3d ago

The BBC is utterly beholden to the right. Why else would it fear a podcast about heat pumps? | George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

Yeah it's an opinion piece but some interesting stuff about how even conservative journalists when they don't toe the line are pushed to the side.

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The BBC is under constant accusations of political bias on both sides. The fact they have weathered this partisan storm angering both sides in the current political climate is testament to their ability to remain as close to objective as is possible. The current alternative to the BBC is no BBC, and I think that would be a shame.
That said, highlighting instances of questionable judgement, like this, has value. The BBC isn't perfect, and the public should keep leaders and management on its toes.
- My problem with the BBC is the reporting is so hyper-conservative that the plot of Mars Attacks would be:
  US president to welcome martian delegation
  Talks break down with Martian representatives
  Skirmishes break our across Nevada
  All factually correct but nothing that says that WE'RE UNDER ATTACK BY INVADERS FROM ANOTHER PLANET. I'm not looking for hyperbole, just some context on the story.
  Under the Tories the BBC would constantly say "X said the sky is yellow" and leave it at that. It's totally impartial to say "X incorrectly states that the sky is yellow". It's factually wrong and not saying that looks to many like tacit endorsement of the statement. Similarly with Trump, he's taking actions that are unheard of in American history. The BBC will just say what he's doing and not how exceptional it is, making it seem like just another Monday. It validates his actions.
  
  Under the Tories the BBC would constantly say “X said the sky is yellow” and leave it at that. It’s totally impartial to say “X incorrectly states that the sky is yellow”.
  There is a long history of objective journalism refraining from passing judgement. This is the distinction between news journalism and editorials. There is nothing wrong with partisan journalism, but the BBC is by and large not that. When I look over at the hellscape that is U.S. "journalism," I don't see a compelling role model. In fact, I think that is irrefutable evidence that the BBC is correct to remain impartial. Remember: impartiality is subjective. Making judgements - even ones which appear reasonable to you - open the author and publication up to endless accusations of editorialism. If the BBC were to ever switch to U.S.-style journalism, I believe they would be defunded almost immediately.
  
  None of what I wrote was about passing judgement.
  I agree that once you do you lose your objective foundation. However saying that something has never happened before, or it's being justified under emergency powers, or that something is a factually incorrect statement is not opinion.
  
  "Incorrectly" is a judgement. It is a judgement that the statement is false. To illustrate the issue, let's use your example: “X incorrectly states that the sky is yellow”. Let's imagine that the BBC writes, "Trump incorrectly states that the sky is yellow." Trump and supporters reply, "but the sky is yellow during certain atmospheric events common in the morning and evening. Here is a picture of a yellow sky." Now the BBC is caught defending a truism which is, in fact, not always true. Supporters of Trump can rightly point out the BBC's inaccuracy, and would likely consider it a form of bias and partisanship. In order for the BBC to avoid this, they would need to append a long legal disclaimer at the bottom of every headline, every article, every video, and every news report, thoroughly detailing the various ways in which the judgement could be interpreted, how and why the BBC came to that judgement, their peer reviewed citations and statistics, the background of the analyst who made the judgement to ensure that they aren't biased, etc. This still wouldn't be enough, because Trump supporters would then ask, "but why didn't you write an article about all those times Kamala Harris lied about Biden's mental acuity? You didn't use the word "lie" even though she clearly lied." They'd be right. Now the BBC has opened themselves up for criticism of instances in which they didn't editorialise.
  Judgements, no matter how factually correct, are judgements. They lead to a race to the bottom. I don't see how you could look at American media and argue that that is what the BBC should do.
  
  So there's no objective truth? Only opinion?
  
  If I had an arts degree - which is mostly post-modernist today - I would argue there is no such thing as objective truth. Thankfully I do not, and I do believe that objective truth exists. My point isn't actually about objective truth at all. It's about pragmatism, the role of journalism in society, and specifically about the right strategy for the BBC.
- This is irrelevant and a fallacy. If one person punches another person and both people say the other one started first, then actually one person did still start first.
  Similarly, the right screams that they are the victim when they are not.
  
  I would agree as a strictly logical exercise, but please note that I am talking about democratic politics: the system within which the BBC receives funding. What matters in a democracy is how people feel. There appears to be equal proportions of each aisle unimpressed with the BBC, and in a democratic system, this implies a healthy compromise and continued funding. Should the BBC obviously favour one side, it would eventually be shut down or gutted, and I think that is much worse than arguing over the minutiae.
  
  It does not because the BBC is extremely biased
  Over 100 staff accuse BBC of bias in coverage of Israel’s war in Gaza
  See also
  
  I don't place much stock in anonymous complaints. There are many examples of bias in Palestine's favour, too. The most recent example is the Gaza documentary, funded by the BBC. It was so biased that the BBC had to apologise and remove the documentary. They literally gave money to Hamas. In the translations, all mentions of the word “Jews” were translated to “Israelis” or “Israeli forces,” and all mentions of “Jihad” were translated to “battle” or “resistance.” For example, one woman interviewed stated "Sinwar was engaging in resistance and jihad against the Jews,” but the subtitles read “he was fighting and resisting Israeli forces.”
  The nature of very large organisations with international presence is that there are many people with many different political beliefs all under one umbrella. In the last few decades, journalism has tended to attract many more left wing people. It would not surprise me that more BBC employees wanted a left wing bias on reporting, and perceived objective journalism as biased.
  
  Randomly watched the Louis Theroux West Bank documentary not long ago. I already knew most of what was shown but seeing recent images of it hits different.
  I wouldn't say it's a biased documentary.
  
  Did you watch this one too?
  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clydv5yngq4o
  No you did not because someone was the son of an infrastructure minister.
  But putting IDF lies on air without question is totally fine on the BBC.
- It's good to scrutinise the BBC often, but it's an absolute asset and great that we have it. I'd even go as far as to say that we might become a hole like America without the BBC.
- The BBC are accused of bias "from both sides" because their job is to establish and defend the establishment's preferred Overton window; or in other words, to set the standard for what "impartial"/"common sense" is held to be.
  To the extent political beliefs are down to individual values and preferences, there is no objective centre, and moderacy amounts to a "golden mean" bias. On the other hand, to the extent political claims are able to be proven or disproven by science, at least one side must be wrong and only one can be right, and so the centre is simply ignorant.

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