Saturday 11 July 2015

Anita's Dance



Anita Anand's weekly introductions to Any Answers? are, I think, proving to be something of an untapped bonanza for BBC bias hunters. She just doesn't seem able to stop herself from thinking inside a certain (left-leaning) box, however hard she appears to try.

This week's introduction started well, with a careful balance of talking points:
Good afternoon. Welcome to Any Answers?  
So, the big question for you this afternoon: How will the Budget affect you? With the changes to tax credits, a new national living wage, inheritance tax, student maintenance grants, will you be better or worse off? What about the announced consultation on changing the Sunday trading laws? Is the Budget good for Britain? There's been much talk of Northern powerhouses, crackdowns on buy-to-let everything....
Unfortunately. this entire segment built towards a question that skewed things firmly to the Left: 
Does this all address the wealth gap for you?
And Anita Anand immediately followed that up with another point 'from the Left':
You'll see some of the papers have accused George Osborne of pricing the poor out of university. Very happy to hear from those involved in or considering higher education. 
She went on:
In fact, I'm happy to talk about anything Budget. You know the number...
And if you think she's engaged in a spot of (Tory)government-bashing there (whether you think they deserve it or not), what do you make of what came next?:
And also, in other news, the government this week advised all British tourists to get out of Tunisia, and get out fast. Does that mean the terrorists are winning? Do you know Tunisia well? Do you think it was an overreaction? 
She ended, in a less loaded fashion, by saying:
And I'm taking your thoughts on the ongoing Greek crisis. 
If she were biased rightwards instead of (as appears to be the case here, as usual) leftwards, wouldn't she have asked different questions?

You know the number....


1 comment:

  1. There's a difference between outright bashing and asking direct, challenging questions. Andrew Neil does the latter. Sometimes they're stupid paraphrases of an opposition statement dressed up as questions that he knows are nonsensical, which bugs me, but he puts real pressure on all guests to respond. All of them, on both sides. That's not what Anand does, or what most Beeboids do.

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