Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

I would dearly love to be able to come out in unequivocal support of the BBC, as it comes under government attack.
But while its dramas and a few of its documentaries are excellent, its news and current affairs are such a disaster zone that I find this very hard.
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What I see and hear is a massive platform for every far-right blowhard who can generate some noise on social media, while almost everyone to the left of Keir Starmer is persona non grata.
I see environmental and social activists being effectively blacklisted as "extremists".

I see a perennial failure to tell the difference between balance and impartiality, exemplified by the senior executive last week who said that if enough people believe the Earth is flat, he will give them a platform. What this means is that professional liars get a free pass.

As the famous saying goes, if one person says it's raining and the other person says it's not, the journalists' job is not to strike a balance between them, but to look out of the f***ing window.

The world is awash with professional liars, and they follow the money. Think of the self-described "thinktanks": in reality lobby groups working for corporations and oligarchs and refusing to reveal who pays them.
A failure to look out of the window favours the money.

Being impartial means looking out of the window. It means sifting fact from fiction. It means exercising judgement.
While BBC news and current affairs refuses to do so, it makes a different kind of judgement: that those who fundamentally challenge the system are beyond the Pale.

So I find it hard to support an organisation that sees me as an extremist. I find it hard to support an organisation that, to a large extent, created Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg. I find it hard to support an organisation that grovels before its enemies. Sorry.