimedia revolution) illegal to be listened to inside America. Now ask yourself why should Americans be banned from listening to what their government is sending to other peoples for free? But it is not just the government media that does this censorship, the next time you are in America just watch the CNN local broadcast and compare it to the one you listen to everyday at home, outside of America.

In VOA they even broadcast a special bulletin of the view of
the government of the United States. Their propaganda is too
crude while that of the BBC is more subtle and sublime. But now and then as a consequence of the troubled conscience that a liberal is condemned to permanently experience the BBC has to confront the reality of its being owned by government and remaining loyal to it. It can put any government on the tender hooks and cause maximum trouble for them but not the British government.

All those naive people who take the BBC, as gospel truth, should remember this as they rush for their radios.

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