The complaint to the BBC by some Labour MP I've never heard of is risible. Dawn Butler (for it is she) complains that David Cameron is given an easy ride by the Today Programme interviewers. What utter rubbish. I've heard at least half the interviews she refers to and he's interrupted and challenged just as often as anyone else. Indeed, I would argue that it is Gordon Brown who gets away with an easier time because he's not interrupted as much and answers the question he wanted to be asked rather than the question he was actually asked.
Butler whines that David Cameron is often only interviewed on one subject and then - wait for it - ONLY for eight minutes! Is she complaining he doesn't get enough airtime?
Let's be clear, political parties complain about things like this, not in the expectation that the BBC will hold up its hands and say "yup, you're right". What they do is put in a complaint in the full knowledge that BBC producers will have it in the back of their minds during future interviews.
I was told by a BBC producer that the Labour Party had complained about one of my News 24 appearances where they captioned me as a political blogger, rather than a Conservative blogger. Fair enough, I suppose, but on my next appearance they went so overboard in describing my Conservative leanings it was almost comical. As if the viewers couldn't have worked it out for themselves!
35 comments:
Of course, if Gordon Brown actually agreed to go on the Today programme from time to time -- as David Cameron does -- then Labour would look a bit less silly.
The BBC is biased, of course, but not Party politically. They have rigorous controls in place to ensure this kind of balance.
No, the Beeb is well and truly biased, but towards Big Government and Statism - the Party is almost irrelevant. For every single newsworthy issue the news approach is the same: What is Government going to do about this? The approach precludes the possibility that it's anyone else's job to do anything. It's lazy journalism and a dangerous assumption of State responsibility for every aspect of our lives. Of course it's easier to haul a minister into the studio for a reactive response than to think analytically about the alternatives.
Children watching too much telly? Dog fouling in the park? iPods causing premature deafness? Foreigners spitting in the street? Yep, as far as the BBC are concerned the very first question to be asked is 'What are the Government going to do about this?'
Just once, only once, I want to hear a minister say 'Absolutely nothing. This isn't a matter for government.'
Brown at Labour's Spring Conference in a blue tie, now Cameron today at his monthly press conference in a red tie. A choice between socialists pretending to be conservatives or Conservatives pretending to be socialists?
Pathetic. The letter's pathetic, the whinge is pathetic, and the Labour Government is pathetic (amongs many other things, including nasty, incompetent, and bullying). That woman, whoever she is, must think we're all stupid. Labour as the easiest time from the BBC than any other Government before - remember James Naughtie's infamous "we", and the many underarm deliveries their ministers get, compared to the ferocious pace that many Conservatives receive in contrast. But you're spot on Iain (as ever!!). They just want to make producers nervous, and I only hope it has the opposite effect, and just rubs everyone up the wrong way. They have it easy, do the Labour Government, and this letter just proves yet again what a bunch of bully boys they all are. Pathetic!
The BBC interviewers always seem to interrupt Conservatives more. I would assume for the following reasons:
1) The political views of the interviewers and their editors.
2) They are far more familiar with the left wing arguments.
3) Conservative representatives actually try to argue their case - Labour just read out the party spin line. If the interviewer asks a question then Labour robots punish them by taking an even longer time to answer going on and on by which time you've forgotten what the interviewer asked.
4) Conservative, and often Lib Dem interviewees, still have the decency to engage in the interview. Labour do not.
5) By its pressure on the BBC in the early Blair years Labour have destroyed normal political debate, when two opposing views would be interviewed together.
Compare to Scotland where you have the Labour leader refusing to appear on Newsnight!
Iain, where is Bj said when you want him?
Another scholar at the Downing Street kinderkarten?
As for BBC bias. This is a joke. No other comment required
"Leaning neither on the one hand towards political partiality nor on the other hand towards impartiality" as it was once described.
The BBC's partiality is towards what might be called the political consesnsus position between the 2 parties. With a very large side order of, like the rest of the civil service, bias towards big government solutions to everything.
Cameron fits the this rather to well for my taste.
I don't think anybody could seriously claim that the BBC have reported either honestly or impartially on things like global warming, the Kosovo war, the Russian elections, Palestine, the EU, the death penalty, immigration or almost anything else where the parties are in agreement or an extension of state power is involved. Nor do I think they show any party impartiality in their treatment of the Greens on one hand & BNP on the other.
We have something very close to a monopoly in broadcast media news & that is incompatible with true democracy.
That would be A New Dawn has Broken, Yes it Has Butler I expect.
We've all heard of her, and paid for her. She isn't worth it.
The Right have been accusing the BBC of bias for years. The fact that Labour are now doing the same shows just how well balanced the BBC actually is.
Tory Troll, intellectually that is such an incredibly weak and vacuous argument.
Problem is that the BBC (along with most media outlets) is anti politics and politicians. Possibly because a lot of journalists are failed politicians they delight in peddling the nonsense that successful politicians are by definition rogues.
I can't stand the Today programme nowadays, it's always so negative. Grumpy Humphrys and posh Sarah get really cross when interviewees won't follow the "we're all going to Hell in a handcart" line.
People obviously see what they want to see and find bias where they want to find bias.
So what are they (NuLab) going to do about it, sack the Chairman & Managing Director and replace the Governing body again? I am already absolutely appalled by the soft interviewing of Ministers. By the way they refuse to answer or even turn up when it does not suit THEM. By their use of fake investigations and sexed up reports, their rebuttals and denials of facts. Their myriad of new laws which nobody understands because they have no underlying ethical principle.
This is way beyond what Orwell (Blair) could ever have imagined.
Our only hope now is that they will by consumed by their own lies hubris and exaggeration. Soon.
Strapworld: call me a scholar at the Downing Street kindergarten again, and I shall come round and insert a large garden gnome in you. Good day.
Never mind that, now that loopy Hodge woman is having a crack at The Proms:
http://www.epolitix.com/EN/News/200803/a78e3c89-95e7-499f-9055-6c10f6085e36.htm
How is she going to ensure that those watching or listening to the BBC are 'representative'. Is this all part of the great ID cards scheme?
As a thought exercise, all the right-wingers out there should imagine for one week that the BBC has a built-in right-wing bias. Do it honestly - really think yourself into that position and let yourself believe it. The lefties should do the opposite.
I suspect both sides would be amazed at how quickly the evidence seems to back up their new positions.
We deliberately start to filter out any evidence that's inconvenient and magnify any that confirms our prejudices. It's like staring at something red for two minutes, then looking up - suddenly all the red stuff in the room leaps out at you.
Of course, this is only a thought experiment. It goes without saying that the BBC are a bunch of lefty tossers.
This letter gives the UK some great ammunition when it critizes Putin for controlling the Russian media.
Welldone Labour, its this kind of rank hypocrisy that has served our foreign policy so well in recent years.
Naughty Harriet Harman for praising Castro. She now knows very well that publicly Labour policy is to have a 'managed democracy' in the UK.
shouldnt that read
"Labour accuse public of pro Cameron bias"!!
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/537041/the-dangers-of-state-dependency.thtml
If you looked at the programme mentioned in the Coffe House this is the real state of pay with the BBC where bias has largely gone somewhat underground. This was a problem dealing with the problems of estates and violence on them .
I commented on Coffee House :
That frustrated me .There was no examination of why these communities had started throwing bricks at each other and it was presented as if the people committing crimes were imposed from the outside. The lack of fathers, jobs ,and commonality was skipped past but the lack of "Community “ and collective action " was made much of .
In fact "Individualism” was blamed.
This was to me an attempt to recast the welfare disaster of the Brown years as a inexplicable moral failure by the people involved attributable to .. nasty selfishness and a lack of public money.You are far too kind to this insidious propaganda I detested it , the old days of the BBC back again when Polly Toynbee was head of social affairs
It was inevitable that the Labour Party would complain in an artificial attempt to try and make the BBC look balanced , they is still a gravitational pull towards Liberal progressivism usually implicit and more common in drama and way from the head line political vehicles.
I think a BBC that has a built in right wing bias ought to have members of the greater right constituency occupying all the positions of power.
Simon Heffer , head of social affairs for five years, after all they had Polly Toynbee and continue that all the way through.
CHRIST CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW THE LEFT WOULD SQUAWK
Boris Johnson commisioning drama
Norman Tebbit ..oo I don`t know ...cultural programming
I`d watch .
Not surprised you haven't heard of Dawn Butler. I only know of her because she tried to get the nomination for West Ham when Tony Banks retired. That she lost to the monumentally useless Lyn Brown tells you everything you need to know.
"The BBC is biased, of course, but not Party politically. They have rigorous controls in place to ensure this kind of balance. "
scuse me while I puke
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Has anyone considered it is highly likely that Labour and the BBC cooked up this complaint together to put the ani BBC forces off the scent .
b.j 10.32 am
If you are a breakfast tv junky you will know that Gordon prefers to appear on the GmTv sofa - they ask nicer questions
I dont know what she is on about. The BBC is New labour.
Dawn Butler is too partisan whenever I've heard her speak.
This is hypocritical rubbish of the highest order.
Anonymous at 12.21pm said:
"Has anyone considered it is highly likely that Labour and the BBC cooked up this complaint together to put the ani BBC forces off the scent."
Yep! Posted this on the Bias BBC blog last night,
"This "spat" between the Toady programme and Liebour, is delieberatley staged, so that the BBC can claim it upsets Labour too and isn't therefore partisan! The Toady programme has come under very heavy criticism form the right, especially the right-wing blogasphere, for it's Labour arse-licking and anti-Conservative opinions.
DO NOT BELIEVE THE HYPE. The BBC is run by Labourites and the fact that something like this is pushed in to the public domain by the BBC, and is considered newsworthy, when numerous Conservative complaints, are not, shows this all looks a bit deliberate.
Geezer | 03.03.08 - 10:46 pm"
A senior Tory source claimed Miss Butler - a young MP who is considered a rising star in the party - had been ordered to complain by a "paranoid" Gordon Brown.
(from today's article in the Mail)
I think this is on the money - tempting as the conspiracy theory is. I suspect the truth is a bit less rational - Mr Bean has lost it. He's tormented by the sound of Cameron on his turf - the Toady show. Putin makes him green with envy; Stalin McBean wants the media all to himself with no toffee Tories invading his space.
Benny Austwick - Actually there plenty of evidence of BBC bias, and even a few occasions of the BBC admitting as much.
The problem is the political view point of the people the BBC employ.
You may have had a picture of George Bush with a Hitler moustache in the BBC newsroom, but you would never get Gordon Brown as Stalin.
The registered political views of BBC staff on facebook have shown the bias, as have internal BBC reports.
The BBC are now running scared of the oncoming Conservative government. The wonder of the Labour compliant is that they get to keep their advanatge from the BBC's left wing bias by complaining.
Lets just see how the BBC has covered the Labour party and Lib Dems breaking their manifesto promises on the Lisbon Treaty and ignoring the vast body of public option to sell out their country by passing a treaty that is self modifying and effectively removes sovereignty forever from these isles. What does the BBC report ? A few idiots with a banner about the third run way at Heathrow - Pravda would be proud !
We remember, don't we, how the corridors of the BBC were strewn with champagne bottles on election night, 1997.
Man in a shed: You may have had a picture of George Bush with a Hitler moustache in the BBC newsroom, but you would never get Gordon Brown as Stalin.
I am typing this from a BBC newsroom. There is a picture of Gordon Brown as Stalin on a wall about fifteen yards away from me. I promise you I am not making this up.
Whether you believe the BBC is Bias to the left or right depends on one very important thing.
That is you all have to agree in advance what the terms right, and left-wing mean these days. Which is far more difficult then just about anything can be.
If you think being basically libertarian is left wing, and that being establishment authoritarian is right wing.
Then I think we can all possibly agree that the BBC is acutely bias to the right.
If however like myself you believe that right wing means
basically libertarian and left wing means establishment authoritarian.
Then I think we can all possibly agree that the BBC is acutely bias to the left.
This is a serious point because I know left wing libertarians,
(even though in my own opinion there can not possibly be such a thing under any circumstances imaginable, and I very often tell them so)
that are even more pissed with the BBC then I am. AND THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING believe me.
The argument that just because the BBC is despised and distrusted by by people on the right and the left means the BBC is somehow getting things correct. Is as you so rightly indicate Iain is the most dangerously pathetic vacuous nonsense imaginable. So much so the only people that usually come up with it are the BBC themselves.
Being in the middle is no more likely to please the TRUTH then being aware else. In the BBCs case it almost assures the wrong answer possibly 100% of the time.
If you placed pure classical libertarianism at 0 and State Fascist or State Communist Establishment authoritarianism at 100.
Then I personally would rate The Libertarian Party at 30, The UKIP at 40, The Conservative party at 60, our current excuse for a government at 85, The BNP at 87, The Green Party at 89, and last but by absolutely by no means least, The BBC Party at about 99.999.
As you see IMO the BBC is anywhere but in the middle.
ATLAS shrugged
BJ @ 10.29 - as a BBC insider could you let us know what the reaction in BBC circles is to Labour's complaint?
BTW - I'm delighted to hear your comrades have pics of Brown as Stalin on the wall - but are you sure this isn't a sign of their admiration? I'd have my doubts after all the adulation of Castro.
Oscar Miller: I suspect the Brown picture is just up there as a joke.
And I'm not important enough to deal with complaints; and nor do I work for the Today programme. So I don't know that there's been any discernible reaction at all.
bj - oh dear - doesn't anyone gossip in your office? No wonder you've turned to reading blogsites.
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