What's gone wrong at the BBC?

I will start by saying I am very glad we have the BBC, it's service to our democracy should not be underestimated. Without it our media would look very American. Driven by profits and owned by the corporate class. Forever keeping us uninformed and right wing.

However in recent years something has gone amiss at the BBC. It has always faced complaints from both right and left but those voices are growing louder, and more centrist. The rot must be stopped. Identifying the problem however is more of the issue.

Both sides seem to believe it is the mouthpiece of the other, and they both can't be correct. The BBC's bias is quite complex.

However it set in when the BBC has their license fee threatened by Cameron's Tory government. One BBC employee said at the time "There is a lot of pressure in the BBC these days to satisfy those above them". We have seen Tory MPs try similar tactics recently, peaking at Andrea Leadsom's quite scary remarks that our press should be more patriotic. A remark I'm sure Mr Erdogan would resonate strongly with. Both the DUP and UKIP have removing it's public funding in their manifestos. Showing the far right have a problem with the BBC, or want it transformed in some.

Whilst the Authoritarian right have problems with the BBC it would seem the greatest victim to their bias, and the media's bias in general is Jeremy Corbyn.

Subject of a character assassination from the right wing media, who continually pushed him as a terrorist sympathizer and a threat to British security. Academics from the London School of Economics have reported on the disgraceful level of misrepresentation that the Labour leader has shouldered. And whilst you would expect a corporate press to attack a socialist like Corbyn the BBC has a mandate to be neutral, balanced and fair.

And the BBC failed in that, and leading the line was their political editor Laura Kuessenberg. Who's attacks peaked when she followed the Right wing corporate press in trying of attempting to brand Corbyn as soft on security. Editing a clip so that some comments Corbyn made about shoot to kill policy were taken completely out of context. The BBC stated afterwards “The report had not been duly accurate in how it framed the extract it used from Mr Corbyn’s interview,”. Whether Kuessenberg meant to frame Corbyn in that light or it was an honest mistake it is a symbol of the dropping standards of the BBC.

However its not a distinct right wing bias that the BBC is exerting, it has left wing journalists and reporters. However all its big political figures do have one thing in common. Laura Kuessenberg, the current political editor was educated at Laurel Park School, a private girls' school. She is the daughter of Scottish businessman Nick Kuenssberg OBE.

Her predecessor, Nick Robinson, studied PPE at Oxford where he was president of the Conservative Society. His predecessor Andrew Marr was the son of investment trust manager and was educated at Trinity Hall Cambridge.

The other big whigs are the same. David Dimblebey studied PPE at Christ Church Oxford, he went to Charterhouse School, a Private boarding school and was the son of a journalist. The Diplomatic Editor, James Landale, is an old Etonian.

All born into privilege, educated first by the private sector and then by Oxbridge colleges.

Where is the working class hero in the ranks? Educated in the state system who went to Manchester or Leeds?

How can we expect the BBC to give accurate analysis on the issues that effect the average man when the average man is no where to be seen amongst their ranks? The members of our upper class will never understand the appeal of Corbyn's message. If we want to see the BBC returned to it's former glory it cannot continue to pick simply journalists from the upper class. The disconnect in society between those born into priviledge and the rest of us is greatest it has been since the war.

If we want to fix our BBC, the toffs at the top need to be replaced by people who understand the real world as well as the political arena. That's how we cure its establishment bias, and make it the gold standard for political journalism once more.