Political bias at BBC - something has to be done surely

[limpsfield]

turbobloke said:

The Guardian is a blinkered lefty rag and the BBC uses it for briefing presenters and newscasters

I would agree that the Guardian is blinkered. I have worked with lots of BBC presenters and newscasters and this is not true. How many have you worked with? You write a lot on NPE- do you just make all of it up like the above? It's beyond hilarious.

[turbobloke]

limpsfield said:

turbobloke said:

The Guardian is a blinkered lefty rag and the BBC uses it for briefing presenters and newscasters

I would agree that the Guardian is blinkered. I have worked with lots of BBC presenters and newscasters and this is not true. How many have you worked with? You write a lot on NPE- do you just make all of it up like the above? It's beyond hilarious.

Same old - offering up a lot of irrelevant and inaccurate content when unable to argue against the actual points being made.

In terms of the equally predictable personal angle, and replying in kind, if you practised posting in NP&E more often maybe you'd be better at it. There's not much left of the Left these days.

Back ton-topic. Try here:

http://www.iea.org.uk/publications/research/in-foc...

There are two links to pdf files:

http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publicat...

http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publicat...

In one of the pdf files this invitation is offered in a footnote:

26
The full results of this exercise, along with key quotes from each edition and commentary as to why particular coding decisions were made, are available from the author.

The above footnote was the basis of my suggestion that you contact IEA.

Given the strident language from credulous beebophiles anyone would think they'd already done this, or taken the time to collect a similar sample size (TftD content) and analyse it to demonstrate an alternative conclusion. Not a chance..it's BBC apologist knee-jerk time once again.

Meanwhile the research on anti-capitalist bias in Thought for the Day is still unchallenged; IEA found evidence for an unacceptable level of one-sided leftist propaganda in the beeb's mush, and no amount of smeary handwaving leftist excuses will change that.

[gavsdavs]

donna180 said:

And least the mail picked up on it but for a public sector organisation surely an independent body needs to monitor the situation.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2072307/Ho...

Daily mail in "<insert news organisation here> is more left wing than us" shocka ?

[Esseesse]

If anyone caught Clegg vs. Hitchens talking about cannabis on The Daily Politics the other day, Hitchens has blogged about the BBC bias.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2016/04/som...

[andymadmak]

Am I alone in thinking that Labours dismal performance in yesterdays elections is not being reported properly by the BBC?
We are 6 years into an initially Con lib, but now Conservative Government, the Tories have already had a few "scandals" and is busy tearing itself to bits over the EU. The "cuts" are biting into local services and the NHS continues to stagger from one crisis to the next.

Let's be candid, by any yardstick, Labour should have creamed the Tories on this one. And yet, Labour is now is now the THIRD part in Scotland, has lost a seat in Wales and lost more seats than the Tories in the English council elections!
This should have been Armageddon for the Tories, but instead is a Labour nightmare. If I was a senior Labour bod I'd be cringing at what was going to greet me when I switched on the TV news. And yet the BBC is reporting Labour as having "hung on" and that the results are "messy". In fact they are generally soft soaping this labour disaster as being "really not that bad all things considered"
Does anyone imagine that this would have been the story is the lab/tory positions had been reversed?

[The Don of Croy]

We'll have to see how they play 'Labour wins in London' as a contrast...

[Pesty]

andymadmak said:

Am I alone in thinking that Labours dismal performance in yesterdays elections is not being reported properly by the BBC?
We are 6 years into an initially Con lib, but now Conservative Government, the Tories have already had a few "scandals" and is busy tearing itself to bits over the EU. The "cuts" are biting into local services and the NHS continues to stagger from one crisis to the next.

Let's be candid, by any yardstick, Labour should have creamed the Tories on this one. And yet, Labour is now is now the THIRD part in Scotland, has lost a seat in Wales and lost more seats than the Tories in the English council elections!
This should have been Armageddon for the Tories, but instead is a Labour nightmare. If I was a senior Labour bod I'd be cringing at what was going to greet me when I switched on the TV news. And yet the BBC is reporting Labour as having "hung on" and that the results are "messy". In fact they are generally soft soaping this labour disaster as being "really not that bad all things considered"
Does anyone imagine that this would have been the story is the lab/tory positions had been reversed?

Exactly.

Is my memory bad or is it safe to say that it's pretty unheard of for the opposition party to not gain significant gains at a stage like this?
I always seem to recall any opposition party beating the crap out of whoever was in. In fact isn't it expected ?

This should really be remarked on much more as you say.

Please feel free to correct me anybody but this seem highly unusual

Edited by Pesty on Saturday 7th May 03:25

[eccles]

Pesty said:

Exactly.

Is my memory bad or is it safe to say that it's pretty unheard of for the opposition party to not gain significant gains at a stage like this?
I always seem to recall any opposition party beating the crap out of whoever was in. In fact isn't it expected ?

This should really be remarked on much more as you say.

Please feel free to correct me anybody but this seem highly unusual

Edited by Pesty on Saturday 7th May 03:25

So the other main broadcasters really went to town on this lack of gain by by the opposition.... No? Thought not, so why single out the BBC.

[Halb]

Corbyn/English labour has a pretty massive success yesterday; considering how Corbin is viewed, how he is undermined by his own MPs, and the whole storm over nothing thing about Red Ken...and considering all of the above, how much people hought English labour would lose.

[Harji]

andymadmak said:

Am I alone in thinking that Labours dismal performance in yesterdays elections is not being reported properly by the BBC?
We are 6 years into an initially Con lib, but now Conservative Government, the Tories have already had a few "scandals" and is busy tearing itself to bits over the EU. The "cuts" are biting into local services and the NHS continues to stagger from one crisis to the next.

Let's be candid, by any yardstick, Labour should have creamed the Tories on this one. And yet, Labour is now is now the THIRD part in Scotland, has lost a seat in Wales and lost more seats than the Tories in the English council elections!
This should have been Armageddon for the Tories, but instead is a Labour nightmare. If I was a senior Labour bod I'd be cringing at what was going to greet me when I switched on the TV news. And yet the BBC is reporting Labour as having "hung on" and that the results are "messy". In fact they are generally soft soaping this labour disaster as being "really not that bad all things considered"
Does anyone imagine that this would have been the story is the lab/tory positions had been reversed?

No, it is being reported a a disaster in Scotland which seems to be headline news, but not mentioning that it was not a disaster in England holding onto marginals like Crawley, yes Labour could and should have done better, but hey, most ppl get their news from a right wing media or Facebook.
IMO the media are very soft on the tax dodgers of the Conservative party, which seems to be u-turn after u-turn, failure after failure (Sajid Javid, Gideon Osbourne) and angrier and nastier (Cameron).

[turbobloke]

andymadmak said:

Am I alone in thinking that Labours dismal performance in yesterdays elections is not being reported properly by the BBC?
We are 6 years into an initially Con lib, but now Conservative Government, the Tories have already had a few "scandals" and is busy tearing itself to bits over the EU. The "cuts" are biting into local services and the NHS continues to stagger from one crisis to the next.

Let's be candid, by any yardstick, Labour should have creamed the Tories on this one. And yet, Labour is now is now the THIRD part in Scotland, has lost a seat in Wales and lost more seats than the Tories in the English council elections!
This should have been Armageddon for the Tories, but instead is a Labour nightmare. If I was a senior Labour bod I'd be cringing at what was going to greet me when I switched on the TV news. And yet the BBC is reporting Labour as having "hung on" and that the results are "messy". In fact they are generally soft soaping this labour disaster as being "really not that bad all things considered"
Does anyone imagine that this would have been the story is the lab/tory positions had been reversed?

You're not alone. Looking at website coverage (BBC) compared to ITV online and broadcast news, there's a marked contrast.

ITV spoke variously of a Labour result which was the worst since 1910, worst ever outome in the Scottish Parliament vote, worst showing at a mid-term election by any Opposition party since 1985, and (if I heard this correctly) the worst result of its kind for a newly elected Labour leader in living memory.

Apparently Labour chiefs are begging furious MPs not to oust Jeremy Corbyn after Labour slumped to their worst local election result in 40 years.

Not that much if any of the above would be clear if you relied on the BBC for your impartial ho ho ho coverage.

[zarjaz1991]

I heard plenty on Radio Five yesterday about how badly Labour had performed, they even had a row live on air with Diane Abbott about it, who responded as she always does, with a load of crap. They did however point to some Labour successes, which I thought was ok. They spent some time describing how bad things were in Scotland and how ludicrous it was that the Tories were now the second largest party and effectively the official opposition there now.

I'm not sure what more they could have done without showing bias the other way. It seemed pretty evenly presented to me.

[zarjaz1991]

turbobloke said:

You're not alone. Looking at website coverage (BBC) compared to ITV online and broadcast news, there's a marked contrast.

ITV spoke variously of a Labour result which was the worst since 1910, worst ever outome in the Scottish Parliament vote, worst showing at a mid-term election by any Opposition party since 1985, and (if I heard this correctly) the worst result of its kind for a newly elected Labour leader in living memory.

Apparently Labour chiefs are begging furious MPs not to oust Jeremy Corbyn after Labour slumped to their worst local election result in 40 years.

Not that much if any of the above would be clear if you relied on the BBC for your impartial ho ho ho coverage.

I am perfectly aware of all of the above, and all my information came only from Radio Five Live since I was in the car all day.

Perhaps on TV in the shorter news bulletins they don't fit every detail in but the Radio Five Live coverage has been extremely good throughout.

[PRTVR]

zarjaz1991 said:

I heard plenty on Radio Five yesterday about how badly Labour had performed, they even had a row live on air with Diane Abbott about it, who responded as she always does, with a load of crap. They did however point to some Labour successes, which I thought was ok. They spent some time describing how bad things were in Scotland and how ludicrous it was that the Tories were now the second largest party and effectively the official opposition there now.

I'm not sure what more they could have done without showing bias the other way. It seemed pretty evenly presented to me.

The problem is with the main stream media at the BBC, how many people listen to radio 5 compared to BBC 1 or 2, you have to look at the main media channels to make a judgement,the fact that one small radio station has a balanced view doesn't make the BBC unbiased.

[zarjaz1991]

PRTVR said:

The problem is with the main stream media at the BBC, how many people listen to radio 5 compared to BBC 1 or 2, you have to look at the main media channels to make a judgement,the fact that one small radio station has a balanced view doesn't make the BBC unbiased.

Possibly true, although I would argue that Radio Five is far from "a small radio station", it's one of the BBC's biggest and most popular news outlets.

I usually watch the BBC News Channel a lot (though not for this election as I spent all day driving). I don't detect much bias either way there, and they do show the main BBC One news bulletins.

The BBC is not without fault, far from it, but overall it is a superb broadcaster. The alternative is what the Tories are aiming for....shutting down most of the BBC and forcing people to pay Rupert Murdoch for TV, including news. Whatever bias the BBC may or may not show, I'll take that any day over what we'd get from Sky News if it had no competition and was pay walled.

[chris watton]

zarjaz1991 said:

Possibly true, although I would argue that Radio Five is far from "a small radio station", it's one of the BBC's biggest and most popular news outlets.

I usually watch the BBC News Channel a lot (though not for this election as I spent all day driving). I don't detect much bias either way there, and they do show the main BBC One news bulletins.

The BBC is not without fault, far from it, but overall it is a superb broadcaster. The alternative is what the Tories are aiming for....shutting down most of the BBC and forcing people to pay Rupert Murdoch for TV, including news. Whatever bias the BBC may or may not show, I'll take that any day over what we'd get from Sky News if it had no competition and was pay walled.

TBH, when I was your age (mid-20's), I never even contemplated the thought of bias in the BBC, I lapped it all up. However, as you got older, you do tend to notice it a lot more.

To say the BBC is not biased toward the left is the same as saying that Durbster and ///ajd are 'on the fence' in the Climate Change and EU threads respectively. It is laughable.

I have seen and heard the bias for myself, along with witnessing the 'wake' after last years' Labour defeat at the election. No amount of hand wringing from others could convince me otherwise.

[zarjaz1991]

chris watton said:

TBH, when I was your age (mid-20's), I never even contemplated the thought of bias in the BBC, I lapped it all up. However, as you got older, you do tend to notice it a lot more.

To say the BBC is not biased toward the left is the same as saying that Durbster and ///ajd are 'on the fence' in the Climate Change and EU threads respectively. It is laughable.

I have seen and heard the bias for myself, along with witnessing the 'wake' after last years' Labour defeat at the election. No amount of hand wringing from others could convince me otherwise.

I'm not saying there is no bias. It's just that it's not the "pro-Labour" fest that some would have us believe. I think where you have such a large organisation with such a huge array of journalists, their personal bias will inevitably creep in to some degree. I can think of some examples of awful bias...Evan Davis and his interview with Nigel Farage a year ago is a stand out example given the easier ride he gave Labour interviewees....however for the most part the BBC doesn't do a bad job on the bias front, and can you imagine the Tory-preferred alternative of all our news being provided by Rupert Murdoch? We'd know bias then! And we'd pay a fortune for it.

I still maintain that Radio Five was pretty bias-free yesterday. They gave everyone a hard time at some point, and if you want to push a pro-Labour agenda you certainly don't invite Diane Abbot onto live TV in the open air. She's enough to make staunch lefties vote UKIP!

Maybe I'm young and inexperienced. I'll take that, since I can't help being 24, however I'm quite a 'news junkie' compared to others my age and I follow things like elections quite closely, through a variety of sources, so I'm not so green round the ears as people might think.

[Halb]

The Beeb wouldn't shut up about the projected losses being over 100 or so, I amused myself with the 'what if' the polls are wrong again, which they were. MPs were rolled in, they were all fking useless soundbite machines, the worst one being somebody Clark.
A lot of attention was paid to Tory winning big in Scotland, Labour disappearing.
UKiPs getting stuff in Wales and the Plaid woman getting a personal result.
English Labour not being destroyed, and an utter drubbing labour mayor man was gonna give Zac on the first results.
The rest of it was pretty uneventful. A couple of labour MPs who were ready to run as leader failed to step forward as the mess that was hoped for didn't occur.

[turbobloke]

chris watton said:

zarjaz1991 said:

Possibly true, although I would argue that Radio Five is far from "a small radio station", it's one of the BBC's biggest and most popular news outlets.

I usually watch the BBC News Channel a lot (though not for this election as I spent all day driving). I don't detect much bias either way there, and they do show the main BBC One news bulletins.

The BBC is not without fault, far from it, but overall it is a superb broadcaster. The alternative is what the Tories are aiming for....shutting down most of the BBC and forcing people to pay Rupert Murdoch for TV, including news. Whatever bias the BBC may or may not show, I'll take that any day over what we'd get from Sky News if it had no competition and was pay walled.

TBH, when I was your age (mid-20's), I never even contemplated the thought of bias in the BBC, I lapped it all up. However, as you got older, you do tend to notice it a lot more.

To say the BBC is not biased toward the left is the same as saying that Durbster and ///ajd are 'on the fence' in the Climate Change and EU threads respectively. It is laughable.

I have seen and heard the bias for myself, along with witnessing the 'wake' after last years' Labour defeat at the election. No amount of hand wringing from others could convince me otherwise.

Also, as to Radio 5 Live, is that not a phone-in type outfit so some of what gets heard could be slipped in by callers as per "Nicky Campbell takes your calls on the day's big story if you can get past the gatekeepers.".

I added the last bit

[turbobloke]

zarjaz1991 said:

It's just that it's not the "pro-Labour" fest that some would have us believe.

The fest is rarely halted, only occasionally is the beeb's fave Party given negative coverage such as when Labour don't do leftism as per BBC leftism or they're criticised otherwise from the left-field possibly for not being Left enough.