BBC admits bias; minorities, women, children hardest hit

Late to this (had a dog with unnatural holes in her to deal with), but you could have knocked me over with a cinderblock: "We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News."

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: "There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

"Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it."

Read the whole thing, for it confirms practically everything the BBC's critics have ever said, and contains the felicitous BBC phrase "impartiality summit," to boot.

Not even sure where I first saw the story. LGF has it, as do the Judd Bros. Biased-BBC's lovely Natalie Solent, in a post deservedly titled, "Told you so," compares this quote from then-BBC political editor Andrew Marr in 2001:

We get from time to time people saying you're biased in favour of the Labour Party. Every time I ask people - show me a case of that bias, explain to me where we got it wrong and why what we said was so unfair - they seem to be unable to do so.

To what he said at the impartiality summit (aka, "secret meeting"), according to the Daily Mail:

"The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias."

Maybe while they're having this (no doubt temporary) attack of honesty the BBC will quit fighting release of that "highly critical" report on its bias against Israel.

That's a joke, son.

Update (10:38 a.m.): Well at least I beat Dennis Prager to the story. He's talking about it now on his daily program broadcast over the radio machine.

Update II: A few years ago the only thing I knew about the Daily Mail was its mention in the Beatles (Lennon) song Across the Universe (never knew why it was mentioned, though). Now I read their best columnist, Melanie Phillips. The internets (sorry, the AP prefers it capitalized: "Internets") is cool.

Update III: Helen Boaden, director of BBC news, responds to the stories.