h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's pernicious though FB and adopting a shrugged shoulders approach allows it to perpetuate. The bias in the early 80's was right wing, it's left wing now. That doesn't make it balanced. Bias in the state broadcaster simply cannot be tolerated. Under a vaguely left-wing government, it's reflecting a left-wing bias. Will you be so sanguine if a Tory govt gets in and the bias switches?

It's also dangerous and damaging. Olga Guerin still routinely brings up the Jenin 'massacre' in reports, despite this having been proved by the UN and independent observers to have been a myth - and it is allowed to go unchallenged by BBC editors.

It has to be recognised that the integrity of the BBC is at stake here.

The problem of poor journalism is certainly bigger than the left-wing/right-wing stuff people keep going on about it. Those fuzzy labels rarely work in reality.

Agreed Iaconian. I really don't see much political bias at the BBC but I do think they've gone quite tabloidy in the presentaion of news on some programmes such as the 6pm news. Radio 5live is brilliant for sport and very good in the middle of the night; but other times of listened to it, it's pure tabloid. The amount of coverage given to meaningless waffle from friends and family in the present 'Mac' thingy case has been totally silly and really unintelligent.

I still enjoy Newnight though, and feel its pretty fair and intelligent. For mainstram news I much prefer the intelligent approach of Channel4 news.

"My own opinion is that all mainstream media is now co-opted by capitalist pressures, so it's very hard to have a broad understanding of issues if one relies solely on the mainstream."

This is simply yet-another "explanation" of why the news doesn't report what certain people want to hear. What's that? Not enough coverage of our demo? Well, they must have come under pressure from The Man. It's nothing to do with it being a story that most people aren't interested in.

If "capitalist pressures" really could stop media outlets broadcasting what they didn't want you'd never hear about sweatshops or the views of trade unionists. We do, so the whole thing is nonsense.

"....it's left wing now"

Hell no.THere is definitely *not* a left wing bias in the BBC. I have never seen anyone pretending this. Wooly Liberal bias I have seen levelled and there might be something in that.

But whether or not it actually *is* institutional bias, and whether there was a right wing bias in the 80s remains to be proven *if* you ask me.

Anecdoetal evidence just wont cut it (gor blimey we have ended up here again SWL ) individual accounts of a story here or there having a bit of bias does not prove the whole organisation is partizan.

I bet it would be possible in pretty much *any* story reported by the bbc recently to selectivly post some of the things missed out to prove any sort of bias.

I agree with Andrew Marr's claim that the BBC has a "culturally liberal" bias which is undeniable. However, I think this is largely due to the type of people who are interested in the broadcast media and the sort of people who are creative generally. If the BBC really did want to freeze-out conservatives it wouldn't keep giving so much work to Jeremy Clarkson and Jim Davidson.

As for BBC news, I've never seen any serious bias (unlike its commercial rivals, who get away with it all the time). Generally the BBC seems to take its responsibilities seriously although it has been criticised for being fundamentalist about equivalence ie thinking it really has to give equal airtime to different points of view no matter how extreme and/or poorly-supported they are in some cases. It's also guilty of cheapening political debate in this way - think of all the times blokey out some band or some stand-up comedian has appeared on the awful "Question Time" to give us their "political views". Fine if more people from the entertainment industry were especially politically sussed/aware but they rarely are.

"Anyone remember the first Question Time after 9/11 when the US Foreign Ambassador was reduced to tears after a barrage of anti-American abuse from an audience hand-picked for the occasion and in no way representative of the British public?"

Can you prove they were "hand-picked" or were they people who were dead-keen to be in the Question Time audience and had applied before hand? You're suggesting that the Question Time producers had some sort of list of yank-bashers they could select an audience from. That strikes me as extremely-unlikely.

"Hell no.THere is definitely *not* a left wing bias in the BBC. I have never seen anyone pretending this. Wooly Liberal bias I have seen levelled and there might be something in that."

You're using "left wing" in the same way some Conservatives use "right wing" ie in a way that suggests you get to decide what it means. "Wooly liberal" *is* leftwing.

"Recently the BBC ran a main story on their web page about the CIA editing Wikipedia. It concentrated on the CIA aspect but also included a number of others who had been editing. It quoted extensively from one source. But the report *totally* ignored the fact that the source also highlighted that staff at the BBC had been editing Wikipedia too."

You neglect to mention that they also reported on an edit to George Bush's webpage being linked to the American Democratic Party. Surely a news outlet with a left bias would have left that out in solidarity with their liberal brothers.

"It's also dangerous and damaging. Olga Guerin still routinely brings up the Jenin 'massacre' in reports, despite this having been proved by the UN and independent observers to have been a myth - and it is allowed to go unchallenged by BBC editors."

1) Where? I can honestly say I've never heard mention of the "Jenin massacre" on BBC news, TV or radio.

2) Do you think this means they know there wasn't an actual massacre and are deliberately misreporting?

You think Zagreb?

I would say that is a hugely political statement. I am left wing, I am a socialist, and a trade unionist. If the BBC has a political bias is is to the right of me.

If the BBC is going to have a centrist position then that is obviously going to be somewhere in the centre of the spectrum of main stream political views in this country.

Possibly because any mention of the Democrats editing George Bush's page might have automatically led people to discover that someone at the BBC had edited the self-same page to read George 'Wanker' Bush

"The only issue I can see here is the fact that the BBC uses tax money."

It isn't funded through taxation, it's funded through the license fee.

Which is essentially a tax levied on televisions, right?

"I would say that is a hugely political statement. I am left wing, I am a socialist, and a trade unionist. If the BBC has a political bias is is to the right of me."

The fact that it's to the right of you doesn't make it "rightwing". You do not embody "the left" and you don't get to decide what is left and what is right.

Reminds me of the BNP referring to "The Daily Telegraph" as part of "the liberal press"...

"Which is essentially a tax levied on televisions, right?"

No, otherwise it would be called a "television tax". The way it works is like this:

1) If you own a television set you can recieve BBC programming

2) Therefore by owning a television set you automatically become a BBC customer

Of course, this isn't strictly fair because some people (although I imagine you could count their numbers on the fingers of one hand) might never watch BBC TV ever. Personally, I think in the next ten years the license fee will be replaced by a "BBC subscription" and the advance of digital technology will allow those who don't subscribe to be denied BBC TV and radio. The fools.

There is a major difference with a tax - a tax goes into the treasury. The license fee *pays for the BBC*. It isn't going to be spent on, for example, a nice new car for Gordon Brown or help bail-out an ailing private enterprise owned by a Good Friend Of The Labour Party.

No you are misrepresenting me, I am not saying the BBC is "right wing" at all. But I am disputing that it has a left wing bias.

Mayhap Left Wing/Centrist/Right Wing mean different things to me from that which they do to you.

I understand them in terms of my studies in political science, I Understand the is come conflation of "Liberal" based on its different connotations in terms of social policy from classical liberal eceonomic policy.

"You do not embody "the left" and you don't get to decide what is left and what is right."

And surely on that note neither can you?

It is going to be spent on the Director-General's £455,000 salary, though.

I think the point is, although not technically tax funded, it is public money that the BBC spends.

"I understand them in terms of my studies in political science, I Understand the is come conflation of "Liberal" based on its different connotations in terms of social policy from classical liberal eceonomic policy."

You did say "wooly liberal" which is usually used by conservatives (and some on the far-left) as an insulting term meaning "left liberal" or "social liberal" and said the BBC was both arguably "wooly" but not "leftwing" hence my "woah! hold on there!" post.

""You do not embody "the left" and you don't get to decide what is left and what is right."

And surely on that note neither can you?"

No but I can recognise that ideas that I strongly disagree with are also "leftwing". Of course, if you aren't playing the old "I get to decide who's left and who's right" game then I apologise and it doesn't matter.

"I think the point is, although not technically tax funded, it is public money that the BBC spends."

Oh, it's definitely public money and the Beeb is undoubtably funded by the public who are its customers.