Commenter Lee Moore may have got the BBC’s attention.. His comment here said:
The BBC’s 2006 party conference page is well up to the usual standard. The first thing I noticed was that the zone at the bottom has specially titled sections leading you to more stories about Labour, the Conservatives, the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, and Respect.
Curiously, there are no slots for more stories about UKIP or the BNP. At the last general election UKIP got more than twice as many votes as the Greens. The BNP got nearly three times as many votes as Respect. And as far as regional parties go, the DUP got about 40% more votes than Plaid Cymru, and as many seats as the SNP and Plaid Cymru put together.
The second thing I noticed was that while the stories on Labour and the Conservatives had a mix of positive and negative headlines, all the headlines about the Lib Dems were positive.
And last but not least, the links to Have Your Says are to Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens. No link to the UKIP Have Your Say.I suspect that this isn’t somebody deliberately saying to themselves, let’s not link to stuff about the right wing fringe and regional parties (well maybe as far as the BNP is concerned.) It’s more likely that the Beeboid who is in charge of the page just naturally thinks “UKIP, BNP = fringe”; “Greens, Respect = small, but serious, parties”.
His comment here says:
And whaddya know – within 24 hours they’ve added a slot for extra stories about UKIP ! Yo, Beeboid ! How about that link to the UKIP DHYS ?
It was very noticeable after the 1997 general election that the BBC had started promoting the Lib-Dem cause with a vengeance.
Whether this was because sensitive whiskers on the Left had begun twitching about the likely direction of Bliar’s new government and the corporation’s commissars were looking for a Left-of-Bliar alternative to promote, I couldn’t say. But it is clear that since then, the BBC has been giving wholly unwaranted attention to that party.
Whatever its flaws and faults, the UKIP, in comparison, has been treated with brazen contempt by the BBC.
Here’s an BBC interview with Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP.
http://devilskitchen.blogspot.com/2006/10/free-movement-of-people.html
Maybe Richard North has also gotten their attention?
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/09/king-minnow.html
Provided Mr Farage can keep up his geniality in public and the media continues to ignore his party, such is the public mood here that, come the next general election – which could be in two or three years time – UKIP could do even better than it did last time…
…With Mr Farage at the helm of UKIP, the day may now be closer when the political giants are brought down by the minnows. And the immensely enjoyable thing about that will be the media which, having largely ignored the Party all these years, will be the last to realise what is happening.
I know virtually nothing about UKIP (or British politics for that matter) but watching Farage speak at the Zeropean Parliament made we want to become British and vote for him.
This type of BBC bias is unavoidable until it recruits senior staff from the population as a whole, and not just a small section of it. Better still scrap the licence fee and let the BBC be as biased as it likes.
“it recruits senior staff from the population as a whole”
Are you suggesting the BBC somehow socially engineers its recruitment policy? How so?
And don’t give me the guff about recruitment in the Media Guardian – which is the used by all media, PR and market research firms to recruit people with specific skill sets. It would be like saying that offshore oil engineers were specially selected to be right wing because the Telegraph is the dominant newspaper for recruitment of them.
DifferentAnon:
“it recruits senior staff from the population as a whole”
Are you suggesting the BBC somehow socially engineers its recruitment policy? How so?
You attended a BBC job interview then?
Nope. Perhaps you can tell me about your job interview there in which you uncovered dastardly details of social engineering.
DifferentlyAbledAnon: are you seriously suggesting that the BBC does not mostly recruit people with similar political views to everyone else in the corporation? C’mon, let’s hear you say it.
I am seriously suggesting that the BBC does not explicitly recruit people with similar political views to everyone else in the corporation.
I have no idea how people in the BBC vote or what their views are on the issues that seem to dominate “bias” debates about them. Has anyone seen or heard of any survey of beeb employees?
The only recent comment I’ve seen is something (in the Telegraph, possibly, but I forget where), from an ex-BBC journo that referred to a pinkish hue among employees.
However, even assuming there was a pinkish hue about the place, it still wouldn’t be clear if they were recruited because they were pinkish or became pinkish while there.
DifferentAnon:
“it recruits senior staff from the population as a whole”
Are you suggesting the BBC somehow socially engineers its recruitment policy? How so?
Are you serious?
Interviewers always select those best suited for the job and who they like and believe will fit in with the rest of the workforce.
Need I say more?
What about the report of the Nobel Committee who think the beeb is biased! That was reported here.
Even if there was an employee survey I’m sure the beeb would spend thousands keeping it hush-hush if it even hinted at any bias.
“Interviewers always select those best suited for the job and who they like and believe will fit in with the rest of the workforce.”
I’d be extremely surprised if an organisation with a quasi-government recruitment criteria was able to ask questions that teased out political inclination.
Do you not think if it was the case, someone would have won, or even brought, a case for discrimination against the BBC for just that?
I’ve interviewed and been interviewed more times than I care to remember and while it’s always been on the corporate side I can’t recall ever having been asked a vaguely political question. Have you?
DifferentAnon writes:
“I am seriously suggesting that the BBC does not explicitly recruit people with similar political views to everyone else in the corporation.”
In the attempt to employ people considered suitable for a job it is inevitable that interviewers select like-minded applicants.
How else do you acount for corporate culture?
You can see exactly the same principle at work in the process whereby outside commentators are chosen by BBC programmes.
For the Nth time, perhaps one of these obtuse BBC apologists would care to explain the massive disproportion of ‘experts’ chosen from the ranks of the Guardian and Independent, as opposed to the Telegraph and Times?
Like calls to like. It always has.
DifferentAnon | 17.10.06 – 6:14 pm
Don’t take our word for it – listen to a former employee:
“It’s not a conspiracy. It’s visceral. They think they are on the middle ground”, Jeff Randall, former BBC Business Editor, in The Observer, Jan 15th 2006.
You should have seen this quote on the top right corner of this blog’s homepage.
Anonymous | 17.10.06 – 6:26 pm
Sorry – that was my post.
DifferentAnon writes:
“I’ve interviewed and been interviewed more times than I care to remember and while it’s always been on the corporate side I can’t recall ever having been asked a vaguely political question. Have you?”
Are you seriously trying to suggest that BBC interviewers are not aware of the previous careers of journalists applying for jobs? That Andrew Marr’s earlier career was a blank page to the people who appointed him to his post?
These are writers we are talking about – not fueld engineers for a water company. Politics is their work!
“Are you seriously trying to suggest that BBC interviewers are not aware of the previous careers of journalists applying for jobs?”
I’m suggesting that if the BBC were to engage in interviewing practices that candidates perceived were filtering them based on political preferences, we’d be hearing about it long and often.
DifferentAnon writes:
“I’m suggesting that if the BBC were to engage in interviewing practices that candidates perceived were filtering them based on political preferences, we’d be hearing about it long and often.”
You do. Here. On other blogs too. You also hear it from (the relatively few) Right-wing journalists, like Melanie Phillips.
How many ex-Daily Mail journalists do you think work for the BBC?
Employment at the BBC is almost a closed-shop for the Left. Even the vanishingly rare examples of broadcasters with alternative points of view, like Andrew “token” Neil, are so scarce they prove the point.
I suppose more left wing people would want to work for the BBC than right wing people.
I suppose more penal reform minded people would want to work within the penal system than the hang `em,flog `em,birch`em lot.
There`s a certian type or types that gravitate towards the civil service, a different type that gravitates to fashion than the armed forces,and you would need an interest in animals to want to become a vet.
A lot of gays are air stewards,a lot of money minded people work in the City,scientific minded people go into research.The adventurous minded dont want to work in an office.
Most of these types would go to the interviews that give them a chance for an opening into their chosen career.
So you can see where the BBC starts from.
When it comes to a pinkish hue, could the weather muppets be any more gay?
Robin | 17.10.06 – 7:15 pm
I suppose more left wing people would want to work for the BBC than right wing people.
If true, doesn’t this prove the perception that the beeb is biased in favour of the left? Right-wingers don’t apply because they know they have little or no chance of being accepted?
“You do. Here. On other blogs too. You also hear it from (the relatively few) Right-wing journalists, like Melanie Phillips.”
Go on then. I’d be interested to see some factual evidence. If Mad Mel has examples, I’ll even read them too.
So anyway, DA, you asked for external inferences of BBC bias and I gave you the Nobel Committee. Any comments?
G Cooper
‘Employment at the BBC is almoist a closed shop for the Left’
Agreed ~ but I would add to that having the right family name also seems to be an advantage
DifferentAnon:
“Go on then. I’d be interested to see some factual evidence. If Mad Mel has examples, I’ll even read them too.”
Before you start demanding answers to your questions, perhaps you’ll do us the courtesy of answering those posed to you, first?
Or were you simply playing for time while you rummaged round an empty cupboard?
DifferentAnon:
I am seriously suggesting that the BBC does not explicitly recruit people with similar political views to everyone else in the corporation.
I wonder if the charge of left wing recruitment is generally true or only true in certain departments e.g. News, world service, religion.
I once made the same charge to an Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC)employee who replied that the Agricultural Service is very right wing. (Note: that farmers in Australia hold disproportionate power than city dwellers).
Other factors other than Guardian readership could take play here. For example, recruitment from similarly left wing, postmodern dominated humanities faculties.
Plus, I would expect a possibly subconscious inclination to employ like minded people. This would take into account signs like clothing, address, literary tastes, dialect, hobbies, ‘class’, etc rather than straight response to political questions.
For example, a innocent question about the latest Panorama programme would raise a different response if the answer was “We discussed it in church”; “I don’t think moderate Muslims had fair representation” or “Panorama, who watches that, nowadays”?
I don’t think an admission that the interviewee hadn’t paid the TV tax for 5 years would help in the interview.
BTW DifferentAnon, what for jobs were you conducting interviews?
“BTW DifferentAnon, what for jobs were you conducting interviews?”
Consultancy, and, previously, as a headhunter.
So anyway, DA, you asked for external inferences of BBC bias and I gave you the Nobel Committee. Any comments?
If you get them to stop blocking the Balen Report you’ll more than likely have another one.
Do you have a link to the Nobel report – sounds like an interesting read.
So what if I happen to be wrong about the BBC’s dodgy recruitment policy? Scrap the licence fee, let the BBC sell to willing customers only, and then people could subscribe to it if they found its political bias to their liking.
There’s no smoke without fire, and there is an awful lot of smoke when it comes to BBC bias. At the moment all this smoke gets treated in the same way repressive regimes deal with criticism – it can all be explained by stupidity, crankiness or downright malicousness on the part of the those who won’t believe in the true faith.
DA
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1888625,00.html
Sorry, you’ll have to copy and paste it!
Fair enough, but if he isn’t prepared to outline how he’s made his decision, it’s not much to go on!
Most journos in BBC News over 38 (ie most of those in editorial/management positions) would most likely have been recruited by the bloke who used to be in charge of news recruitment – a former Royal Marines officer of fierce, right-wing opinions!
Afghan hound writes:
“Most journos in BBC News over 38 (ie most of those in editorial/management positions) would most likely have been recruited by the bloke who used to be in charge of news recruitment – a former Royal Marines officer of fierce, right-wing opinions!”
You mean like Jim Naughtie, John Humphrys, John Simpson, Andrew Marr…?
What have you been smoking?
Anonymous
I believe A Marr – in his #red andy’ days was indeed turned down by this bloke. Only once he’d been political editor of the Economist was he deemed sound.
As for John Fidler-Simpson ( St Paul’s; Magdalene) – an establishment shoo-in, I’d have thought.
Humphrys is probably so old he antedates this bloke. But anyway – given the way he huffs and puffs about the EU – don’t you UKIP-lovers welcome him as a brother?
comment to max re the Huw Edwards UKIP interview : Huw Edwards immediately spouts the BBC view and says “the logic of your position is that if you cut back on taxes then schools will suffer, hospitals will suffer, public services will suffer. It’s inevitable”.
Why oh why does the reality of lower tax economies = higher growth and increased tax revenues! Why does this simply fact never breach the mindset of leftwing Beeboid thinking? Farage points it out, of course, and Huw Edwards moves swiftly on without pursuing the point further.
D Burbage,
Or conversely have you ever seen an Al-beeb Propagandastaffer ever ask someone why they want to shrink the economy and lower future tax receipts with a tax rise?
“Go on then. I’d be interested to see some factual evidence. If Mad Mel has examples, I’ll even read them too.”
Has this been answered yet?
Can’t be a bad thing they don’t link the BNP.
Dom
Can’t be a bad thing they don’t link the BNP.
Yes it can Dom. Because that is censorship and it is biased.
Do you think that it’s alright to link to that nutcase Galloway?
afghan hound writes:
“As for John Fidler-Simpson ( St Paul’s; Magdalene) – an establishment shoo-in, I’d have thought.”
Really? That would be establishment as in Burgess, Philby and McLean, would it?
Instead of fantasising about this ferocious guard dog (whose name you do not even seem to know), why don’t you furnish us with, let’s say just three, senior BBC news figures whose views are detectably to the Right?
Thats right Dom, we’ll whats a fringe party and its none of your business.
Different Anon,
Quite seriously, why would anyone who isn’t essentially left-wing want to work for the BBC in the first place?
I find it quite astonishing you haven’t grasped the essential point about inherent corporate dynamics. These dynamics exist in all organisations, but in ones which have to respond to the market, the internal culture tends to get disciplined by the market. The whole point about the BBC is that it has no disciplines at all from teh market. It can therefore evolve precisely into whatever shape it wants to.
Which is why you can draw a straight line from its funding, through to the decline in its journalism, to its almost cultish groupthink.
What I find quite astounding – really – is that you seem not to have thought about this at all. One wonders – are you a member of the BBC-cult yourself. Should we call in the rescue teams and deprogrammers?
The BBC tells us is it very popular. Why does the government need to force us to pay for something so popular? Popular products fly from the shelves
“Quite seriously, why would anyone who isn’t essentially left-wing want to work for the BBC in the first place?”
The perfectly respectable salaries and the opportunity to demonstrate your craft to the highest possible number of consumers I’d imagine? This isn’t your regular horribly skint public service forced to poach Africans (or even Scots) due to chronic lack of and mismanagement of resources. It’s ‘awash with cash’.
If you were in broadcasting you’d have to be one of those free market/libertarian fundamentalist types who can’t grasp the inherent contradiction between their ideological rigidness and the nature of their ideology NOT to fancy a crack at the Beeb.
Which does indeed lead one to conclude that there’s a bias built into the recruitment process.
I dunno Cockney, can you honestly imagine spending your day genuflecting to The Agenda? Quite honestly, it sounds like a modern version of Hell to me.
Michael Taylor 2:34 am,
You have put it in a nutshell. Pity DifferentAnon can’t crack it.
Correct Bryan. I am not a free market fundamentalist. If that means I “can’t crack it”, so be it.
“why don’t you furnish us with, let’s say just three, senior BBC news figures whose views are detectably to the Right?”
Nick Robinson, Andrew Neil, Jeff Randall, Robin Aitken, Rod Liddle.