Political bias at BBC - something has to be done surely

[tangerine_sedge]

turbobloke said:

tangerine_sedge said:

turbobloke said:

Totally.

Sissons and Sewell were BBC people for over 20 years each and even as whistleblowers on the bias they clearly had to deliver the propaganda when paid to do so but are not biased simply because they could see what was going on and let the outside world know at some point.

So they're hypocrites then? Taking the money whilst doing something they now profess is wrong? Alternatively, perhaps they're bitter that they have been replaced by shiny new reporters?

Not a chance, desperate stuff; both are male for one thing. Only older camera-facing females get the heave-ho at the right-on equal opps BBC.

Moira Stuart and BBC Ageism (female flavour):
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1564966/Moi...
http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2013/05/its-not-j...

Both Sissons and Sewell had highly successful careers. So did many others on the other side of the cameras, many with shiny pants from sitting in offices wasting tens of millions of licence fee money. Canned IT project anyone?

Whistleblowing is welcome at any time, those who take that step are doing everyone else a favour - except from a perverse viewpoint in which they can't work in a role long enough to know what's going on and gain several examples over time, they should just make some instant arbitrary claim as per those who think the BBC isn't massively biased in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is.

tangerine_sedge said:

turbobloke said:

Not that we needed to be told, but it represents additional and totally credible evidence that remains impossible to ignore.

What have the other hundreds of BBC reporters got to say about it. Surely if it was endemic then every retired ex journo would be claiming it?

That claim makes no sense. If they agree with it, why would they? It's whistleblowers who take such steps, by definition. Not all have the courage to face the inevitable accusation, as per your post, that they took the BBC shilling for any period of time.

That said, a fair number of BBC staffers have 'confessed'.

We are biased, say stars of BBC news:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-411846/We-...

BBC bias is a national disgrace and a global menace:
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/32/bbc_bias_...

The BBC is biased,and it is a bias that seriously distorts public debate:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-436794/Wha...

Former Director General Mark Thomson "massive left-wing bias at the BBC":
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/09/le...

Note that the primary sources for the above articles are BBC people, not the mix of outlets covering their accounts of massive left-wing BBC bias.

If anyone thinks Thompson being up-front with the 'historical' defence, they should take a look at the BBC website now, Science pages, where from a count by another PHer earlier today the first 7 or 8 stories and 11 altogether are pro-climate change propaganda, a topic which as confessed by a member of one of the BBC's favourite organsisations (UN, Ottmar Edenhofer) has nothing to do with environmentalism any more and is about international redistribution of the world's wealth via climate policy. Leftism at its best.

tangerine_sedge said:

turbobloke said:

A key point remains that those newspapers do not have a duty to remain impartial, the BBC does.

The only time that such a nonsensical claim arises is when certain people's desperate apologism over the massively left-wing biased BBC runs out of steam and heads off into Alice territory.

And the BBC attempts impartiality broadly across its output but it has to represent and incorporate a wide range of opinions and viewpoints.

It fails, its output is clearly little more than left-wing propaganda.

tangerine_sedge said:

Please point me to any other media organisation which manages to be suitably impartial.

Is that an acknowledgement of left-wing BBC bias?

The above point, often punted by BBC apologists, is of course wholly irrelevant.

Since no other UK media outlet is a national broadcaster soaking up licence fees while carrying a duty to remain impartial (fail) no other media organisation needs to be 'suitably impartial'.

I couldn't be bothered to quote in line - I'm using a tablet which is hard work to do, especially viewing the content in a small window with half the screen covered by the keyboard!

Ageism : its endemic in the film & TV industry across the world. How many times do we hear bitter words from people who have been cast on the industry slag-heap? Hell hath no fury like a TV journo scorned!

Bias : the media industry has always been more attractive to people with a social conscious (aka pinko commie lefties), so it's accurate to say that the industry as a whole is left leaning. That's the same for independent UK media organisations as well as thr BBC. That doesn't mean though that this always translates to the screen. The BBC produces thousands of hours of content every week and attempts to be unbiased in all of that. Does it aleays get it right? Probably not, but it only has to use a perceived unbiased word in a news headline to produce 'evidence' that somehow proves all of its output is biased.

Global warming : If only there was another topic discussing this issue With respect to the BBC coverage of this subject, something in the region of 97% of climate scientists think that globl warming is man-made. Should the BBC take the view of the 97% or the 3%?

Impartiality in other broadcasters : I was angling for any other media organisations around the world with a similar remit, i.e. is it possible for any media outlet to be 100% unbiased. Having an obvious bias is easy, but being unbiased is really difficult, possibly even impossible.

Its a strawman argument set up to ensure that the BBC fails :

The BBC has to be impartial.
Find *any* evidence of bias.
Therefore the BBC is biased across the board and must be dismantled.

Tl;dr

The BBC probably does show bias at times - its an organisation full of people with views and opinions who sometimes get it wrong.
Is it a fundamentally biased organisation - no.

[turbobloke]

Obvious left-wing BBC bias is obvious.

[longblackcoat]

turbobloke said:

Obvious left-wing BBC bias is obvious.

Obvious crank is just as obvious.

[turbobloke]

longblackcoat said:

turbobloke said:

Obvious left-wing BBC bias is obvious.

Obvious crank is just as obvious.

nothing remotely on-topic to offer just name calling...not really disappointing because it was expected if and when you popped up again.

How do the BBC cope with so much of your smoke up their collective chute.

Have some more evidence showing how ridiculous it is to consider the BBC left-wing bias doesn't exist. Obvious BBC left-wing bias remains obvious.

Bias and cultural Marxism has become blatant to the point where many BBC employees don't even feel the need to conceal their agenda

BBC manager Helen Boaden tells left wing news staff to resist the urge to tweet lefty drivel to stop giving the game away

The BBC a Biased Broadcasting Corporation

BBC caught out in a p-c lie as a shamelessly biased mouthpiece for the achingly PC values of the tofu-eating metropolitan Guardian-reading classes

Watchdog must get to grips with BBC bias with the BBC election coverage fast becoming farcical

BBC 'How To Vote' graphic to assist web visitors in the days before the May general election.

[jet_noise]

tangerine_sedge said:

<snip>

Global warming : If only there was another topic discussing this issue With respect to the BBC coverage of this subject, something in the region of 97% of climate scientists think that globl warming is man-made. Should the BBC take the view of the 97% or the 3%?

Oh, ho, ho, be still my aching sides. Cook's 97% meme is almost as well shredded as Mann's hokey stick,

regards,
Jet

[AJS-]

tangerine_sedge said:

<snip>

Global warming : If only there was another topic discussing this issue With respect to the BBC coverage of this subject, something in the region of 97% of climate scientists think that globl warming is man-made. Should the BBC take the view of the 97% or the 3%?

Let's start with this

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

It doesn't really sound like a manifesto for swallowing the results of a straw poll of people with letters after their name at the expense of reasoned argument.

[longblackcoat]

turbobloke said:

longblackcoat said:

turbobloke said:

Obvious left-wing BBC bias is obvious.

Obvious crank is just as obvious.

nothing remotely on-topic to offer just name calling...not really disappointing because it was expected if and when you popped up again.

How do the BBC cope with so much of your smoke up their collective chute.

Have some more evidence showing how ridiculous it is to consider the BBC left-wing bias doesn't exist. Obvious BBC left-wing bias remains obvious.

Bias and cultural Marxism has become blatant to the point where many BBC employees don't even feel the need to conceal their agenda

BBC manager Helen Boaden tells left wing news staff to resist the urge to tweet lefty drivel to stop giving the game away

The BBC a Biased Broadcasting Corporation

BBC caught out in a p-c lie as a shamelessly biased mouthpiece for the achingly PC values of the tofu-eating metropolitan Guardian-reading classes

Watchdog must get to grips with BBC bias with the BBC election coverage fast becoming farcical

BBC 'How To Vote' graphic to assist web visitors in the days before the May general election.

I thought you were a scientist? You need evidence to prove things; a bunch of opinion pieces from The Express and Paul Dacre is simply you reaching for your favourite jar of biased vitriol.

You seem obsessed with this topic. If that's what makes you happy, fine, but you really do come across as a crank.

[XCP]

A picture of a pencil hovering above a Labour party logo is not going to make me vote Labour, it really isn't

[turbobloke]

XCP said:

A picture of a pencil hovering above a Labour party logo is not going to make me vote Labour, it really isn't

It's not going to make me vote Labour either.

Nor is the entire tide of left-wing propaganda going to make me vote Labour.

It shouldn't need saying (again) but it does...that's not the point.

There should be no bias in any of the BBC's output; whether any of it affects anyone by the PH ID of XCP is totally irrelevant. What happens over time is that viewers are presented with dozens of situations each day where the left-take on issues, which is the BBC's take, as though the left of centre view is the normal take on events, which distorts perception over time and distorts debate every day on the BBC.

As explained by Sissons it's not so much whether a Labour MP or peer has appeared more often on QT than their Tory counterparts, that's an easy metric to keep in relative balance. It's the number of times a BBC staffer appears being interviewed by another BBC staffer. Sissons told of "the increasing tendency" at the BBC "to interview its own reporters on air."

This takes place instead of concentrating on interviewing the leading players in a story or spreading the net wide for a range of views. "It is a format intended to help clarify the facts, but which often invites the expression of opinion. When that happens, instead of hearing both sides of a story, the audience at home gets what is, in effect, the BBC's view presented as fact."

Bias, pure and simple, served up continuously. How much any one sample of it impacts on Mrs Miggins is totally irrelevant, none of the various forms of bias should be happening in the first place, whether it's news readers being told to take The Guardian's line on a story or one reporter interviewing another with the latter's opinion presented as fact.

[XCP]

But if right minded people can make their own minds up, and do not need to be told what to think by the BBC ( or anyone else), what does it matter?

If I don't like what the BBC are doing, and a lot of output is not to my taste, I won't watch it.

[Randy Winkman]

XCP said:

A picture of a pencil hovering above a Labour party logo is not going to make me vote Labour, it really isn't

The pencil's clearly pointing at UKIP.

[Smiler.]

XCP said:

A picture of a pencil hovering above a Labour party logo is not going to make me vote Labour, it really isn't

The simpletons are easily lead.

[Gandahar]

I'm sure people on here will be happy removing the bias at the BBC by selling it to the Daily Mail or, if you think that is not enough with your own leanings, Fox News.

Then every ones happy.

I love Fox News. It's the dogs bks.

[PRTVR]

Gandahar said:

I'm sure people on here will be happy removing the bias at the BBC by selling it to the Daily Mail or, if you think that is not enough with your own leanings, Fox News.

Then every ones happy.

I love Fox News. It's the dogs bks.

I do not mind bias, so long as I am not forced to pay for it.

[Gandahar]

PRTVR said:

Gandahar said:

I'm sure people on here will be happy removing the bias at the BBC by selling it to the Daily Mail or, if you think that is not enough with your own leanings, Fox News.

Then every ones happy.

I love Fox News. It's the dogs bks.

I do not mind bias, so long as I am not forced to pay for it.

Are you really forced to pay for it? What decade are you living in ? Feeble argument in 2015, mind you that's half the BBC''s problem with funding of course.

[PRTVR]

Gandahar said:

PRTVR said:

Gandahar said:

I'm sure people on here will be happy removing the bias at the BBC by selling it to the Daily Mail or, if you think that is not enough with your own leanings, Fox News.

Then every ones happy.

I love Fox News. It's the dogs bks.

I do not mind bias, so long as I am not forced to pay for it.

Are you really forced to pay for it? What decade are you living in ? Feeble argument in 2015, mind you that's half the BBC''s problem with funding of course.

Yes very feeble, but if my wife want to watch live TV, legally I have to pay.

[don4l]

longblackcoat said:

You need evidence to prove things;

Very good point.

There is no evidence that CO2 is causing a problem.

[Diderot]

http://www.apollo-magazine.com/the-bbc-should-know...

They cannot resist, can they?

[Camoradi]

I was watching the BBC coverage of the floods in the North West yesterday, and they ran an interview with "Manchester resident" Phill Hudson. Poor bloke had his house flooded (apparently)

Now our Phill came over a bit anti government. "Tory cutbacks" seemed to be of greater concern to him than the 3 inches of water in his kitchen.

So I googled his name. Ah, here he is... http://online.westlancs.gov.uk/coins/member.asp?id...

and from his Huffington Post contributers profile "Not to mention that I am an avid Labour Party supporter, running for council in the 2015 general election"

Edited by Camoradi on Wednesday 30th December 09:11

[Johnnytheboy]

God does he look like a tit.