The World This Weekend's final leader profile focused on Jo Swinson today.
On impartiality grounds, I prefer Jonny Dymond to Mark Mardell, and, to do him credit, this profile struck me as being much fairer than anything Mark Mardell would have produced.
Yes, we heard from an impressed former teacher of Jo, her still-friendly former colleague David Laws, and her supportive present advisor Olly Grender, but we also heard kindly criticism from the Economist's Anne McElvoy and somewhat sharper criticism of her tactics from Professor Andrew Russell of Liverpool University - and Jonny's narrative filled in the gaps with all manner of interesting pros and cons.
For the purposes of this blog, however, I must admit that I'd have preferred this final profile to have come from the pen of Mark Mardell.
I've laid out the bias in his 'A Question of Character' profiles over the past few weeks and would have liked to cap it all with his Jo Swinson 'A Question of Character'.
(Tellingly, Jonny D didn't used the pompous, Mardellian 'A Question of Character' phrase today. I don't blame him!).
You can find our previous posts here:
My overall conclusions on this could be based on many things, but I'll stick to the most tangible: i.e. the layout of voices featured in the four profiles over the series:
The Nicola Sturgeon profile was 4-1 in sympathy with the SNP leader.
The Jeremy Corbyn profile was 3 fulsome supporters. 1 not-very-hostile (left-wing) critic and 1 sharp (centre-left) critic.
The Jo Swinson profile was was 3 fulsome supporters, 1 not-very-hostile critic and 1 sharp-but-not-entirely-unkind critic.
The Boris Johnson profile was 3 fulsome critics and 2 not-wholly-supportive (pro-EU) supporters.
The imbalanee here could hardly be clearer.
Or could it?
O passerby, unless you listen to it all yourself and see how carefully and (I hope) fairly I've laid out my case in recent weeks, then why wouldn't you refuse to believe me? So please listen and read. The case is clear and, I think, the case is now closed.
So much so that I'll put in a complaint to the BBC. And several other complaints too.
On which subject, my most recent complaint has been subject to two 'sorry, but we're still considering the matter' holding emails. I'm stiill waiting, and its been dragging on for weeks. I suspect they're very, very busy at the moment and I know my complaint wasn't an easy one for them to bat off - and I don't think this one will be either - but onwards!
Well done Craig. The bias across the BBC is obvious to most, however it's people like you who take the time to collate statistics that will prove the bias for future generations to look back on.
ReplyDeleteYes all credit to Craig for providing objective proof for the bias we can all sense.
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