– Martin Stanford was interviewing today’s guest, dear Polly Toynbee.
Referring to Polly’s switch from print journalism to the seven years she spent reporting ‘social affairs’ for the BBC and her subsequent return to print journalism at The Guardian, Polly said that she enjoyed the extra space afforded in the newspaper and the freedom to express opinions therein. Polly then added:
“And of course, on television, we never express opinions.”
This was with a wry smile – Martin Stanford responded to the effect that ‘Ah, I can see from the smile on your face that that isn’t always the case’.
It may not be possible for BBC broadcast journalists to avoid expressing opinions, even indirectly, but surely, therefore, in the name of balance, there should an equal balance of views among journalists, rather than the apparent preponderance in favour of the left.
Journalists are people who are (generally) intelligent and well-educated, but choose not to get paid very much. Among people who are qualified to become journalists, this set of preferences is likely to be correlated with centre-left politics; this is also a major reason why teachers tend to be left-wing.
So how would you suggest getting more right-wingers in? Neither massive pay hikes for hacks, nor quotas to ensure that right-wingers who aren’t actually up to the job, seems like a terribly equable solution…
Melanie Phillips makes an interesting contribution on this subject.
Ah well, John B, the interesting point in the story is the implicit admission that opinion (bias, even) does get expressed by BBC journalists.
Some of your generalisations are quite debatable, e.g.:
1) Journalists (outside the local press) are not generally poorly paid;
2) Teachers aren’t terribly badly paid either, particularly if you include their tax-funded pensions and relative job security;
3) Your description of these groups as tending to the left is probably correct – but it is only that – a tendency – not a preponderance, with many not of the left choosing to keep their views to themselves. The loons and SWP activists at the NUT conference aren’t typical of the teachers I know!
As for redressing the balance, I can think of many good journalists and writers among our ‘right-of-centre’ press – few of whom one sees on the BBC, even on opinion programmes, yet who are just as capable as Marr, Toynbee, Ashley (Mrs. Marr), etc. etc.
cont/.
cont/.
The problem seems to me to be that the BBC, in particular, are good at attracting, selecting and promoting those with left-of-centre views – whether this is because of the culture of the BBC or their recruitment via The Guardian or whatever is open to debate – but it is not true to say that there is a particular shortage of journalists with right-of-centre views.
Perhaps the answer is to remove the constraints of impartiality on broadcast news and let the people decide who’s news (or who’s programmes) they prefer, just as with newspapers – it’s not as if television airtime is the precious resource it once was.
Whatever, it is a debate that needs to be had – it is unjust that millions of non-leftie telly-taxpayers are dragooned into paying for the BBC’s version of news, particularly at the expense of a plurality of broadcast coverage.
I see that channel 4 are giving ‘hideously white’ dyke airtime on sunday evening in a progamme called ‘betrayed by new labour’ . In the trailer, petulant Dyke claims he was ‘forced’ out of office , somehow forgetting he resigned .The tone of the trailer is one of Dykes fury that his ex-chums in the labour government didn’t -for once – follow their common agenda .Impartiality? – if only the BBC’s current ‘comedies’ could raise such a laugh!
re the above – the ‘for once’ referring , (of course!) to TB’s decision to invade Iraq ( in case anyone should mistakenly think it should be the BBC railing against the governments mass immigration policy or something – HO! HO!)
Re 1 and 2 – it depends on your comparison. I’ve been considering getting into journalism full-time for the last few years, but rejected it on the grounds that I can’t comfortably afford to take the pay cut it would entail (similarly, out of the people to take my university course in my year, the one who joined the BBC is the worst-paid by a significant margin five years down the line).
While obviously there are plenty of right-leaning journalists (cf Andrew Gilligan), they seem to be the exceptions: I haven’t seen any UK surveys, but US polls tend to show that 70ish percent of journalists lead towards the Democrats.
It would be interesting to survey BBC journos compared to UK journos in general on this – while I’m sure the Beeb would be to the left of the Telegraph, I’m also sure it’d be to the right of the Guardian. The interesting bit would be whether it was to the left of the press in general or not…
Also, the Guardian ads are a bit of a red herring. You advertise in MediaGuardian if you want to recruit a journalist, an editor, a copywriter or an ad salesman, and you buy it if you’re looking for those kinds of jobs.
The fact that it’s attached to a left-wing paper is neither here nor there: everyone in the industry, even Michael Heseltine’s publishing company Haymarket, uses MG as their main recruitment ad venue…
At the risk of hogging the comments a little… I also saw the Mel P piece Ed lists, and wasn’t too impressed.
She views a four-strong panel featuring a Green Party-ite, a feminist Muslim, the editor of the FT, and herself, as biased – despite the fact that it’s got two right-wingers and no traditional lib-lefties on it.
The FT is only right-wing on economics issues.
It’s editor hardly stuck his neck out, and on social issues the FT is not dissimilar to the Guardian.
“So how would you suggest getting more right-wingers in?”
I wouldn’t bother.
I accept your notion that most of the journalists in the country are left wing (and so aren’t representative of the country at large); and I accept Polly’s nod and a wink admission that these lefties deliberately and proudly pervert the truth to promote their beliefs. There’s nothing that can be done to resolve this within a realistic period (dismantling the left-wing control of academia will take time).
It is clearly unhealthy for a democracy to have a major part of its ‘fourth estate’ that enjoys enforced funding via the police powers of the state, occupied by an unaccountable minority interest group.
The obvious answer is to remove the obligation to pay for this disingenuous left-wing propaganda outlet. Get rid of the licence fee and let the divided parts of the BBC operate in a genuinely competitive market place.
.
john b
The gist of all your posts on this thread is that most journalism and especially the BBC is leftish.
And you seem to accept the tacit admission by Polly Toynbee that they let their leftish views influence their reports.
That is – the BBC is biased.
QED. I thought you had always held the Beeb to be a paragon of balanced news coverage.
Zelilyn.
I can assure you, as a retired bank manager, that the FT is not right wing on economics issues.
For example it is right ‘on message’ re the Euro, and can’t wait for us to get in.
JiL – I believe the BBC is made up of people who tend to be left-wing and liberal in their personal views, but who try and generally succeed to produce unbiased output.
I accept this sometimes fails – the key difference is that I think these occasions are rare enough that overall the BBC provides fairer and more balanced coverage than any other source, whereas you don’t.
Peter Bolton – how right-wing is a piece of string? The FT’s social and economic positions are fairly close to centre-right Tory politicians such as Oliver Letwin and Chris Patten. You can define those views as left-wing if you like, but that would be a departure from the conventionally accepted meaning of the term.
Having a bias in the set of journalists you employ virtually guarantees bias in the output. It is pure rubbish to say they try their darndest to be balanced. John Humphrys ?
Come on – get real Get honest.