This is a guest post by Biased BBC contributor Graeme Thompson aka Hippiepooter.
“B-BBC regularsmay be aware that I think BBC Radio Five Live is excellent. Commentsand digs here made against 5Live presenters leave me baffled and confused.
As far as I’m concerned it has some superb presenters,strongly committed to impartiality.
I get a smidgen that Shelagh Fogarty is a bit of aconservative but may be wrong. Veryimpartial. Great pleasure to tune in to.
Nicky Campbell, an outstanding broadcaster who’ll go down asone of the BBC ’s all timegreats. Generally a bit of a leftie butstrongly committed to impartiality.
Peter Allen, ‘left wind’ as opposed to left wing. He tends to blow with the gusts of BBC left wing bias if they whip up too much of agale for him. His wit and congenialitymore than make up for the few times this occurs though.
All in all, I’d say R5L presenters do Britain
Apart from Richard Bacon.
It seems that the afternoon slot on 5Live is reserved forbiased lefties. It’s as if some sort oftrade off has been made with the BBC ’sGramscian left. I think it was SybilRuscoe who I once heard interview Charlton Heston and comment afterwards howshe liked him, but “it’s a pity he’s right wing”. Then we had Simon Mayo. And now, Richard Bacon keeping the traditionalive.
A good enough broadcaster I’d argue, he has enough talentfor his job, but when push comes to shove, a Labour lackey through andthrough. Worse; a Brownite lackey, andoutside of the BNP and ‘Respect’,it’s hard to get nastier than that.
He didn’t cover the Labour conference as a Labour supporterbut he has covered the Tory conference as one. Tone and comment made this evident, but then he surpassed himself onThursday when he informed us (01:56:46 ):-
“Like the cat in Dick Whittington, Theresa May’s moggy isnot just helping humans its entirelyfictional”.
The DailyMail has gone to the trouble of reading the Court transcripts and come to avery different conclusion. I think anyfair-minded person – and the BBC does have a duty to be fair-minded – would take the view that while Theresa Mayoverstated the matter, her comment was grounded in fact.
Facts and fairness don’t matter to Mr Bacon. Smearing Tory Government Ministers does.
This latest example of egregious bias from him comes in thewake of him referring listeners with a snicker to go to youtube to listen to anAmerican ‘comedian’ savagelymock Sarah Palin over her Downs Syndrome son Trig.
This time, if his R5L bosses do nothing more than issueanother insincere apology on his behalf they may start to lose publicconfidence.
Take a listen to the very end of Bacon’s programme to findout just how much contempt he has for his duty to impartiality. Accompanied by the usual schoolboy snicker ofcourse.”
Sorry but Nicky Campbell is as hard left as Bacon is. Have you ever seen what Campbell tweets? Try looking at his latest dig at Republican Mitt Romney, by a comment about how “God made America”
It’s one of many, yet I can’t EVER find a tweet that is negative towards the Democrats or Nu Liebore.
You made some good points but totally forgot probably the most left wing of all which is the really vile Victoria Derbyshire and also Anita Annand who are the female equals of Bacon.
Have you never heard Derbyshire shriek at Tory politicians?
Over many months I have seen many posts from you, Martin, indicating outrageous lack of balance among R5Live presenters. Is there a sheer lack of editorial control over there ? – maybe they think the main political focus and watch-out-for-bias is on Radio 4
Martin, I dont know much about Annita Annand, but Victoria Derbyshire is someone I’d definitely include in my ‘excellent list’.
YOU’RE having a larf!!!
No, 1,000% serious.
If John McCain had won the US Presidential election do you think Ms Annand would have posed sporting a McCain hat?
Yep, she’s definitely under the ‘suspect that needs listening to’ category here!
A flashback
Wonder if she posed with a person with a Bush TShirt?
“Victoria Derbyshire is someone I’d definitely include in my ‘excellent list’“
WOW!! =-O
That is, without doubt, the single most astonishing comment I’ve ever seen on this site…
Before the moderators (Tempero) shut it down, there was quite a lively Vicky/5L thread building up over on the BBC messageboards.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/NF1951574?thread=8282697
The thread is already shut down – 15 minutes after you posted !
Dontcha just love free speech ?
It was closed because radio was “off topic”?! No reason to look for savings in BBC Radio?
Before Scez poinst it out, allow me. The board states:-
‘About this Board
The Points of View messageboards are a place to discuss BBC Television programmes and issues with other viewers and a guide to other discussions across the BBC.’
I stand corrected. It’s still funny, though.
Just because some people made som comments about Radio 5 was no cause to shut down the page. Usual thing – the BBC can dish it out, but they can’t take it.
Ah yes, that casual dig at Fox for choosing to lead with Sarah Palin rather than the death of Steve Jobs. How very dare they! Snigger.
Two partisan points within about a minute of each other. That’s some going, even for a BBC presenter.
I’m sorry,but I don’t see anything resembling impartiality in dame Nicky
Later today I’ll post the email addresses of the head honchos at R5L to complain to if anyone has a mind to over this ‘smoking gun’ bias.
At the moment I’m still getting over my emotional suffering at England losing to France in the rugby World Cup.
I’m now celebrating Australia’s close win over South Africa. I hope OZ meets Wales in the final !
ITV seem to me to have done a pretty good job on the Rugby World Cup. Plus a good website.
Just goes to show there is NIL need for a taxpayer-funded broadcaster, except for some extremely narrow exceptions. It is hard to think of much that the market would not provide – either by subscription or advertising, if the BBC elephant was out of the way.
I think there is an increasing public view that the BBC is far too extravagant, too enormous. Quite apart from questions of bias. So hopefully more chance of radical changes when the Charter review comes up.
In the first half England didn’t produce one attacking move without fumbling the ball to bring it to an end.
At least we salvaged some pride with two tries in the second, the one by Foden absolutely excellent.
It would be good to have an England manager who smiles once in a while. Johnson’s joylessness is reflected in England’s play.
Still, rather have an Englishman at the helm and lose than a foreigner. We did invent the game after all. Oh, and what a relief to see the RWC without the national teams defacing the jersey with advertising – although the designs and colour tweeks leave something to be desired.
Judging by NZ’s performance against Argentina, the Cup could be Wales. Go boyo’s!
Still the wrong code !
As yesterday’s Saints vs Rhinos proved.(Well to me at least).
The national teams of the two codes should compete respectively as ‘Northern England’ and Southern England’ :p
Well, we’ve managed to lose the Welsh contingent, but that would still leave us with the small problem of what to do with excellent Catalan Dragons from the South of France.
A good post and right on the money where the vile Bacon is concerned – I wonder how a formal complaint against him from the Downs Syndrome Association might look on his CV ? Distinctly career limiting I imagine – but no rational analysis of Radio Five Live’s output during the recent party conference season could arrive at the conclusion that this particular branch of the Evil Empire is any less partial than the rest.
I still feel slightly nauseous recalling the convivial early morning chat sessions between Campbell and Balls, the almost total lack of any real journalistic questioning of Labour’s economic fantasies, the occasional snipe at the coalition, etc which characterised the Liverpool week.
“Generally a bit of a leftie but strongly committed to impartiality” is somewhat at odds with the way I tend to perceive Campbell.
I’m afraid I find most 5 Live output biased toward the left. Don’t forget that a particular BBC channel or group of presenters never exist in a bubble. They are still part of the greater BBC structure and remain subject to the wider culture and corporate policies.
There are some interesting aspects to the bias as far 5 Live is concerned. The channel has evolved with a hybrid sport/current affairs remit and it now takes particular pains to attract women and younger listeners – as if were somehow ashamed of the sport and feels it need to make amends.
Visualise a pub that screens a lot of sport and so can rely on a large customer base of – frankly – blokes. Now the management says (to coin a phrase) ‘hey, you need more diversity’.
So, when, say, a student-looking type comes in, as the bar staff pull their pint, they say ‘gosh, the coalition are being very unfair about these student loans – want some crisps with your cider?’
The BBC obsession with diversity goes hand-in-hand with the left’s sectional strategy. Listen out for phrases such as ‘What can Cameron do to attract female/ethnic voters?’
Radio 5 seems to base its audience on the younger “student” types.
Not sure how many of them fall into the category of Licence payers but hey what do they care .
That student leftie stereotype so beloved of beeboids seems to be wearing a bit thin. Quite a lot of them hate the EU, mass immigration, etc. Maybe there’ll be a documentary on how they’ve been brainwashed by EDL.
Ironically, the average age of the R5 audience is something like 55. Usually, when you have an older age group the BBC (rather than embrace the age group) take it as a challenge to go for younger listeners – (pushing boundaries, new and innivative, blah blah blah). They usually manage to please no-one but are tolerated by people’s radio listening habits.
Hmmmmm…as a BNP voter, can I just say that I don’t feel “nastier” than a Brownite Lackey. In fact I feel vastly superior !
I and the three co-workers I take to work everyday spend a lot of the journey shouting at the Radio 5 presenters who seem to live in a world we do not recognise.
The only bloke on Radio 5 who I could identify as being “right-wing” is Matthew Parish, but we all know why he is the BBC’s pet Tory, he ticks all the right boxes.
That BBC 5Live is the perch for the wondrous Danny Baker is all that saves it in my view!
As for the rest-never heard them, nor will I bother…especially if Bacon is around…isn`t he the one who got kicked off Blue Peter for his drugs habit?
If so, how come he gets a bungee cord to bounce higher up the BBC floors into adult output…being a druggie, he needs to get decongested from our tax-funded output!
Why do we all have to share in his rehab costs?..unless lots of other Beeboids are happy enough to meet up with him in order to chillax and review their genius somewhere conducive to deals and t`ing!
Can’t agree with you about N. Campbell. Always slaps down anyone right of centre, can’t see a single thing wrong with the Greens and is so far up himself his head come out of his gob.
Nicky Campbell is biased in favour of leftie PC attitudes. I just heard that PY Gerbil (BBC rent a Frenchman) say ‘the Brits have become too PC’.
Gameshow Nicky’s reply ‘I thought you might say that….’
And that was the end of the conversation.
“Victoria Derbyshire is someone I’d definitely include in my ‘excellent list’“
Ony if you mean excellent example of soft-left bias at the BBC. She goes ape-shit at any right-of-centre comments from listeners / guests.
As per earlier, having now overcome the pain of World Cup defeat to the cockerells and smurfs of French rugby, for those who might also be minded to send off a complaint, here are the relevant addresses and what I’ve sent. The first two addresses are of the Head of 5Live and its Head of News respectively. The other two are staff in Mr van Klaverern’s Office. I’ll also be copying to a few Tory MP’s to whom the subject of BBC bias is of special concern:-
adrian.van-klaveren@bbc.co.uk; stephen.mawhinney@bbc.co.uk
jonathan.wall.01@bbc.co.uk; KATYA.WILLEMS@BBC.CO.UK;
Dear Sirs,
I have had a complaint against Richard Bacon published in the following link on Biased-BBC:-
http://biasedbbc.tv/2011/10/bacon-sandwich.html
I would very much hope you consider it worthy of attention.
And a thought occurs, I wonder now if Theresa May will be known as ‘Theresa Miaow’? 🙂
I don’t think so, as some references I’ve heard made towards her in conservative circles are more damming than having her spayed.
What the hell was Cameron thinking of ?
Does she know what day it is ?
She looks like Boris’s mother.
At least the BBC wont attack her !
Dr. Liam is in trouble, so she can have his job.
Henceforth she wil be known as – Tabby Thereasa The Territorial Spraying Soldiers Friend.
There are far too many Tories assisting the BBC in making themselves look more foolish than they already are.
What’s worse, the few sensible ones left don’t seem to want to give it back to the State Broadcaster in the manner quite a few of us would like witness.
What is this word ‘snicker’?
It’s ‘snigger’. Got that everyone? S.N.I.G.G.E.R.
It has a completely different etymological root from a similar sounding word with racist connotations.
The English language is one of the British Empire’s greatest gifts to the world. Be proud of it.
Merriam Webster
1) snicker (verb)
2) snicker (noun)
snigger (noun)
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1snick•er
verb \ˈsni-kər\
snick•eredsnick•er•ing
Definition of SNICKER
intransitive verb
: to laugh in a covert or partly suppressed manner : TITTER
— snick•er•er noun
— snick•ery adjective
See snicker defined for English-language learners »
See snicker defined for kids »
Examples of SNICKER
<he snickered at the puzzled look on her face>
<only hard-core fans of teen sex comedies will snicker at this lame attempt>
Origin of SNICKER
origin unknown
First Known Use: 1694
Merriam Webster is an American English dictionary.
Here’s an interesting forum discussion on the uses of ‘snicker’ and ‘snigger’:-
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2063278
According to someone, the earliest OED reference to ‘snicker’ predates that of snigger by a century. So you see, the British Empire lives proudly in my heart as well. :))
But
“It is all very well to be “advanced” and “enlightened,” to snigger at Colonel Blimp and proclaim your emancipation from all traditional loyalties, but a time comes when the sand of the desert is sodden red and what have I done for thee, England, my England? As I was brought up in this tradition myself I can recognise it under strange disguises, and also sympathise with it, for even at its stupidest and most sentimental it is a comelier thing than the shallow self-righteousness of the left-wing intelligentsia.”
George Orwell
I will stick with Orwell 😀
RCE you are right we use snigger. The confusion is that the US use “snicker” meaning the same thing.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/snicker
What always gets me is the phrase X owns Y, implying that X gets the better of Y. It justt sounds so strange and meaningless to me . Also putting the word “so” in a sentance where it is pointless. EG “It is so you”.
Don’t get me started on “for free”!!
…and I was like..I soooo agree with you, John.
If there is one expression that divides the generations, it is the emphatic qualifier “sooo”. It’s now part of normal speech for anyone under thirty.
Not to mention Accompanied by the usual schoolboy snicker of course.”
‘m sure there are many schoolboys who take snickers with them
😉
A snicker = a marathon. 😀