Yet another post about 'Dateline'

Yasmin A-B, looking her usual cheery self

On a related matter, concerning today's Dateline London, this week's Brit on the panel was (former Newsnight presenter) Adam Raphael. Adam leans leftwards somewhat, politically-speaking (and seemed to out himself as being a Labour supporter today). 

On my previous (solo) blog (2009-10), I used to chronicle all the Brits on the Dateline panel, proving (if I say so myself) a very strong left-wing bias in the guest selection back then.

Is that as true these days?

Well, as I said in the last post, the UK portion of the guest list is the least (left-liberal) biased part of the programme these days, and I've noted before that things improved after 2010 (possibly, maybe, perhaps as a result of all my detailed lists and all my moaning about it). 

But is Dateline keeping up with that improvement, or could it be slipping back again? Well, there's only one way to find out.

Here are the recent Brits, moving back in time from today chronologically (since the general election). To help to try and answer the question, I'll revert to the practice of my old blog (just this once) and colour-coordinate their names (blue=right-leaning, red=left-leaning, in the European manner).

25/7 Adam Raphael

18/7 David Aaronovitch

11/7 Alex Deane

4/7 Owen Jones

27/6 Yasmin Alibhai Brown

20/6 Polly Toynbee

13/6 David Aaronovitch

6/6 Janet Daley

30/5 Ian Birrell

23/5 Yasmin Alibhai Brown

16/5 Steve Richards

9/5 Janet Daley, Owen Jones

I make that a 9:4 ratio of left-wingers to right-wingers, which still looks biased....but not as biased as Dateline used to be - for example, this delightful string of guests from 2009-10:

14/11 Adam Raphael

21/11 Yasmin Alibhai Brown

28/11 Isabel Hilton

5/12 (Washington edition)

12/12 Janet Daley

19/12 David Aaronovitch

26/12 Polly Toynbee

2/1 Peter Oborne

9/1 Michael White

16/1 Isabel Hilton

23/1 Yasmin Alibhai Brown

30/1 David Aaronovitch

6/2 Polly Toynbee

That is a 10:2 ration of left-wingers to right-wingers. And that was just how Dateline used to be back in the day. In the run-up to the 2010 general election, for another example, this string of guests resulted:

13/3 Yasmin Alibhai Brown

20/3 Adam Raphael

27/3 Isabel Hilton

3/4 Johann Hari

10/4 Steve Richards

17/4 Janet Daley

24/4 Michael White

1/5 Yasmin Alibhai Brown 

So, although there's still a lot of work to do, Dateline has progressed somewhat over the years from 'ultra-biased' to 'pretty biased'.

Crack open the champagne, guys! Let's party like it's 1997!