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BBC Political Bias Is A 'Conspiracy Theory' Say The BBC

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Cecil Baargs

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Well, they would, wouldn't they? The charge sheet is extensive, pointing to overt bias in favour of the government to the detriment of the Labour party. But, according to Emily Maitlis today, it's our old favourite 'cock up' not conspiracy which is to blame for all those mistakes that unaccountably all favoured Boris Johnson.
Still, no smoking gun, alas.
Wait a minute. What if we could prove that they're not being straight with us? That would be fatal to the 'cock-up' excuse, right? OK, then you gotta prove a lie, I guess.
Hmm. Let's look at the matter of the Question Time Leaders' Debate controversy then. During the live broadcast, a question to Johnson about trust was met with laughter from the audience.
Later, in a news broadcast summarising the debate, the answer Johnson gave to that question was bereft of audience laughter. Cue howls of 'fix'.
Prove it! The BBC's explanation for the missing laughter is that they had trimmed the clip due to time restraints. Yeah, seems odd given that the laughter was quite a big deal, but ok. It was a simple unpolitical editing suite decision.
Bang. Here's your smoking gun. A simple comparison of the two versions of Johnson's answer proves without question that the audio in the 'edited version' is from a different portion of the programme, where Johnson gave exactly the same answer. The same words but not the same answer. Listen here: https://chirb.it/gJ52hp
So. Their explanation of 'trimming' the original clip is a falsehood. The BBC used a bogus explanation to explain why they edited the footage. We now have a questionable decision (the disappearance of the laughter) which rightly rang alarm bells followed up by a patently false self-justification.
Cock-up or conspiracy? I dunno. But look at who's telling the truth and who isn't.
 
But its conspiracy as well, isn't it?

Yeah but we won't be able to help bringing politics into it. I'll point to the BBC having a rightwing bias, others will suggest it has a leftwing bias.

Some factual stuff has been raised in the op but we really need facts and figures of appearances on QT etc.
 
Don't apologise!

I'm not sure why Shady would need to apologize to anyone ...


Go out and seek statistics to back up the conspiracy theory!

Go out and seek statistics [ examples / admissions / evidence of any credible sort ] to back up test the conspiracy theory!

There ... Fixed ... :gent:


Corrective measures do not represent the view of management, the forum staff, the parties monitoring this site, nor any Fortean entity. Corrections constitute fair warning on current content and disturbingly obvious expected trends in this discussion which experience demonstrates are prone to disappear from sight without notice. Viability and / or persistence of this thread and any / all the posts therein is not guaranteed, required, nor even worth wagering upon. No warranties, express or implied. Proceed with caution.
 
Yeah but we won't be able to help bringing politics into it. I'll point to the BBC having a rightwing bias, others will suggest it has a leftwing bias.

Some factual stuff has been raised in the op but we really need facts and figures of appearances on QT etc.

A quick thought. If rightwing people think the BBC have leftwing bias and vice versa, this must mean the BBC is doing an excellent job of being unbiased, as neither side is satisfied.
 
As others have pointed out, both the left and the right accuse the BBC of having bias in one direction or the other. Of course the BBC is not a monolith and different areas may have different editorial influences.

Here's an article on the subject from the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/comment...a-difficult-balancing-act-in-polarised-nation

One specific accusation I've heard is that the producer of Question Time has far-right sympathies and that there's a preponderance of far-right personages making it into the studio audience on that program. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/is-question-time-s-audience-producer-really-fascist/

However, the Express and Telegraph accuse Question Time of anti-brexit bias: https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1...xit-news-latest-election-2019-remain-leave-eu
 
The bias of the B.B.C is hiding in plain sight. It's not so much a political bias - as a class one.

The executive ranks of the beeb are brimming with Old School Tie boys and girls from the top public schools of the U.K.

It's the rugger-and-cricket, milk-in-first,stand-up-for-the-national-anthem, wine quaffing,house-in-the-country-for-sabbaticals,Oxbridge, ski-ing-in-the-Alps-for the-winter-hols, trust fund set (albet modernised a bit via Political Correctitude).

Sure,they don't plan to be biased, or are even aware that they are, it's just that they are more comfortable with - and respectful towards - their Own People.

They can take arguments from the Left or Right - provided that they are delivered with the right sort of educated accent and manner.Thus their simpering to Lord Adonis and Blair on the one hand and to Rees Mogg and Johnson on the other. Those from Non-U backgrounds can sometimes slip the net if they are comedians or enertainers - but rarely as commentators of political and social issues.

Needless to say, the B.B.C is resolutely pro-Monarchist. They report every word and minor incident from the Palace in much the same way that Putin's words and deeds are reported on Russian state television. There has never been a proper debate about the role of the monarchy aired on the B.B.C. Ever. (Or show me where I'm wrong).

As far as politics goes, they aim for a kind of centrism. They act like noblesse oblige drvien referees trying to mediate between two silly extremes. They tend to lionise figures who they believe to be proper centrists - such as David Owen and, to a lesser extent, Paddy Ashdown.

The social media drvien `Brexit` `debate` took them unawares. There was no centre to be had here. On the one hand they are inclined to be Remainers (what with all their supranational connections) but on the other, quite a few of their Own People - including (it is alleged) the Royal Family - are Leavers.
 
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It is notoriously difficult to prove political bias.

When, however, the BBC's Middle East coverage, which was widely criticised for being anti-Israel, was put under the spotlight by the 2004 Balen Report, the BBC spent some £300,000 of licence-payers' money to suppress the (allegedly very damning) findings.

https://bbcwatch.org/the-balen-report-2004/

So, if the BBC was guilty of bias in its Middle East coverage, who can say that bias doesn't extend to domestic politics?

Personally, whilst I didn't watch much BBC coverage of the last UK election campaign, what I did see seemed like they were bending over backwards to be as fair as possible. In any case, I suspect the influence of traditional media, such as TV and newspapers, is very much on the wane and the largely unregulated social media carries far more weight.
 
A quick thought. If rightwing people think the BBC have leftwing bias and vice versa, this must mean the BBC is doing an excellent job of being unbiased, as neither side is satisfied.
That canard of an argument, used often by BBC figures themselves, has already been well and truly shot. And served with Pommes Dauphines and an orange sauce.
 
A quick thought. If rightwing people think the BBC have leftwing bias and vice versa, this must mean the BBC is doing an excellent job of being unbiased, as neither side is satisfied.
A quick reply: my evidence points to a reasoned and conscious effort to help one side over the other. If the Right have any equivalence, I've yet to hear it.
 
I'm not sure why Shady would need to apologize to anyone ...




Go out and seek statistics [ examples / admissions / evidence of any credible sort ] to back up test the conspiracy theory!

There ... Fixed ... :gent:


Corrective measures do not represent the view of management, the forum staff, the parties monitoring this site, nor any Fortean entity. Corrections constitute fair warning on current content and disturbingly obvious expected trends in this discussion which experience demonstrates are prone to disappear from sight without notice. Viability and / or persistence of this thread and any / all the posts therein is not guaranteed, required, nor even worth wagering upon. No warranties, express or implied. Proceed with caution.
I've just proved conspiracy for you but hey, keep on demanding.
 
That canard of an argument, used often by BBC figures themselves, has already been well and truly shot. And served with Pommes Dauphines and an orange sauce.

And there was me thinking I was being original.

A quick reply: my evidence points to a reasoned and conscious effort to help one side over the other. If the Right have any equivalence, I've yet to hear it.

This response kind of proves my point.

The Left say the BBC hate Jeremy Corbyn, the Right say they hate Boris Johnson. What more could you ask for?
 
This is the Big Black C*ck.
(Makes me chuckle every time I hear BBC)
 
It seems to me the BBC has a class bias. Not specifically a political one. It has a worldview which it believes is correct, based on modern liberalism and the depressingly mono-discipline nature of current science, and it feels it has the right to shove it down everyone's throat.

Most people I know don't watch it any more. Left wing OR right wing.
 
It seems to me the BBC has a class bias. Not specifically a political one. It has a worldview which it believes is correct, based on modern liberalism and the depressingly mono-discipline nature of current science, and it feels it has the right to shove it down everyone's throat.

Most people I know don't watch it any more. Left wing OR right wing.

It does some really good drama and documentaries though.
 
And there was me thinking I was being original.



This response kind of proves my point.

The Left say the BBC hate Jeremy Corbyn, the Right say they hate Boris Johnson. What more could you ask for?
Hmm, well it's the old trick of false equivalence. The BBC cut Johnson WAY more slack than they did Corbyn. He dodged debates and interviews and his evasiveness was largely overlooked. The BBC's 'mistakes' in their coverage - Kuenssberg was particularly 'accident prone' - all favoured Johnson. The Right's critiques about 'bias' are spurious by and large. My analysis of the QT Debate 'mistake' proves deception in favour of one side only.
 
Hmm, well it's the old trick of false equivalence. The BBC cut Johnson WAY more slack than they did Corbyn. He dodged debates and interviews and his evasiveness was largely overlooked. The BBC's 'mistakes' in their coverage - Kuenssberg was particularly 'accident prone' - all favoured Johnson. The Right's critiques about 'bias' are spurious by and large. My analysis of the QT Debate 'mistake' proves deception in favour of one side only.

This is a personal bugbear of mine. Ever since the cringeworthy "I agree with Nick" TV spectacle, the British media seem hell-bent on turning UK general elections into US-style presidential personality cults.
I firmly believe it should be all about party manifestos, rather than personalities but Channel 4, in refusing to let the Tory representative Gove take part to present their manifesto (but having no qualms in letting a Green Party deputy participate) seemed to be playing politics themselves.
Maybe such crass and populist TV shows do influence some voters, but I would hope that most of the electorate judge the parties on their manifesto promises - and will remember to hold them to account if they fail to deliver on those promises.
 
The Channel 4 debate controversy was a TV channel not allowing itself to be railroaded by a party which clearly doesn't take the climate emergency seriously, sending (unannounced) the gormless Gove to make up the numbers. Climate change didn't even get a mention in the Queen's speech. And that the Tories threatened the channel the next day over it speaks volumes.
The MSM will NOT judge Johnson and his alt-right cronies on how they perform. Dream very much on. Ferchrissakes, they're still leading on the travails of the Opposition.
 
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