British anti-Monarchy activists demonstrated to demand the state-run broadcaster stops promoting monarchy.
The protesters condemned the pro-royal atmosphere in the BBC carrying placards that read “You’re not the Palace PR Machine”, “Monarchy: a Monstrous Carbuncle on our Democracy” and “Report, Don’t Celebrate!”.
The latter was a reference by the organizers of the rally, the Republic campaign group, which wants the BBC to stop its pro-monarchy campaign after it announced a season to “celebrate” the Queen Elizabeth’s 60th year on the British throne.
Republic chief executive Graham Smith said earlier this month that the BBC has “joined in” with the Queen’s diamond jubilee celebrations over the past months while it is funded by the licence fee payers and should only “report celebration”.
“Over the past several months there have been a dozen negative press stories involving the royals that have been completely ignored by BBC News. Yet they jump at every opportunity to dedicate hours of air time to fawning over William, Kate, Charles and the Queen,” he added.
Smith also said that the BBC is deliberately trying to “paint the monarchy in a modern light” and pretend supporting the royals is equal to supporting Britain.
The BBC has recently went out of its way to report on petty matters related to the royal family, apparently, to promote them as caring people mingling with the public with stories on Prince Charles’s visit to a Northampton shoe factory, his riding of the London Underground to mark its 150 years, and Charles’s younger brother Prince Andrew’s using of an ipad.
“If the BBC has the time and resources to report that Prince Andrew uses an iPad, then it can report on controversies surrounding the royal finances or Prince Charles’s political meddling,” Smith said.
The BBC has failed to cover major stories run by other British media outlets including tax avoidance accusations against Prince Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall, investigation of the royal finances by the parliamentary public accounts committee and Charles’s using of unclaimed legacies to fund his own lobby groups.
This comes as stories such as Charles’s tax exemptions, revelations about the “royal veto” and the Queen’s £6 million pay rise were only shortly touched on by BBC.
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