Musk, ‘State-Affiliated Media’ & the Myth of BBC Independence
In March, when Musk angered celebrities and the commentariat with his announcement that legacy blue checkmarks would soon be replaced, he defended his decision by arguing that it was “about treating everyone equally.” It makes sense, therefore, that Musk would decide to extend this principle to Twitter’s ‘state-affiliated media’ tags which were — until now — inconsistently applied and only seemed to be given to news outlets in countries viewed unfavorably by the United States.
This past weekend, Twitter finally made the decision to label Voice of America, NPR, and the BBC with a variation of the ‘state-affiliated media’ tag which has long been applied to news outlets in Russia, China, and Iran.
One London journalist protested the BBC’s new ‘Government Funded’ disclaimer, insisting that the media institution — which was founded by the UK government and is run by a chairman appointed by the state — did not deserve the label. The BBC could not be described as a state-funded institution, he argued, because it was actually paid for by the British public through a mandatory “license fee”, or a tax. That you could say the same about literally any state-funded institution seemed to go over his head.
The journalist also argued that the BBC was unworthy of the tag because its editorial decisions were made “entirely independent of the government.” But that claim too struggles to stand up to scrutiny. The Guardian revealed in March that the government had directly and explicitly influenced the BBC’s editorial decisions, including what language it used and how its articles were presented. In early 2020, while Brits were kept inside amid the global Covid-19 pandemic, Downing Street reportedly told the BBC to avoid the term “lockdown” in its news reports. The BBC obliged. And it wasn’t the only case. Downing Street also allegedly had a direct impact on how the BBC reported on the Labour Party — the main opposition party to the sitting government — and in another case, a senior editor even thanked BBC staff for avoiding reports on one of the prime minister’s alleged affairs.
An unnamed source told The Guardian that the BBC’s news headlines had “been determined by calls from Downing Street on a very regular basis.” The BBC rejected the claims.
It’s also worth noting that concerns over the supposed ‘independence’ of the BBC are nothing new. In 1985, it was reported that BBC staff were “regularly vetted” by the British intelligence agency MI5, and there are too many alleged cases of government interference and censorship in the BBC’s hundred-year history to count.
As Novara Media co-founder Aaron Bastani observed, the myth of BBC ‘independence’ has become “the tooth fairy for adult British liberals.”
While most of Musk’s critics were upset about the decision to hold Western news outlets to the same standards that foreign outlets have been held to for years, journalist Caitlin Johnstone argued that Twitter had not yet gone far enough. Johnstone pointed out that while Russian, Chinese, and Iranian media outlets were explicitly labelled as ‘state-affiliated media’, their Western counterparts had been given the weaker ‘Government Funded’ tag.
The generic ‘Government Funded’ label fails to specify which government actually funds each outlet, unlike RT’s ‘Russia state-affiliated media’ tag, the Global Times’ ‘China state-affiliated media’ tag, and PressTV’s ‘Iran state-affiliated media’ tag — which leave little uncertainty.
While, with his latest move, Musk moves Twitter closer towards his vision of “treating everyone equally”, there’s still work to be done. As of writing, only the main BBC Twitter account is labelled as ‘Government Funded’. BBC News, BBC Breaking News, BBC Politics, and dozens of other BBC-affiliated accounts are not. Additionally, some foreign state-affiliated media organizations have escaped being labelled altogether, including Germany’s Deutsche Welle, Canada’s CBC, and Qatar’s Al Jazeera.
What matters is consistency, and Twitter is not quite there yet.