Blogging about BBC bias, it seems only right to check out what other people are saying about it on Twitter.
Unfortunately, what they are saying tends to be complete nonsense.
Most tweets on the subject these days are endless variations on three themes: (1) that the BBC is anti-SNP, (2) that the BBC is anti-Corbyn, and (3) that the BBC is 'Tory'.
Obviously this week's 'Panama papers' coverage has been a very hot topic on Twitter. The anti-BBC leftists there have been out in force denouncing the BBC for downplaying the David Cameron angle or deflecting attention away from David Cameron or actively defending David Cameron.
Meanwhile Newswatch reported further criticism of the BBC - from the other side:
Mr. Cameron's father's unit trust was not illegal, nor untoward. So your aggressive criticism of his completely legal interest in it a few years ago is shrill and overstated. Its 'mob rule' approach demeans the BBC with its naked vitriol, and will discourage and alarm a number of law-abiding people who may have some small, but now extremely sensitive, connection though perfectly legitimate offshore interests.
'Complaints from both sides', of course.
I haven't watched or heard enough of the BBC's coverage to 'rule' in one side's favour or the other (though the coverage of the Cameron angle certainly isn't downplaying things now. Today was dominated by it this morning), but I did spot someone on Twitter complaining that Newsnight had invited on Toby Young to talk about Mr. Cameron's tax affairs (showing the folk at Newsnight to be #Tories). The fact that Labour's Tom Watson had just been interviewed by Newsnight immediately before Toby appeared didn't seem to register with the Twitterer.
If you don't frequent Twitter, that's what it's like there on the subject of BBC bias.
Update 12.00 The lefties on Twitter are now in full swarm against the BBC for not giving over the News Channel to live coverage of the protest in London calling on David Cameron to resign. They are also complaining that the BBC News website isn't leading with that protest (though it is leading with David Cameron's tax affairs). And they are spitting feathers that the Archbishop of Canterbury's DNA test was the 8.10 item on Today and has been the lead story on the BBC News Channel this morning. (They are calling it a diversionary tactic).
Meanwhile, a joke:
Update 12.00 The lefties on Twitter are now in full swarm against the BBC for not giving over the News Channel to live coverage of the protest in London calling on David Cameron to resign. They are also complaining that the BBC News website isn't leading with that protest (though it is leading with David Cameron's tax affairs). And they are spitting feathers that the Archbishop of Canterbury's DNA test was the 8.10 item on Today and has been the lead story on the BBC News Channel this morning. (They are calling it a diversionary tactic).
Meanwhile, a joke:
In an extraordinary development, David Cameron has discovered today that his father is Justin Welby, the present Archbishop of Canterbury.
In all fairness, I do think the Corbynista's and those on the far left have a point about BBC bias. My personal view is that the BBC has a liberal-left bias, a "New Labour" type bias if you will. I certainly felt that during the Blair / Brown years, when at times the New Labour talking points appeared as though they were taken for fact.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if you are to the left of Blair / Brown, as Corbyn is and has been, you can argue that his specific views on taxation, nationalisation, government spending etc. have not been represented in a "status quo biased" BBC - for example, they may accuse the BBC of accepting the status quo of our economic reliance on the City of London (particularly during Blair / Brown)
The BBC, aspires to be all things to all people, because of the license fee, but it inevitably cannot be.
The centre-right / right wing were critical of it's coverage of the EU, government spending and migration during Blair / Brown. During that same period, the Corbynista's feel that it did not challenge "neo-liberalism". Both are correct, and points to a news output that is narrow in perspective, versus a remit that is all-encompassing.
It might be that the BBC's remit is impossible to achieve, and that the BBC, like any other news organisation, will inevitably approach news via a certain "viewpoint" - if so, this would challenge the purpose of a license fee. But it does not mean, as the BBC so often likes to suggest, that criticism from both sides shows they are "getting it about right".