The BBC gets a lot of flak for bias in its reporting. Defenders of the BBC say that any news reporting organization the size of the BBC is bound to be attacked for bias. They point out that both the Conservatives and Labour attack the impartiality of the BBC, and if both parties complain, the reporting must be about right. Critics of the BBC disagree, saying that the BBC's ethos is so skewed that it attacks both the Conservatives and Labour from the Left.

It may be that the BBC suffers from a cafeteria culture in which staff at the BBC network far too much with like-minded individuals who all share similar views. The bias might not be the result of any plan, it might be that all BBC news staffers have the best of intentions, but the end result often ends up one-sided.

Perhaps the BBC has a recruitment problem. By overwhelmingly choosing to advertise its jobs in the Guardian newspaper, it makes a statement about the sort of staff it is looking for. If you want to work at the BBC, you first need to go out and buy that newspaper. Once you get hired in a BBC newsroom, it requires a great deal of courage to go against the prevalent culture. It may be wise, if you want to get on in the Corporation, to keep your mouth shut.

We do not mind bias in newspapers because we have a choice about what to buy. We know that the Guardian's ethos and the Telegraph's are very different. But the BBC, which forces everyone with a TV to give it money, has a duty to be impartial. If it cannot do a better job at this, calls for removing the licence fee will continue to get stronger by the day.