BBC News Impartiality: Government's Role Debate
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Jim Shannon
Main Page: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)Department Debates - View all Jim Shannon's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
BBC News Impartiality: Government's Role
Jim Shannon Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Sir Michael Ellis
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The BBC’s failure to adhere to standards and deal with those problems when they arise is a fundamental, systemic and systematic problem; I will come on to that.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Jim Shannon
I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for bringing forward this debate. I apologise to him and to you, Ms Bardell, for not being able to be here throughout; I have a meeting with a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Minister. The right hon. and learned Member is right to set out the case on Israel and Hamas. If we look at the BBC’s bias against Brexit and Northern Ireland, it cannot even name our country right; indeed, its correspondent is called the Ireland correspondent. My goodness me. How long will it be before the BBC understand that when the Welsh correspondents are called Welsh correspondents and the Scottish correspondents are called Scottish correspondents, the people of Northern Ireland should have a Northern Ireland correspondent? We are part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is who we are. The quicker that the BBC catch on, the better.
Sir Michael Ellis
The hon. Member makes a good point. The examples of biased content are great in number, and I simply do not have the time to document all of them.