Academics and business leaders have branded a BBC broadcast "unfair and ill-informed" after claims manufacturing was "moving in the wrong direction".
Historian Professor Chinn has expressed "outrage" at comments by Radio 4 star presenter John Humphrys (listen below) in a broadcast for the flagship Today programme which centred on problems in Digbeth.
This comes against the backdrop of a rising tide of discontent in the Midlands where the BBC invests a fraction of its compared with expenditure anywhere else.
Prof Chinn has challenged Humphrys to return for a personal tour of the city's manufacturing success stories.
In the programme, broadcast to millions this week, Mr Humphrys discussed Birmingham with engineer Michael Salter, who claimed redevelopment had destroyed the area's history.
"There was a time in the 60s when Birmingham was rebuilt and it was fantastic...you go to other cities and you see the heritage of the buildings and everything, they've left next to nothing here," said Mr Salter.
Humphrys ended the broadcast by saying: "Digbeth is in need of something.
"It was manufacturing that made this city great and if a place like Digbeth cannot reinvent itself like the city centre, then it couldn't half do with a bit of that.
"The problem is manufacturing in Britain is moving in the wrong direction."
Prof Chinn said: "I am outraged. No-one would deny that we have problems of deprivation in Birmingham but to knock manufacturing in this way is unfair, damaging and ill-informed.
"There are numerous successful manufacturing companies, including Jaguar Land Rover, Brandauer, Firmin, Guhring and Toye, Kenning and Spencer. To affirm that manufacturing in Britain is moving in the wrong direction is plainly wrong.
"I would challenge John Humphrys to return and I will take him on a tour of some of our successful manufacturers."
Mike Dinsdale, managing director of rotary cutting tools firm Guhring, said it was galling to hear Midland manufacturing knocked when it was enjoying a renaissance.
He said: "We, the nation and the good people of Birmingham, do not want to hear such inaccurate comments from the BBC claiming that manufacturing in the UK is 'moving in the wrong direction,' a totally misguided statement.
"Does the BBC not know that Jaguar Land Rover has ploughed millions into the area and continues to do so?"
The fall-out comes against the backdrop of anger in the Midlands at BBC spending levels.
While the state broadcaster re-invests roughly 50 per cent or more of licence fee money in all other UK regions, that figure was just 8.5 per cent in the Midlands in 2014.
Indeed, the £80 million it invested in the Midlands - an area accounting for a quarter of BBC income - was way short of the £120 million-plus bill for Radio Four alone.
That compares to a licence fee spend of £942 million here last year.
If the broadcaster invested the same level in the Midlands as in the North and South, the region would be almost £800 million better off.
The BBC said it was moving around 200 jobs to the city and investing £23.5 million including into its BBC Academy.
