Media Analyst Says BBC Bias Toward Trump No Secret

And joining us now to discuss is Bill Dastino. He's a senior research analyst at MRC Newsbusters. Bill, thank you so much for joining us. President Trump is now threatening legal action against the BBC for selective editing of his speech on January 6th. Now, the BBC has apologized for what it calls an error in judgment with top bosses resigning. What do you make of all of this so far? Well, first of all, I'll just say that the lawsuit is going to be um significantly more complicated than if it were against something like NPR. Um something that uh a lot of Americans, I think, don't understand about the BBC is the degree to which it is um practically like a branch of the British government. Uh it's its board is actually appointed by um with with council from their secretary of state. It's it's partially appointed by a part of their monarchy, right? And so the the se secretary of state generally gets whatever he recommends in that regard, but it is deeply entrenched with their government. Um it's it's funding is almost 3/4 from just this TV license that the UK government charges. Um and so if if you're going to sue the BBC, that's that's very different than suing something like NPR, which is technically speaking an independent um corporation, although it's it's heavily dependent on government funds. Um or at least it was before the recisions package. The BBC is is it you'd basically be suing the British government itself. >> Be fascinating to see how that plays out. Now, it's not just January 6th. A Daily Telegraph report pointed to major failings in the BBC's coverage of several issues, including the Israel Hamas War and transgender topics. Now, given that the BBC has a global reach of 450 million weekly views on average, how damaging can journalistic errors like this be? Well, I'd hesitate to call it an an error really. I feel like the the only error uh in on the BBC's part was that they got caught in this instance. I mean, they've they've made no secret at all that they have a very open animist towards Trump and towards conservatism at large. Uh not just in the United States, but of course in the UK as well. Um they are, I would say, probably one of the most biased global outlets that exist. Uh, and so if if they're going to take a um any kind of hit to their credibility as a result of this, I would argue that that's uh nothing but upside because it's going to make people realize the degree to which the BBC actually tries to obuscate the truth for many of their viewers. >> Now, we saw that after President Trump sued CBS over the Harris interview and reached a settlement for $16 million, they also released the full transcript for the interview with Trump. Now, we're seeing big editorial moves from CBS by hiring Barry Weiss. Do you see a change coming in the way media does reporting now with more transparency to its viewers? Well, um, something that's encouraging with CBS specifically, um, and I believe this happened actually before Weiss came in, uh, is they they announced that they're going to go to a, um, a completely, uh, tape to live or just only live format for all of their interviews with, um, with politicians or or administration officials, which I think is very important because often people are left scratching their heads wondering, okay, what did they cut out or how sutured together really was this? Um CBS has had a pretty big problem with that specifically actually. Uh as as far as the impact that Weiss might have at CBS, I mean I think that what we've seen from her so far is encouraging. Uh but I would encourage your viewers to recall Chris L's stint as uh as the head of CNN and how much difficulty he had trying to turn that network around. I mean, he fired some of the worst offenders, right, like John Harwood, uh Don Lemon, Ryan Stelter, although he's he's now back. Um it's it's difficult to um to write the ship when basically everybody at every echelon of the organization uh is is all in lock step and they're basically all in it for the purpose of enacting political outcomes rather than doing journalism which uh I would I would say for the most part that kind of describes at least the way CBS was before Weiss came in. And zooming out a bit here, Bill, we've seen a massive decline in traditional media and a rise in independent forms like podcasters and some young people are getting their news solely from social media like Tik Tok. Talk to us about what you're seeing in terms of the changing media landscape, the good and the bad, because for example, more options, more sources of information, but critics will say also more sources of misinformation. >> Well, I I would argue that misinformation is uh it's the amount of it is kind of hard to quantify, right? I mean, sure. C certainly if anybody can just grab a uh a microphone and suddenly be a show host, yeah, you're you're going to have less vetting. Um but as far as the amount of vetting that actually goes on at some of these major news corporations, uh it's it's been found to be incredibly lacking again and again and again. I mean, so many of the official narratives that have been pushed by the likes of the New York Times, the broadcast networks, Washington Post, etc., not to mention left-wing cable, which I won't even get into. Um, but so much of that has has been shown to be completely false, right? I mean, you could you could talk about, for example, COVID lab leak theory or uh everything with Hunter Biden's laptop. Um, so I I think that in general, more diversification and less um top-down completely corporate media is almost only nothing but a good thing. >> Well, Bill Dustinino, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so