re: Perhaps she is referring to its government-backed (therefore bureaucratic) status?
The way I understand it the BBC is not government-backed and has had difficult relations with the government of late. The BBC is paid for by a kind of tax over which the govt has no say in its collection or distrubution.
I don't think its science reporting is political anyway and they were certainly the first and most sensible when it came to the seti - signal.