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

As you may know, the BBC are obliged to provide balanced and fair reporting of all political parties during an election period. Indeed, all broadcasters are required by law to be even-handed.

But this does not apply to the printed press. Daily we see papers like the Mail, the Mirror, the Telegraph and the Guardian print the most horrifically biased articles which go out of their way to misrepresent one party or another.

Should this state of affairs be allowed to continue? Should not the printed press be obliged by law to be balanced and fair during an election period (at least)?

No, not at all. The reason the BBC has to be unbiased is that it's a publically funded (enforced on all of us tax) organisation which should be apolitical (let's not get into what it actually seems to be to some people).

Newspapers are privately owned sources so they can put in what they like within certain boundaries. We all now how each newspaper reports the news so we know where the slants are.

3Dots - all broadcast media has to be balanced and fair in political coverage during an election. This applies to independent tv and commercial radio stations. Why do we allow the print media a free hand?

And do you really think the mouth breathers who read the Mail and the window lickers who gaze at the pictures in the Mirror know that what they're reading is slanted?

Was it Randolph Hearst as portrayed in Citizen Kane who claimed "The people will believe what I tell them to believe!"

No. They likely think their papers "tell it like it is". That's why they buy them. And if those papers were forced to be give fair coverage they'd be near blank. All the papers have today and possibly it was ever so, is opinion pieces appealing to the biases of their readers and titillation.

It's worth drawing a distinction between news reporting and comment. Having columnists taking a party political viewpoint is one thing, but it's quite another to allow that to seep into the news.

I'd take issue with the list of papers in terms of bias. I wouldn't put the Guardian or the Telegraph in the same category as the Mail and the Express when it comes to lies and deliberate distortion - and not just at election time.

I've never found a Guardian or Telegraph article that fits the Daily Hate's pattern of:

WILDLY PROVOCATIVE HEADLINE
Deeply misleading first paragraph summary of the story.
Some further facts, narrated with weasel words and inaccurate précis.
Outraged comment, often by someone approached with the above who doesn't understand the whole story.
A final paragraph including a comment or further fact that places all or most of the above into perspective, and makes it largely vanish as a story.

(see also the 'Daily Mail' song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI)

As for the Express, an Express spokesman is on record as saying that the role of the Express is to reflect the concerns and interests of its readers. Not, say, reporting the news.

The Guardian isn't like this, and, to be fair, I don't think the Torygraph is either. But there's no doubt where they stand politically.

Wasn't that the whole raison d'etre for The Independent?

Title kinda gives it away...

I think it's actually quite positive that there is no enforced position of seeming neutral.

Firstly, the biased reportage of the past can be quite useful to today's historians. Even papers as partisan as Pravda or Der Sturmer can reveal quite a lot.

Secondly, it's pretty important that even weirdos with an axe to grind have an outlet for airing their views. That's actually a pretty big part of having a functioning democratic process.

Thirdly, there are any number of ways of subtly skewing the thrust of a story, without falling foul of guidelines on impartiality. So if people are aware that a certain organ will slant a story a certain way, it's all for the better.

The way I understand it is that you are constrained to pay the licence fee if you own a tv. If they come knocking at your door, you can't get away with it by saying you never watch the beeb. It's a weird system really, and I suppose something that is connected with the history of broadcasting in Britain. Overall, l despite the anomalies..I'm happy to live with the system, because of the excellence of the BBC.

But you can always choose whether or not to pay for a newspaper.

But the Tories are bound to win..cos it's always 'the Sun wot won it'.

Not sure how unbiased the tv/ radio really are. They are backing the Lib Dems, although mainly because it makes a good story rather than anything else. But the number of gratuitous mentions of first thier chancellor candidate being The Man as far as everyone (first I'd heard of it) was concerned and then the lead headline about how Nick Clegg won the debate (some other people, not us obviously, say), and now endles stories analysing every aspect of the Lib Dems surprising (!) surge in popularity...

http://s2.b3ta.com/host/creative/66433/1270715742/murdochswingometer.jpg

Interesting Grauniad article by David Yelland on the Murdoch press's (lack of) coverage of the LibDems:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/18/clegg-media-elite-murdoch-lib-dem

Look at this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/index.html

Wow.... just.... wow.

I've never voted Lib Dem (other than once, locally, for a candidate I'd met), and I won't vote for them this time, but this is just astonishing.... What I like best is that it's the "debate" section....

Thanks for those links.

That Daily Hate one is particularly stunning.

The Daily Hate is one truly scary newspaper. I feel slightly guilty cos my flatmate and I used to buy it on a Saturday for its fantastic TV supplement, then giggle over the Paul Burrell column. Mind you, we never read the actual paper so does that redeem us?

well, whatever they are saying, one thing that is happening is a marked increase in the number of people registering to vote this time round. What that is down to, whether they actually vote and if so who for is obviously open at the moment. But certainly something is getting a message across.

The Mail serves a useful function. If you're unsure about a given issue, read The Mail...and go the opposite way.

I didn't see the article, but a friend of mine was worried a few months back when found himself not-so-much agreeing with something in the Daily Mail, but sharing their displeasure at something.
So, given that I'm one the few people he knows even more liberal than he is, he checked with me that he wasn't getting more right-wing in old age. We agreed that a convicted rapist doesn't have a right to expect to be housed with female inmates after a sex change.

Solnushka - "Not sure how unbiased the tv/ radio really are. They are backing the Lib Dems, although mainly because it makes a good story rather than anything else."

The media tendency to become infatuated with a fleeting shift in the polling, isn't the same as backing party.

This buzz around the LibDems may well quickly turn in if Clegg fails to get the same impact out of the next TV debate.

In my most humble opinions this buzz for the LibDems is nothing compared the bias in favour of Blair that even our beloved Beeb couldn't keep a lid on back in '97.

The LibDems have suffered for three decades from an exaggerated dismissiveness about the validity of their policies and repetition of the myth that a vote for them is a wasted vote in the media.