Watching The Andrew Marr Show is just one possible way of experiencing it. Another is to read the accompanying social media commentary about it (of which there is a heck of a lot).
Inevitably there are plenty of political partisans commenting on Twitter, Facebook and other blogs and a surprising number of them get a real kick out of shouting 'BBC bias' at Andrew Marr - a lot of whose claims don't hold water when you investigate them.
Something I often see is political partisans complaining of 'BBC bias' because someone from a political party they don't like is on, or because someone from their own party isn't on (or simply because they can't stand the person or their views).
In comes from many sides of course, but this morning it came mostly from SNP supporters.
They often cry out en masse (especially on Twitter) whenever a Liberal Democrat politician appears and an SNP politician is absent - as on this morning's Marr, where Tim Farron was one of the interviewees.
"BBC bias!" cry the cybernats. "Where's the SNP?"
Now, if you look back through the programme's archive. however, you'll see that since the May 2015 general election there have been five interviews with Lib Dems (7.9% of the national vote, 8 seats) and seven interviews with the SNP (4.7% of the national vote, 56 seats):
If you add in the paper reviews, then the following can be added to the above list:
That seems like a fair balance, doesn't it, considering both their respective percentages of the national vote and the number of seats they won? So what are they complaining about?
Such people don't seem to grasp (or want to grasp) the point that the BBC has to try to achieve some kind of balance in who they choose to interview on these types of programme over time - and, yes, the BBC do have a point here about judging such things over time.
Now, the flip side of that (for the BBC) is that those who want to hold them to account can take them up on that by judging some BBC programmes over a reasonable period of time (or over a large range of programmes) - such as, say, From Fact to Fiction, Dateline London, Sunday, A Point of View, Four Thought, etc, etc. That way you can show pronounced bias over time, and the evidence can't be shrugged off quite so easily because it's cumulative, not a one-off, and (hopefully) not just based on your own personal political prejudices.
Here endeth the lesson.
Something I often see is political partisans complaining of 'BBC bias' because someone from a political party they don't like is on, or because someone from their own party isn't on (or simply because they can't stand the person or their views).
In comes from many sides of course, but this morning it came mostly from SNP supporters.
They often cry out en masse (especially on Twitter) whenever a Liberal Democrat politician appears and an SNP politician is absent - as on this morning's Marr, where Tim Farron was one of the interviewees.
"BBC bias!" cry the cybernats. "Where's the SNP?"
Now, if you look back through the programme's archive. however, you'll see that since the May 2015 general election there have been five interviews with Lib Dems (7.9% of the national vote, 8 seats) and seven interviews with the SNP (4.7% of the national vote, 56 seats):
LIB DEMS
7/2/16 Tim Farron
17/1/16 Nick Clegg
20/9/15 Tim Farron
6/9/15 Vince Cable
6/9/15 Vince Cable
19/7/15 Tim Farron
SNP
24/1/16 Nicola Sturgeon
13/12/15 Alex Salmond
29/11/15 Stewart Hosie
11/10/15 Nicola Sturgeon
26/7/15 Alex Salmond
12/7/15 Stewart Hosie
10/5/15 Nicola Sturgeon
If you add in the paper reviews, then the following can be added to the above list:
LIB DEMS
10/5/15 - Baroness Grender
SNP
20/12/15 - John Nicolson
14/6/15 - John Nicolson
That seems like a fair balance, doesn't it, considering both their respective percentages of the national vote and the number of seats they won? So what are they complaining about?
Such people don't seem to grasp (or want to grasp) the point that the BBC has to try to achieve some kind of balance in who they choose to interview on these types of programme over time - and, yes, the BBC do have a point here about judging such things over time.
Now, the flip side of that (for the BBC) is that those who want to hold them to account can take them up on that by judging some BBC programmes over a reasonable period of time (or over a large range of programmes) - such as, say, From Fact to Fiction, Dateline London, Sunday, A Point of View, Four Thought, etc, etc. That way you can show pronounced bias over time, and the evidence can't be shrugged off quite so easily because it's cumulative, not a one-off, and (hopefully) not just based on your own personal political prejudices.
Here endeth the lesson.
