Let’s stop pretending the BBC is impartial

On January 28^th 2025, the BBC reported on a horrific event. The headline: ‘In a split second, Russia wipes out three generations of a Ukrainian family.’

It is harrowing. Heartbreaking. A terrifying war crime committed by Russia that is rightly covered by western media.

It also shows that the BBC is capable of clearly reporting about generations of families being ‘wiped out’ and they’re even able to name the aggressor. Generations of families in Gaza have also been wiped out, but the BBC has not reported on this. In those stories it covers on the death and hardships of Palestinians, the aggressor, i.e. Israel, is rarely ever named in the headlines.

Hypocrisy is rife in western media’s reporting on the two major conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. As we watch the ceasefire play out (fyi Palestinians are still being killed), the news reports on Israeli ‘hostages’ while Palestinians, even women and children, are ‘prisoners.’

Let’s also consider the BBC Middle East editor, Raffi Berg, who has also worked for the US State Department. On X, he wrote to Netanyahu’s son about how his father sent him a ‘lovely’ personal letter for his latest spy book. A bit odd, for someone who must be impartial…

One of the first things that struck me when I started my research for my novel COO, was learning about how the BBC played a part in the western-led coup in Iran. That’s right—the BBC assisted the British government in overthrowing a regime abroad, in the interest of keeping control of Iran’s oil.

In 1953, the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was humming and hawing over whether to go ahead with the coup which the British and US were pushing for. To help convince him it was the right move, MI6 bribed his closest allies to tell him to go for it. MI6 agent Norman Darbyshire presented the Shah’s twin sister Ashraf with a suitcase full of cash and a mink coat. In return, she was to fly from Paris to Tehran and convince her brother to get rid of Mossadegh—the Prime Minister who wanted to nationalise the country’s oil and effectively take control away from the British. Meanwhile the CIA presented a suitcase full of cash to a trusted old friend of the Shah, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. This was a man the Shah greatly respected and he delivered the same message: get rid of Mossadegh. When the Shah, timid and indecisive, asked for assurance that the coup was being planned and supported by the highest office in Britain, Churchill obliged. Through the BBC, the British Prime Minister sent a coded message that assured the Shah that he personally backed the plan to overthrow Mossadegh.

In the summer of 1953, the BBC newsreader was instructed by Churchill to end its broadcast for the night with ‘It is now exactly midnight,’ instead of ‘It is now midnight.’ At a moment’s notice, Churchill had this power to intervene in reporting, and used the BBC as a platform to get his coup off the ground. CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt (yes, from that family) told the Shah to watch for this code word in the broadcast as proof that he had the might of Britain behind him. The Shah tuned in, and there was the coded message. With this fresh confidence, he moved forward with the western-led coup which has far reaching-consequences on Middle Eastern geopolitics today.

We have to ask ourselves: Is the BBC still acting on behalf of the British government? Why else then won’t it investigate and report on Britain’s role in training Israeli soldiers and sending military personnel to support Netanyahu’s regime? We are left in the dark.

If you live in Britain, then you’ll know that by law you must pay the £169.50 TV license fee which funds BBC programming. The deal is that if you want to watch programmes live as they’re shown on TV or any online TV service (like Amazon Prime Video, Channel 4), you have to pay. But you can opt-out. You can also write to your local MP and explain why you don’t want to keep funding the BBC.

Ofcom which regulates BBC programming is supposed to hold the media outlet to account. Here is an excerpt from their ‘Operating Licence for BBC’ on how the BBC must provide impartial news reporting:

Here is how Ofcom deals with complaints about the BBC.

In a world where stories shape policies, we must hold storytellers, especially those which claim to deliver ‘truth’, like the BBC, to account for their bias and double standards.

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