📺 The BBC Has Been Biased for Years — It Peaked During the Pandemic

From climate change coverage to Covid hospital data, the BBC’s reputation for impartiality has long been eroding. The Trump saga and senior resignations are only the latest signs of a broadcaster that

🏢 Inside the BBC Newsroom

I spent time inside the BBC in 2015 on secondment from the Office for National Statistics. It was during the general election — the BBC had asked the ONS for help to bring in someone with stronger data literacy. My job was to help journalists find data and write questions for politicians so they were properly briefed when the manifestos dropped.

It was fascinating — but revealing. On my first day, I asked, “How do you decide what goes into the News at Ten?” One editor looked at me and said, “We make the news.”

That stuck with me. Because once you understand how the BBC newsroom works, you see it’s not always reacting to events — it’s curating them. They’ll have certain stories ready to go — on climate, health, or other social themes — and slot them in on quieter days. On a slow news day, pre-packaged narratives fill the gap.

As I told Peter McCormack in our interview:

“They decide what the news is. I’ve seen it first-hand. There’s always an agenda — and it usually leans to the left. That was my experience inside the newsroom.”

That’s why this month’s crisis shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The resignations of Director-General Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness following the Donald Trump scandal mark the collapse of credibility that’s been building for years. The issue isn’t one programme — it’s a pattern.

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🦠 The Covid Years — Where Scrutiny Died

If trust eroded slowly, it collapsed during the pandemic. The BBC repeatedly aired claims that the vast majority of Covid hospital patients were unvaccinated.

In December 2021, Fergus Walsh stated on the flagship BBC News bulletin: “Four out of five patients on this Covid ward are unvaccinated.” National data showed the opposite — only around 36 % in England and 13 % in Wales were unvaccinated.

I challenged those figures at the time — none matched official datasets.
Did the BBC phone around hospitals trying to find one that fitted the story they wanted to tell? Because what they aired was not representative of the national data.

The same mindset reappeared in 2023, when the BBC ran a segment suggesting Novak Djokovic “should have been triple-jabbed,” despite his natural immunity from two prior infections. You’d be forgiven for wondering whether the BBC saw itself as a news outlet or a vaccine billboard.

These weren’t isolated slips - there are many more examples that could be shown. They were symptoms of a newsroom unwilling to challenge the government line — even when the data demanded it.

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🌍 Climate Coverage — Advocacy, Not Scrutiny

The same problem runs through the BBC’s climate reporting. In July 2023, it presented “temperature data” stretching back 800,000 years — except it wasn’t data at all. It was modelling.

As I said then:

“Data used to blame temperature change on humans – even though it’s not recorded and not fact.”

When broadcasters blur the line between measured evidence and modelled projections, public understanding collapses. It’s the same trap that made Covid modelling so misleading — but now dressed in green.

Later that month, BBC coverage of the Rhodes wildfires blamed “climate change” without mentioning arson, or noting that EU fire data showed no significant rise in total incidents

The omission mattered. Because omission is how bias hides.

And the pattern continued this year. In June 2025, the BBC reported that “46.6 °C is now possible in the UK.” What they didn’t say: that number came from a simulation model, a 1-in-2,500-year event projected far into the future — not a forecast.
Just more climate panic with zero context.

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🧠 A Culture of Certainty

The BBC’s problem isn’t one of intent, but of certainty. For years, it has treated complex issues — from Covid policy to climate change — as moral crusades rather than data questions. When everything becomes a campaign, statistics become props, not proof.

The resignation letters may focus on “trust,” but trust isn’t rebuilt by apology. It’s rebuilt by doubt — the willingness to ask, “What if we’re wrong?”

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📊 Conclusion — Data, Not Dogma

The BBC doesn’t need a new charter. It needs a new mindset. Facts before feelings. Data before drama. And the humility to admit that Britain’s most powerful newsroom got too comfortable preaching certainty while silencing scrutiny.

Until that changes, it’s crisis of trust will deepen — and the public will keep turning elsewhere for the truth.

✍️ Jamie Jenkins
Stats Jamie | Stats, Facts & Opinions

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📚 If you found this useful, you might also want to read:
👉 Dr Hilary Leaves ITV — Years After Peddling False COVID Claims on Air — He claimed 90% of COVID patients were unvaccinated — the real figure was 36%. Now, years later, he’s off air as viewers switch off too.

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