According to The Telegraph, in Britain, senior Conservatives made “repeated threats” of reform to the BBC to try and alter its election coverage, a senior Labour Party adviser claimed.
The BBC is a government-funded media outlet, at least partly paid for by a monthly license fee for all TV owners.
A former Times journalist, Tom Baldwin, said BBC executives were threatened with consequences if it did not “fall into line” with more sympathetic coverage for the Tories.
The news of the threats comes after the appointment of John Whittingdale to Culture Secretary after the Conservatives (Tories) won a majority in the House of Commons. The Culture Secretary is in charge of the BBC. Whittingdale has previously called the BBC licence fee “worse than the poll tax.”
The move has triggered speculation that the BBC Trust could now be abolished and the license fee drastically reformed or even scrapped.
Mr Baldwin, one of Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband’s most senior advisers, hit out at the pressure the BBC was put under by Labour’s opponents in his first public comments since the election defeat. He claimed that BBC journalists and executives told him that they were threatened by Conservative Leaders about “what would happen” if they didn’t fall into line over the election coverage.
(Updated article)
OK, Fine. 