Political bias at BBC - something has to be done surely

[donna180]

Mr Snap said:

donna180 said:

Mr Snap said:

donna180 said:

Mr Snap said:

thinfourth2 said:

donna180 said:

Now their websites at it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

Revised econ growth figures upwards placed below Turkey retaliates for French Bill.....

I bet if the econ growth figures were revised down it would be the lead item.

In your head that's because they love labour

In my head it's because the whole media have a hard on for bad news

Nor is it the lead story for The Telegraph.
What a bunch of pinkoes...

It's relatively higher placed on the telegraph home page though....

And now - ten minutes later - it isn't even on the Telegraph's front page but it's still on the BBC's.

It's a silly way of measuring a news outlet's political stance; unless you were to do it in a statistically valid way and over a long period of time.
You haven't, so it's just your biased opinion and as worthless as my biased opinion is on the same matter...

It's there now on the Telegraph site: - bold entry under Finance "UK GDP revised up".

Agree about method but no time and CBA but it still looked less than impartial reporting to me.

Lots of things look partial if you "CBA" to do the research.
But, if you know that, what's the point of saying the reporting looked partial?
It just looks like you being partial...

Why don't you just say "My bias against the BBC is a matter of faith. I'm not interested in actually ascertaining the facts because I've already decided what's true and what isn't"

It'd save everyone a lot of time...

There is no such thing as 'unbiased reporting'. If you can't manage it, how do you expect the BBC to manage it?

I have a theory and I'm looking for evidence to both support and deny it - I can't remember a time the BBC have ever been biased in favour of the Conservatives on any particular issue - I don't watch masses of TV over the News - but I am looking....

I could spend ages doing a more rigorous study (I've got a day job!) but an earlier point I made is that I shouldn't have to and a watchdog should do this to ensure more impartiality on the UK's flagship channel. I'm really surprised the Tory party haven't thought about this, got some researches to investigate and pushed for action. I'm not connected to the Tory party in any way...

[donna180]

Ok so this is the Mail and massively biased of course but at least it's being reported....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2077796/BB...

Two hours before Britain’s economic figures were released yesterday, the BBC enthusiastically predicted that growth would be ‘even worse than we thought’.
The potential economic slowdown was discussed at length in grave tones for three and a half minutes on Radio 4’s flagship Today programme.
The issue was considered important enough to be placed third on the programme’s news bulletins at 7.30am and 8am.

Unfortunately, their pessimistic predictions were wrong. Instead of growth being worse than forecast, it was better.
But rather than injecting a more optimistic tone into their analysis, they simply relegated the story to being an also-ran.

[donna180]

Ok here's one - don't see this anywhere on beeb website

Bosses back Cameron over veto.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2077...

[donna180]

turbobloke said:

Anybody else want to vote?

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Just added mine.

[donna180]

Apache said:

So you have Joe Smith, a Senior Lecturer in Environment Geography who writes for the BBC and Roger Harrabin the BBC’s Environment Analyst emailing Mike Hulme, Professor of Climate Change of Environmental Sciences at UEA to ask them how the BBC could influence their viewers....and you think it has nothing to do with the BBC?

You also have an email from the delightful Jo Abbess, a particularly virulent strain of the 'Climate Change Activist' variety successfully bullying Harribin into watering down a headline to favour the MMGW myth. I'd say it has everything to do with the BBC

Agree it's bad. This is just another of the many examples of why the beeb needs impartial controls and standards under which it should operate.

[donna180]

pacman1 said:

nayf said:

In the greater scheme of things, it doesn't really matter.

Yes it does. The BBC is publicly funded. It is written in the charter that their news reporting should be impartial.

Exactly. It's a travesty of democracy that the institutionalized bias is allowed to continue unchecked. The beeb should be monitored by an independent organisation.

The issue isn't bias, the issue is why is the bias not validated and corrected.

[donna180]

RYH64E said:

'The Labour party has made a "serious complaint" to the BBC about a lack of political balance in its news coverage as it attempts to reinvigorate Ed Miliband's leadership and counter what it sees as widespread media bias in favour of the David Cameron-led coalition.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/31/ed-...

The Conservatives need to start playing the same media game as Labour, at least insofar as the BBC. Labour spin and manipulation did change the Political landscape....

[donna180]

Today's blatant biased content: dig at the Conservatives on the rail fare price hikes on the the bbc news 24 channel around lunchtime - followed by 10 minutes with a Labour MP giving a party political with maybe one question, fired off in response to the labour propaganda. Hardly a balanced piece - no objective story then labour and coalition given 5 mins each - sounded like a 10 minute labour party political, perhaps to offset the impact of the Prime Minister's New Year Statement.

(I only watched 30 mins of news/TV today and 15/20 was blatant biased content in favour of the Labour party.....)

[donna180]

turbobloke said:

Stick with RT for greater impartiality and better balance

I was at dp's place so had to bit my tongue...

[donna180]

thinfourth2 said:

Do you remember the BBC welcoming with open arms rail fare rises under labour?

As i don't

It is a yearly ritual get transport minister in and make him look like a tard when the prices go up

But they didn't get the minister in - that's the point - 10 mins labour PPB...

[donna180]

thinfourth2 said:

Sticks. said:

Unless you know whether they were invited to take part it's impossible to say it was biased. Recent local news article on the economy only had a tory MP, and gave him a good amount of time. Biased too, or Lab no show?

If they have a Tory MP on and ask him a question that is bias against the tories

If they have a labour MP on and ask him a question that is bias against the tories

Both parties should always be offered a place if there's a new news item reported in order to properly debate and it should be reported if they decline to be interviewed. That would be an easy fix no?... A set number of questions to both and equal air time. How hard is that....

[donna180]

thinfourth2 said:

donna180 said:

Both parties should always be offered a place if there's a new news item reported in order to properly debate and it should be reported if they decline to be interviewed. That would be an easy fix no?... A set number of questions to both and equal air time. How hard is that....

But incase you haven't noticed we have more then 2 parties in the UK

Hard to tell the difference without the helpful coloured tie but there is at least 6 parties with MPs from the mainland UK in parliament

Well at the moment there's two main ones no - a co-e and Lab. In other items how difficult is it to have a group panel from more than 2 parties.... Skype... With a bit of thought (and I gave it 2 seconds!) shouldn't be hard....

[donna180]

There should be a set formula for it so there's no opportunity for any bias - it shouldn't be up to a particular editor to make the decision..... If the Govt/opposition or alternative parties don't want to participate then that should be made clear.

[donna180]

Sticks. said:

donna180 said:

Well at the moment there's two main ones no - a co-e and Lab. In other items how difficult is it to have a group panel from more than 2 parties.... Skype... With a bit of thought (and I gave it 2 seconds!) shouldn't be hard....

Thay have to want to/be able to - 'no one was available for comment' is a well used phrase.

Logically (or hopefully), govt ministers will have more to do than opposition, so less time to spend on TV, important though it sometimes may be.

Yes that's hopefully true - maybe there's a case for having a single Govt spokesman available across multiple ministerial roles - it's not something I have any experience of but to me it seems wrong that there's opportunity for opposition to question policy on prime time with no Govt representative defending the initiatives.

[donna180]

Nothing on the BBC website (as far as I can tell) to indicate that the UK will be the best-performing major economy in Europe this year, according to the latest forecasts from the International Monetary Fund. Only bits on unemployment and UK industry declining in November.....

The UK economy will grow by 0.6 per cent in 2012 – far weaker than previously thought but much better than the 0.5 per cent contraction expected in the eurozone.
Germany is set to grow by just 0.3 per cent and France by 0.2 per cent, while Italy and Spain face at least two years of deep recession, the IMF predicted.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089198/UK...

[donna180]

Sticks. said:

donna180 said:

Nothing on the BBC website (as far as I can tell) to indicate that the UK will be the best-performing major economy in Europe this year, according to the latest forecasts from the International Monetary Fund. Only bits on unemployment and UK industry declining in November.....

The UK economy will grow by 0.6 per cent in 2012 – far weaker than previously thought......

Iirc when the BBC website last ran the story that UK economic growth was weaker than govt predictions it was claimed to be lefty bias.

I thought last time, it neglected to mention UK growth was revised upwards.....

[donna180]

SpeedMattersNot said:

How many times have I seen in this topic, someone ranting about a latest story not being on their website is so clearly due to politcial bias, when a few hours later it appears.

It's been on the Radio 1's news today which is their most primitive version of news and I don't think it was in any way in favour of giving people more benefits. If I remember correctly the only arguement against the cap was that some people feel it will only affect the children.

Oh well.

Maybe they're reading the posts and responding.....!