UK Government Wrote BBC News Stories

The United Kingdom’s government planted staff in the bbc to influence coverage of its own policies. After the Telegraph exposed that dozens of civil servants had been temporarily reassigned from government departments to work in the BBC newsroom on October 17, the broadcaster paused the scheme yesterday.

• Since 2018, civil servants seconded to the BBC have written articles and fact-checked topics ranging from illegal small-boat crossings to the covid-19 pandemic. The writers were bylined and credited as members of bbc News and BBC Verify.

No surprise, the BBC has largely defended the UK’s government on those issues. Former director of BBC Television Danny Cohen said that the Telegraph’s findings were “further evidence that the bbc’s leadership is not in control of the newsroom.”

The ensuing widespread criticism about a “clear conflict of interest” and the erosion of public trust forced the BBC to cancel the program.

In our April 2022 Trumpet issue, we wrote regarding “Big Government, Big Pharma and Big Media”:

They are conspiring to “cast down truth to the ground” to amass wealth and power. You need to recognize this collusion and understand the spirit that empowers it. …

The ones who suffer are the everyday people. We pay the price, in taxation and in freedom, for elites who are motivated not by the truth but by money and power.

To learn how widespread this issue has been, read “Running on ‘COVID Money.’”