BS: BBC bias

Subject: BS: BBC bias
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 07:34 AM

The BBC describe Corbyn as left wing, yet when mentioning Cameron give no description.
if the BBC are to be unbiased they must surely put a description before Cameron when they talk about him [eg old etonian, right wing, centre right or whatever]
my point is that to be unbiased they must either leave out descriptons for both politicians. or describe both, to make a description for one and not the other is adding a bias. if for exanple they described Cameron as Centre or Right, But said nothing about Corbyn that too would be biased.
I wondered what the general opinion of others was, on this one

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: akenaton
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 07:45 AM

That is the point Good Soldier, in UK politics, Cameron is a Liberal.
The centre of gravity has shifted dramatically as the middle class have become more prosperous.

Are the BBC biased? bloody right they are, but more from a social, than political perspective. Do you ever listen to any late night radio. Their mission seems to be the destruction of society.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 08:07 AM

And Jesus wept.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 08:13 AM

Anyone who thinks the BBC isn't biased should have talked with Ewan MacColl or Charles Parker while they were still alive, about the way they had to cut anything contentious or remotely left wing out of the radio ballads.

Yes, I know the Travelling People sparked off fires of controversy and quite right too. However, MacColl and Parker both knew this would be the last of the radio ballads. So they decided they'd got nothing to lose by telling it like they saw it.

Peggy Seeger told me once that the three of them were sitting in the BBC canteen when a highly inflated BBC bigwig came up.

"Ahh", he said "the radio ballad team. What interesting topic have next for us?"

MacColl, who must have been relishing this, said "Miners".

"Oh God", said the BBC bigwig, "not another bloody working class epic!"

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 08:52 AM

Steve, what did your comment mean?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 08:54 AM

I thought this was glaringly obvious in the lead up to the election. When Dimbleby did the question time with the leaders.
With Cameron he constantly moved questions on.

With Milliband he allowed the same people to keep asking more and more questions. I believe the main woman to question him was part of the Tory campaign.

The whole thing was a disgrace!

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Stanron
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 09:31 AM

GSS
Why are you concerned about the BBC calling Corbyn ;Left Wing'? Do you see it as an insult or slur? Is it something to be ashamed about. If you see it as a positive thing I would expect you to be pleased.

Anyway it's not just the BBC. I try to catch the papers reviews on BBC News and SKY News around Midnight most days. All the papers and SKY News call him Left Wing. It's the big difference between the old centre left Labour party and the new.

Although descriptions and opinions of Cameron will differ, we all know who and what he is. He hasn't changed. The Labour leadership has. Maybe the media in general thinks that we are all too thick to have noticed.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST,#
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 09:51 AM

"The BBC describe Corbyn as left wing, yet when mentioning Cameron give no description."

Because if the BBC did describe Cameron it would go something like 'the pompous ego-driven self-aggrandizing piece of shite' and they would no doubt be sued. Clear enough for you, Dick?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 10:01 AM

Definitely biased on origins, though I suppose they are merely parroting current majority academic belief.             Corbin left wing?....compared to Blair, not arf... But as observed elsewhere it is all relative. To be more precise they would need to say.....more left wing than the main contenders, or his immediate predecessor!

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 10:15 AM

The BBC biased ? just look how many years before a working class accent was heard, you still don't hear any except in dramas and only then if it's ' kitchen sink ' style, the BBC much prefers Downton feckin Abbey anytime.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 10:20 AM

Stanron, I am concerned because someone over on facebook[ who i know personally and i thought was intelligent, has stated that he thinks the BBC is unbiased].
the BBC calls itself independent, its licence fee is paid by the public, in my opinion if it unbiased it should either have a policy o describing the political centre of each party leader, or it should not make a comment at all, that is called being even handed or unbiased.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 10:27 AM

As I was saying in that other thread, and as Keith has made abundantly clear, people don't mind being called left-wing but object vehemently to being called right-wing. As for media bias, all media are biased in that they select what news they think we want to read/ that will stop you changing channel/will sell papers, and will put it where they like in their programme/publication and will decide how many column inches/how much airtime each item gets. Or they may just leave it out altogether. Bad offenders, such as tabloid papers, will subtly or not so subtly mix up news with opinion (viz. "Red Ed" every time the Mail reported on him). Political cartoonists add an extra layer of non-news.

Now we have that out of the way, watch tonight's news on the Beeb. You may or may not agree with me that, compared to almost every other media outlet, it's a shining beacon when it comes to trying to get it right. If you want to be intelligent about the news you have to work at it. Look at as many sources as you can. Hone your antennae to spot sneaky titbits of comment in the mix. See whether both sides are being covered. Use your brain. It's far better than moaning about media bias. If we didn't have media bias we wouldn't have media at all. And, as the other thread demonstrates, it's no use expecting the BBC to start labelling Cameron right-wing, as we can't even agree among ourselves what it means. The poor old Beeb, therefore, is on a hiding to nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 11:08 AM

I've no objection whatsoever to Jeremy Corbyn being called left wing. What I object to is that, instead of scrutinising his beliefs, or even explaining why full employment, peace, good quality housing and a world free from famine, disease and water shortages are somehow bad, the press and politicians relentlessly carry on this incessant character assassination.

In all the years I've been studying party leaders, I can't remember anyone having to endure such a relentless round of malicious tittle tattle.

It's time the naysayers either explained what they consider to be wrong and unworkable about Corbyn's politics, or else shut up.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 11:47 AM

I agree that BBC is better than fox news or ITV, But they are not as even handed as they would like us to think

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 11:50 AM

it's a good 35 years since higher education sociological courses called "Communications" / "Media Studies" etc
started filtering down into comprehensive school O + A levels.
The tories have always hated these fields of study,
tories don't want young 'impressionable' kids learning the truth about how media and news works
to maintain a right wing status quo;
and have done their best to marginalise and push these courses off the education curriculum...

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 12:36 PM

As I was saying in that other thread, and as Keith has made abundantly clear, people don't mind being called left-wing but object vehemently to being called right-wing.

People who were not in the least left wing might well object to being so labelled.
Why do you feel this need to label anyone who disagrees with you as right wing?
Although I think your far left views are unrealistic, that does not make me right wing.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: akenaton
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 01:23 PM

Keith has it about right.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 01:23 PM

i wonder if driving instructors get into arguments about which is left and which is right.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 01:40 PM

It's because God doesn't like lefties!

Abbott & Corby!!

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 01:48 PM

Do the BBC describe him simply as being left wing ? Or is it left wing the context of the Labour Party ? Most of us who follow UK politics would know what that means, and his track record as a 'rebel', especially since the rise of 'New Labour', is a part of that.

Is their a similar widely understood and easy to agree on term for David Cameron's position in his Party ? 'Good Soldier Schweik' in the OP seems to indicate that, for him, there is not. Otherwise why the list of possibilites ?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST,#
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 01:49 PM

"It's because God doesn't like lefties!"

Hard to argue with that logic.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: akenaton
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 01:50 PM

I agree with Bonzo......Abbot is a liability.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 03:45 PM

When using terms like right wing and left wing it's important to appreciate within what context they are used. A right wing Labour supporter and a left wing Tory would have very much the same political philosophy, and it would be reasonable to call that centrist. But of course it would not be centrist Labour or centrist Tory - a centrist Tory would be well to the right of a right wing Labour supporter or left wing Tory.

Keith comes across as a centrist within the wider political spectrum, and a leftish Tory but clearly within a Labour context he would be well on the right.

It's a pretty elementary confusion. I think in the kids book I read there was the shortest giant in the world, and the tallest giant, and they were the same height.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST,allan conn
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 06:54 PM

The study from the UWS which came out during the referendum debate came to the conclusion that all the broadcasters were biased in favour of the union but that the BBC were worse than ITV.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Sep 15 - 08:39 PM

But I suspect that the effect would have been to help the Yes vote.   When the bias is too strong it can backfire. People know the BBC is supposed not to take sides. The same probably applied in the Labour leadership contest.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 02:49 AM

the bbc can't help what they are.

they're for the main part oxbridge types, from the south of the country.

north of watford and they're talking shite.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Pete MacGregor
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 05:10 AM

It is to be expected that the various overseas based billionaire owners of most of the UK press will have instructed their minions to rubbish Corbyn at every opportunity.
When it comes to the BBC it looks as if many of their staff are looking to the possibility of moving to work for the 'dark side' and don't want to spoil their prospects.

For entertainment check out on YouTube Dennis Skinner putting a BBC spinnerette in her place.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Stu
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 05:15 AM

One thing's for sure, if Corbyn had been sticking his jake in a dead pigs head at university the BBC would have been all over it. Not an oink from them this morning.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Teribus
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 08:23 AM

"What I object to is that, instead of scrutinising his beliefs, or even explaining why full employment, peace, good quality housing and a world free from famine, disease and water shortages are somehow bad, the press and politicians relentlessly carry on this incessant character assassination."

Fred could you please give us any substantive evidence that ANYONE has stated that having "full employment, peace, good quality housing and a world free from famine, disease and water shortages" would be bad.

Only problem with Corbyn spouting on about those things is that listening to him it becomes perfectly clear that following his policies none of his declared objectives could ever be attained - they would only serve to make things worse than they already are.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Teribus
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 08:28 AM

BBC bias - of course the BBC is biased - if it wasn't then they would have had absolutely no problem in putting the Balen Report into the public domain, instead it spent upwards of £200,000 to ensure that the findings of that report never see the light of day.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 09:00 AM

I wouldn't worry, Teribus. Just about every other media outlet is biased in favour of your lot anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 09:27 AM

You see, Terribilis, left wingers think that "full employment, peace, good quality housing and a world free from famine, disease and water shortages" would be a good thing. Con-servatives and others think that it would be a bad thing, because then the poor would be less terrified of the powers of the rich and organised capital. It's quite remarkable how you can say what you do so soon after a coroner has officially found that the death of a person was due to the effects of government policy over benefits.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Stu
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:02 AM

Bilderberg, Tezza.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:08 AM

left wingers think that "full employment, peace, good quality housing and a world free from famine, disease and water shortages" would be a good thing. Con-servatives and others think that it would be a bad thing,

Such childlike, naive prejudice.
Everyone is in favour of those things silly, only differing in the best way to achieve them.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:22 AM

Full employment? The Tories since 1979 have a terrible record. Housing? The Tories sell off all the best public housing stock at massive discounts, leaving the slums for the undeserving poor. World free from famine, etc? The Tories want to limit the numbers fleeing from a crisis that's our fault to 4000 a year, and they're talking about paying for that out of the foreign aid budget. Not trying very hard to achieve them, eh, Keith?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:46 AM

To everyone who responded to my posting about full employment, good quality housing etc.

I didn't say that conservatives don't believe in these things. Over the years I have met many compassionate conservative voters who are just as concerned about the state of the world as I am.

The trouble is that they have hitched their wagon to the wrong star. Capitalism is founded on the principles of inequality and dog eat dog. It's called the free market and until it is done away the world will remain full of suffering.

For anyone who hasn't yet apprehended that fact, I wouldn't try wading through Karl Marx's Capital, easily the most impenetrable book I have ever read. Instead, read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, especially the chapter which begins "The spring is beautiful in California". Although set in the 1930s' of the American depression, its critique of capitalism as a socio/economic system is universal.

It's not that the world is full of greedy people, or that there's something unalterable about the laws of human behaviour which makes for social inequality, and which makes some people better off than others.

It is that the system itself is wrong. It is founded on profit and greed where it should be about satisfying human need.

Do I think that Jeremy Corbyn is the man to cure all the problems of capitalism? He probably isn't, but he could well be the person to give us a good hard nudge in the right direction.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:48 AM

Steve, I challenge all of your examples.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 10:54 AM

Er, they're all true. Check 'em out.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 11:04 AM

If the Tories record on employment is worse than Labour's, I would like to see the evidence.
Likewise house building.
The migrant crisis is not our fault, and this government sends more aid to Syrian refugees than the rest of the EU put together.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 11:16 AM

Sigh!

BBC apologizes for 'anti-Semitic' cartoon in music program

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 12:39 PM

You were given the post-1979 unemployment record by Jim last week. The 1979 low was not achieved again until years into new Labour. It is much higher than that today, and a damn sight higher still when you take into account all the cheat statistics that "forget about" bogus apprenticeships, bogus self-employed numbers and almost a million on zero-hours contracts. My comment on housing was nothing to do with house building. I was referring to council house selloffs. The refugee crisis (not just a migrant crisis, your words) is squarely the upshot of decades of terrible foreign policy balls-ups over decades by the west in the Middle East in which we have been thoroughly complicit. The government is only sending money to try to stop them coming here, and not only is it completely inadequate, it is also coming off our foreign aid budget. And I do not appreciate very much your sneaky attempt to shift the ground on two out of three of the points I made, thank you. You still haven't learned the lessons of your Wheatcroft misrepresentations, have you?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 03:19 PM

For fuck's sake, KtheA. Capital and conservatives DESIRE poverty and deprivation in the lower orders because it makes labour (the workers, not the party) more malleable to the demands of capital. Cease your puerile pretence.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 03:20 PM

Cammeroon has been around long enough to be assumed as Tory. Corebin hasn't been in such a public eye for long enough. The BBC are, if anything acknowledging that 60% of the electorate are so dis-interested in which politician belongs to which label that they don't even vote.

The BBC are always criticised for their biases. The lefties find some cockamamie reason that can be explained in another way.

The Tories are for ever citing left bias from all those arty-farty lefty lovies.

Lesser parties are always claiming unfair exposure, ie not getting enough.

The BBC for all their faults are damned if they don't and damned if they do. They plough a pretty straight furrow despite the crosswinds.

Ask the plebs in any totalitarian regime - they like the World Service for its better delivery of truths.

What would you prefer? Rupert Merde-Hoc deciding what you should think?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 05:39 PM

Cease your puerile pretence.
It is simplistic, naive, puerile pretence that anyone "desires" famine, disease and water shortage.

The 1979 low was not achieved again until years into new Labour.

Not Tory then.

It (unemployment) is much higher than that today,

So is employment.The population is much higher.

My comment on housing was nothing to do with house building. I was referring to council house selloffs.

Why?
The problem is a shortage of housing.
The sell off did not reduce the housing stock at all.
All those houses still exist and are still occupied.

The refugee crisis (not just a migrant crisis, your words) is squarely the upshot of decades of terrible foreign policy balls-ups over decades by the west in the Middle East in which we have been thoroughly complicit.

We have not been complicit in any way in the implosion of Syria.
Only about 30% are from Syria anyway.
Most are from Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

The government is only sending money to try to stop them coming here,

Not true.
Most can not afford the thousands that it costs to make the trip.
The humanitarian aid is for schools, shelter, health care.
Look up "humanitarian."

and not only is it completely inadequate, it is also coming off our foreign aid budget.

Our aid to Syrian refugees is second only to USA and more that the rest of the EU combined.
We give proportionally more in foreign aid than anyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 06:23 PM

Let's be clear. The 1979 unemployment figure rocketed under Thatcher. She never got it back to 1979 levels. She pretended to get close by counting hundreds of thousands of industrial workers, thrown out of their jobs in favour of spivs and yuppies in the newly-deregulated City, as on incapacity benefit instead of what they really were, unemployed. John Major failed to get unemployment back to the 1979 level. It was years of New Labour before the figure got down to the 1979 level. In over five years of recent Torydom, the level has got nowhere close to the 1.4 million of 1979. Have you got it yet, Keith? As for current levels of employment, for the THIRD BLOODY TIME, Keith, the "millions of jobs" created by Cameron et al. are overwhelmingly temporary, or part-time, or bogus apprenticeships on half the legal minimum wage, or, almost a MILLION of 'em, zero-hours contracts, almost unknown a decade ago. Welcome to the Tory "flexible labour market", a nice euphemism which means keeping as many employees as possible as insecure as possible with as few rights as possible on as low pay as possible. And do you know what the huge great bloody giveaway clue to it is, Keith? Productivity in this country is flat-lining. Even Osborne is "disappointed". So pray tell me what these wonderful new Tory jobs are actually creating, Keith. You can't spot a deliberately-created Tory illusion if it comes up and bites you on the bum, can you, and even if you did spot it you'd deny it with every twist and turn and misrepresentation you could muster. That's why you're so right-wing, Keith. Easy peasy.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 06:25 PM

Not forgetting, which I nearly did, all those workers who now have say that they're "self-employed". Bogus yet again.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 06:49 PM

Aid to Syrian refugees? Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq now shelter almost FIVE MILLION Syrian refugees. One person in five in Lebanon is now a Syrian refugee. We have taken five thousand. We send money to keep people in camps. What we send is peanuts compared to what Turkey has spent. If we've spent more than other EU countries, that's to their shame, not to our glory, as you seem to think. So kindly keep the lecturing about the meaning of "humanitarian" to yourself. Or perhaps you could apply it to those poor people in Gaza, suffering a terrible plight That never seems to concern you.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 07:01 PM

Or perhaps you could apply it to those poor people in Gaza, suffering a terrible plight

Agreed, the terrible plight suffered by the people of Gaza is Hamas. I suggest you have a look at where the humanitarian aid given to Gaza ends up.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 07:05 PM

Keith is right on the ball with all his answers bar one.

We have been complicit in the destabilisation of the Middle East but it was done largely to serve a "liberal" agenda, support for the so called "Arab Spring" and the "liberation"(nudge, nudge), of the Iraqi people. Our interventions have been largely instigated by or supported by a Labour government. Even the crime in Libya was supported by Labour.
Regarding employment get real, the working class no longer exists the huge manufacturing and natural resource employers were uncompetitive.
The nature of employment has changed and will never return to 70's levels. we are going to have to share out work, find ways to spend more "free time" and get used to being less well off financially.

So by a quick back count........Keith wins and you lose.

Subject: RE: BS: BBC bias
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Sep 15 - 07:18 PM

Jaysus, I'm quaking in my bloody boots, I am.