BBC Political Bias :[

The BBC has chosen, today of all days, when the British politcal farts are trying to take control of the Brexit fiasco and find a positive way out, to stoke EU fear.

Their lead article is, of course, about the attempt to break the deadlock we’re suffering. The article immediately to the right, and immediately below on IOS, is a first-time mentioned issue about the E.U. imposing automated speed limitation on vehicles in Europe.

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I lost faith in the independence of the BBC years ago, but this is worthy of Breitbart.

I complained. I called.

The complaint process for the BBC - via the BBC. You’d think maybe IPSO (Independent Press Standards Organisation) - no! They point to OfCom (UK Communications Regulator - publicly funded) - no! They openly declare “we have an arrangement with the BBC”.

Political tosspots meddling with the media.

Meddle, meddle, meddle.

I’m disgusted. This really is Little Britain. Little, little, little.

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Just re-read the title of the article to the right. The UK is not “set to adopt” vehicle speed limiters!! ffs. The E.U. has “provisionally agreed” the rules.

Talk about stoking the fire.

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Glad I’m not the only one who noticed this. I heard the juxtaposition on Radio 2 which I listen to on my drive to and from work… for… some reason? Maybe because I felt I wasn’t starting my work day in a sufficient state of low-grade annoyance.

Oh dear, so that’s not just a BBC online news editorial decision, that’s a BBC news decision.

The fuckers are pro-Brexit. Jacob Rees-Mogg and co have their tentacles in there (of course, of course).

I’m actually really, really sad. At the very least this country should try and live up to its “the original Parliament” nation. Independent and well thought through etc.

The great greedy capitalist bird has settled its ashen wings over the nation. It’s more like Bulgaria 1907 than Glorious Britannia. No wonder the royals maintain tight relationships with their foreign kin, Easy exit.

Yeah, that the Beeb has gone rightwing neolib has been obvious for awhile now. Fuckers.

The Guardian has been somewhat better, but not a lot. Is there a better regular UK news outlet? (Aside from viddies by Jonathan Pie, that is. :relaxed: )

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I’m not so sure they’re Right leaning, pompously Centrist perhaps, but their insistence on drama over fact is really wearing, and their deliberate lack of opinion in preference for showing “both sides” of everything.
Except the other night when there was an item on self-harm image hosting on Instagram; then they promptly showed a bunch of said images. WTF…

The Guardian is generally good for news but they are a bit worthy at times, but who doesn’t want a little self-flagellation with their morning news? :wink:

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+1

If you haven’t watched this - watch this!!

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I’ve been saying the BBC News has been biased to the right for a few years now. It’s not as much of a bias as with the tabloids and the Torygraph, but it seems to be to the right of the Independent which the current owner was trying to set up as an unbiased news source (which isn’t the same as centrist, that comes with its own set of biases). They seem to have given up on that though and have a Lib Dem bias now.

One of the first things I noticed about 10 years ago was that right wing politicians (Tory, Ukip) on the BBC were getting far easier interviews than left leaning ones (Labour, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Green). My ideal for this would be that everyone gets tough interviews.

To be honest, a lot of the British press is bad. I only bother with the Guardian, the Independent and the Times now (and not much of the Times as it is behind a Paywall). I used to read The Morning Star too (Far left, used to be funded by the Soviet Union but now has views other than just tankie), but it started defending TERFs regularly, at one point seeming to have more trans hate in it than the Daily Mail, and I stopped.

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I agree, generally… i mean they’re not fox news by any means but they are far from being as impartial as they think they are or outsiders think they are, maybe from fear of being absolutely skinned alive by the tories. But their coverage of corbyn, whatever you think of him, has been appalling and plays right into the hands of those on the right. They are very establishment and chomsky noted it years ago, as somebody posted the other day…

ETA: Just to add that at least you know where you stand with fox news, they are blatantly toxic and not to be trusted but with the bbc it can be subtle and insidious and in that regard it’s very british.

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Hey, it’s not all bad. Brexit will achieve what the IRA and Bonnie Prince Charlie never could, a United Irish Republic and a Free Scotland. The Tories will get rid of those pesky Voting Reforms from 1832 and 1867 and feast on the bodies of tbe poor.

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This is true of much US media as well… We’re never going to get another moment like when Walter Cronkite flew to Vietnam himself to see what was happening with Tet and actually reported what was happening to the American people. The more corporate the media, the less likely such a think will happen… and it pulls other forms of media along with it, too, even state run or publicly funded, it all comes to the new neo-liberal center… so I’m not at all surprised this has happened with the BBC, too. A shame and very bad for democracy… at least the BBC Radio 4 continues it’s recent tradition of these past few years of having a Neil Gaiman radio play at Christmas.

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The Guardian is one of the best sources for important news about the US. This is makes me very sad.

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Absolutely! Radio 2 has some fantastic and varied evening music programs and is generally positive during the day; but the closer it gets to news and current affairs the more it shows as a Voice for something you might not really approve of, while never actually picking a side.
Like the Auntie with the amazing record collection but is a secret Right Wing voter…

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The BBC is not what it used to be.

Ever since the turn of the century, it has started to act more and more as a government mouthpiece, instead of as an impartial broadcaster. It doesn’t lean right so much as Pro-government, whatever the government of the day happens to be. So, it was blatantly Blairite until 2010, and has been mildly Tory ever since. The real turning point was the war in Iraq, where it was battered into line and was not allowed to question the murderous lies of the government at the time.

This is generally because the upper echelons have been stacked over the years by appointees that the government of the day likes, and because the government threatens to de-fund it every time a charter review comes along. Add in the fact that the rabidly right-wing press yell at it whenever it does anything even vaguely leftish, and you have a recipe for a steady rightward drift.

You can’t even trust that the audience isn’t full of pro-brexit right wing activists:
Here’s a UKIP activist that was put on Question Time, and allowed to ask questions on multiple shows:

And a few weeks later, they end up with five tory activists in the audience, all of whom bash the only left-winger on the panel:

More generally, the BBC has a much bigger problem than obvious political bias. It has an ingrained cultural bias which ends up producing the political bias. The BBC is largely staffed by rich young media graduates who live in London. They have to come from rich families in order to get the requisite media internships, and they have to live in London, because almost all of the media is based there (The BBC’s move of several chunks of staff to Salford has not really helped with this). Therefore, without thinking, the range of perspectives narrows- You get an excruciating metropolitan bias, because everyone involved naturally thinks that London is the centre of their universe. You get a narrowing of political opinions, as they think “balance” means one commentator from Labour, one Tory, one Lib Dem and one UKIP. They are completely blind to the other nations currently of the UK, northern England, or any ordinary working-class people at all. and worst of all- they think that they have been balanced and objective, because alongside one pro-brexit article by a rich young media graduate, they also have a painfully woke article on race or gender, written by another rich young media graduate.

This is doubly awful, because not only is all this a source of real bias for one of the largest media sources internationally, it also feeds into the populist resentment of a thoroughly establishment media, which is used by the far-right to whip up hatred against the “rootless metropolitan liberal elite” (gaah, it felt awful just typing that), and paint a deeply establishment institution as somehow leftist,even though actual leftists wouldn’t be allowed on screen.

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I think I wrote the Cliff Notes version whereas you were marvellously eloquent…

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Thanks! Although you do flatter me-that was just a quick rant. I could go on, sadly.

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Yeah, but then some Home Counties type will come along and attempt to disprove it all and laud the stereotypical racist-lite humour and decry the preachy tone of their new nature programming and tell us how wonderful it is that the BBC gets to sell all of its programming thanks to the unique way the corporation is funded so the licence fee is necessary and…

Yeah, balance :roll_eyes:

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Thank you for the Chomsky vid. Fantastic!

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