in the run up to the Southall by-election on July 19th 2007.
And how does our fearless, impartial, unbiased tellytax-funded state broadcaster cover this blow to the Labour campaign?
Well, for a start you have to go looking for the story – it’s tucked away on the sidebar of the Politics page and about to fall off the bottom of the UK page – though it’s not on the England page. Stranger yet, nor is it on the BBC London News page*.
Found it yet? Well, if it was Conservatives who had defected to Labour we know that the headline would have been:
Five Tory councillors defect
– without even the courtesy of using the party’s proper name. So, naturally, the cub journos at BBC Views Online go with:
Was that a spot of downplaying the negatives? Could be…
Once you’ve found the story you find that five councillors have indeed defected from Labour to the Conservatives and that, in the BBC’s own words:
Kuldeep Singh Grewal, an independent candidate for the by-election, has urged his supporters to vote Labour instead on 19 July.
Another independent candidate – Golbash Singh – is now supporting the Tories.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell is visiting Ealing Southall with his party’s candidate, Nigel Bakhai.
Mr Cameron is doing the same with the Tory contender, Tony Lit.
But wait, in a story that is supposedly primarily about five Labour councillors defecting to the Conservatives during a by-election, what’s this at the bottom:
Mr Grewal said he was throwing his “full weight” behind Labour candidate Virendra Sharma.
He said he had always been a Labour member but had decided to stand as an independent following “some internal grievances” with the party.
Was that a spot of accentuating the positives? Could be…
Good old BBC Views Online – no quotes from any of the five defectors, but they get in another bit, this time with quotes, about disgruntled Labour member Kuldeep Singh Grewal who has seen the error of his ways and is now “throwing his ‘full weight’ behind Labour candidate Virendra Sharma”… just as the cubs at BBC Views Online very helpfully make clear, twice…
* this isn’t too much of a surprise – BBC London News is produced by wannabe cub-journos who aren’t even good enough (in BBC terms that is) to get a job at White City – which is perhaps why, for example, when they report on Harrods, they often describe Harrods as being “in west London”…
Update: Blink and you’ll miss it – within a few minutes of posting the story has gone from the UK page and appeared on the BBC London News page.
I think Andrew’s statement of his views about how differently the Beeb would have reported the story if it had been the other way round (“Five Tory councillors defect” rather than “Five Southall councillors defect”)might comfort those who agree with him but to those who don’t it weakens rather than strengthens his argument.
Just attack the Beeb for its evident bias – there’s enough evidence.
The BBC is covering this story under the carefully neutral headline Five Southall councillors defect and a text that muddles and dampens down any political significance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_po…ics/ 6283674.stm
Compare and contrast with BBC coverage of the Quentin Davies story:
Conservative MP defects to Labour
Tory MP Quentin Davies has defected to Labour, “delighting” new leader and prime minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown.
MattLondon, you are wrong. The BBC would almost certainly have reported the reverse situation in the way that I suggest – see Oscar’s comment for an example. In a blog about BBC bias it’s perfectly reasonable to speculate about how they would have reported the same situation in reverse.
The story was covered prominently on WATO and Radio 4’s 6 o’clock news.
The story was covered prominently on WATO and Radio 4’s 6 o’clock news.
Purple Scorpion | Homepage | 09.07.07 – 9:03 pm | #
Stuff and nonsense. WATO gave five minutes to the 27/7 trial verdict, around 20 mins to Alistair Campbell and the last 5 mins to the Labour/Plaid Cymru deal. There certainly was NO prominent coverage of Southall. You’re making it up.
I’ve deleted a number of ill-tempered comments here, including some comments from one of the editors, because they were threatening to degenerate into a nasty brawl (which wasn’t even amusing for the rest of us to watch).
If you can sum up your points again in a more polite way, go ahead.
Thank you Slash, that’s fine with me – I would have taken that approach myself, were it not for the inevitable whinging there would have been.
Make that 6 defections.
The ‘independent’ candidate Kuldeep Singh Grewal is actually just a disaffected Labourite returning home yet the BBC portray it as a great political move.