Blasphemy, Bias and Offensiveness

A Christian Apologist blames the decline in Christianity in Europe and the USA on the media.  He specifically takes aim at the BBC, which is surprising given how it is funded and controlled, and given that he never watches it. In fact all of his criticisms come from the very media which he accuses of being biased so it would be easy to dismiss his entire criticism on that basis! For example, one of his sources is The Daily Mail,  well known for its hostility toward the BBC. It also seems that many people who complain about "anti-Christian bias" are actually arguing for the media to be biased towards Christianity, rather than genuinely unbiased.


However, it is s topic worth exploring, because it is a fact that any source of information, or any person, will be biased in some way. That is human nature. The key is how to minimise that bias. 

1 If we are judging a media source, there are some obvious indicators of how seriously it tries to reduce bias:

(a) Does it publish criticism of itself?

(b) Is it accused of bias by all sides? 

(c) Is it independently monitored and regulated?

(d) Does it enable employees (at all levels) to openly criticise their employer? 

(e) Is it free from political influence?

(f) Does it have an editorial and peer review process?

(g) Is it reliant on commercial funding?

(h) Are its accounts open and transparent?

(i) Does it rely on commercial sales for its survival?

(j) Does its sales and/or ratings rely on a specific demographic? (e.g. by political view, age, gender, religion, etc.)

Assessing the BBC against those indicators shows that it does seem to be doing everything possible to minimise bias.  What evidence does the Apologist provide?

2 The References provided by the Apologist

2.1 Source The Daily Mail 

The source is well known to be hostile towards the BBC. It refers to a survey but misrepresents the results.  Some respondents to the survey felt the BBC was biased against Christianity, but right at the bottom of the article it is stated that "It is not known exactly how many respondents expressed the view that the BBC was anti-Christian." So it could have been a tiny minority. In any case, the assertion made by the apologist is not referred to in this source.  

Summary: No data in this article which enable any assessment of bias. The survey itself illustrates adherence to guideline (a)

2.2 Source: The Christian Institute

The source is a Conservative, Evangelical Christian group and based in the UK. It is infamous for its campaigns against liberal media and homosexuality in particular. The Christian Institute's activities resulted in censure by The Charity Commission in 2001, for breaching rules limiting overt political campaigning by charities.

Their article is a promotion for the memoirs of Peter Sissons, who worked as a news reader for 20 years at the BBC after they offered him a £500,000 contract to join them from ITN.  His performance was disappointing and reached a low spot when he handled the death of the Queen Mother so badly he was pilloried in the press, and the Royal Family switched allegiance to ITV. Sissons was demoted to the 24 hour online News channel.  It seems he held a grudge which emerged in his memoirs.

Summary: The opinion of a disgruntled employee, published by an extremely biased organisation. Does not qualify as evidence of bias.

2.3 Source: Damian Thompson's Blog.

Damian Thompson is the editorial director of the Catholic Herald and is obviously (and naturally) biased towards Christianity.  His blog entries were deleted shortly after publication. However, the content related to a discussion on an obscure programme on BBC Radio 4 regarding the BBC's handling of radical Islam. The author did not approve of the BBC's reluctance to overtly oppose radical Islam due to the risk of incubating a racist hatred of all Muslims.

It is true that the BBC is reluctant to condemn ideologies because doing so risks the safety of ordinary Muslims (not to mention BBC employees). So the BBC can be accused of being too careful, too sensitive, but this is not anti-Christian bias

2.4 Source: The Daily Mail (again)

This is an article put together by the Daily Mail which quote mines an interview with the Director General of the BBC Mark Thompson, in the Spectator magazine. The actual interview (rather than the Daily Mail interpretation) can be found here.

Thompson refers to political bias and the perceived left wing leaningsof the BBC but there is no evidence of religious bias...

Thompson, a committed Roman Catholic, was educated by Jesuits at Stonyhurst, in Lancashire. What did he learn there? "My upbringing, my schooldays and parents brought me up to be resilient . . . The nature of journalism today is that it is naturally quite personal, but when I used to be chief executive of Channel 4, I had a relatively quiet life. If I move on from this job, I'll have quite a quiet life again."

How does his faith affect his approach to the job? "I have lots of colleagues at the top of the BBC," he says, "and had at Channel 4, of religious belief, quite a lot with no religious belief at all, and quite a few committed atheists. I think they've all got values which they can bring to work. But just as we don't have a monopoly of the web, we don't have a monopoly of virtue when it comes to broadcasting, either.

“I do think the BBC is very much - sometimes, frankly, almost frighteningly so - a values-driven organisation. People's sense of what's right and wrong, and their sense of justice, are incredible parts of what motivates people to join. I'm part of that. For me, that's connected with my religious faith but the key thing is: you don't have to be a Catholic." 

Summary: No evidence of anti-Christian bias. Arguably the BBC could be accused of pro-Christian bias having an overtly committed Christian as Directro General.

2.5 Source: A blog page on American Thinker

which is reporting an article in the Daily Mail

which is reporting an interview with Mark Thompson

The Apologist states: “Let’s not forget BBC's own bias when it comes to reporting on anything under the subject of Christianity”. However, there is nothing in the primary source referred to by the Apologist that supports this assertion.

American Thinker is an online, conservative source known for its right-wing conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, creationism and denying global warming. It is overtly biased against any media that is perceived to be liberal or secular.  So once again, the Apologist's argument of bias collapses due to his reliance on biased sources. 

In this example the American Thinker blogger quote mines the Daily Mail (also biased, see above) who in turn have quote mined an interview with the Director General of the BBC Mark Thompson in March 2012. For the record, Mr Thompson is a committed Christian (see above).

Here is the interview

And here is a transcript

The reason for the interview was the decision made by the BBC to broadcast “Jerry Springer the Musical” in January 2005. Hundreds of Christians protested about the programme and 7,000 people complained - before the show was broadcast. The musical had already been performed on stage over 600 times in London for nearly two years before the BBC screened it, with no fuss from Christian groups. The show toured the UK in 2006 and won four Laurence Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical. It was also performed at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and other regional locations in the USA, before being performed in New York City in 2008 at Carnegie Hall.

BBC News  reported the reaction to the programme Again - a sign of an organisation that aims to minimise bias.

So, the interview that was reported by the Daily Mail (whose report was reported by American Thinker), is actually about blasphemy and offensive language.

But a serious point is being made, albeit a different point to the one the Apologist is trying to make.  Would the BBC broadcast a similar musical featuring the Prophet Mohammed? The answer, of course is “no”. Does this represent anti-Christian bias? No. Mark Thompson explains during the interview...

Interviewer: It’s extremely funny. It’s obviously satirising Jerry Springer and the whole cultural world. I mean it’s absolutely clear. But it is the case, isn’t it, that the BBC wouldn’t dream of broadcasting something comparably satirical if it had been the Prophet Muhammad rather than Jesus? 

MT: I mean I think essentially the answer to that question is yes. I mean it’s worth saying that when I was controller of BBC Two some years earlier – we’re talking now about the middle 90s – we broadcast a programme called Goodness Gracious Me, which was a sketch comedy programme made by a group of Asian writers and performers, Meera Syal was one of them, for example, which had some quite strongly satirical material about all of the great religions of South Asia, including Islam. It was done, you know, in a context which was itself encoded and it was really about different kinds of South Asian immigrant groups and it was really making fun of them rather than of their religions, but there were a number of moments where we got fairly large scale complaints about material. But because in the sense it didn’t come to the attention of Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail and so on, it never got that large and explosive sort of cultural and moral panic which Jerry Springer did do. 

Interviewer: But of course that was back then, what’s happened in the meantime... 

MT: Post-Satanic Verses, so if this debate in broadcasting or in British cultural life suddenly got energized by the Satanic Verses, that was an absolute watershed I think for us. It was after that but of course it was before 9/11 and the sense and fear, and so forth, in the sense that some of this could lead to direct violence against individuals.

Summary: The BBC screened a show which some Christians found offensive and blasphemous. The BBC published and reported their opinions. Christians protested peacefully, as is their right. The BBC would not have shown a similar show based on Islam because this could lead to significant violence and murder and the BBC has a right to ensure its staff are safe at work. The experience of Salman Rushdie and many others, illustrate that point. The BBC made this clear. Christianity emerges with credit from this debate. My only criticism would be towards those Christians who protested without seeing the show.

3 The Other Side of the Coin

One indicator that an organisation is relatively unbiased is (ironically) when it is accused of bias by all sides. So we can see the BBC is accused of anti-Christian bias but it is also accused of anti-Muslim bias and even anti-atheist bias. An example of the latter was the refusal of the BBC to allow an atheist point of view to be expressed as part of its daily "Thought For The Day Programme". The BBC's head of religion, Aquil Ahmed explains... 

Aaqil Ahmed disclosed he has reviewed Radio Four’s 'God slot’ in response to complaints that it was “too religious”. However, the daily homily on the Today programme is intended to provide a “religious” perspective on the news and should not be opened up to people of no faith, Mr Ahmed has concluded. “We should always analyse whether we should continue with something and in the last year or two we’ve had some very detailed thoughts about this and we’ve decided to continue as was." 

The National Secular Society (NSS) have this to say about the BBC's religious output... “Only on this programme are such controversial views allowed to pass unchallenged. We argue that this contradicts everything that the BBC is supposed the stand for: fairness, balance, a voice for everyone in the country and for a wide range of views to be made available to all.” 

Mr Ahmed, the BBC’s first Muslim head of religion, said it was natural that Christians should make up the majority of speakers on Thought for the Day. He said: “The state religion is still Christianity and the vast majority of people in this country come from a Christian background. "I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that in percentage terms you are probably going to have more Christians than you’re going to have Jews or Hindus. I think that makes a lot of sense.”