How biased is the BBC?

Its a public sector leach. It will always tend towards pro-government as it wants to maintain that leaching.

Privatise it and get rid of the licence fee. I grow tired of subsidising middle class television

The change is straight-forward. There has been a huge growth in channels, with those channels often serving 'specialised' interests. There is no reason to steal my money to fund middle class folly. Privatise!

Thing is that the BBC now is no longer the BBC of old, which was once accepted pretty much world wide as unbiased and truthful...now it has become little more than a mouthpiece for one or other of the main parties.....particularly whichever one is in Government..as illustrated by the uncritical reporting on what became known as the "Dirty Dossier".  By the  failure of the BBC and print media to verify and publish claims contrary to the official Government line, they were as complicit in deliberately ramping up fear to enable the illegal, unjust war as any of our politicians.  And they are doing the same in Syria.

On another forum, 0n 2nd September, I posted links to a number of non-MSM websites which said that the August gas attack(at least) was by the rebels (and in error)....and it is only now that the possibility of Rebel involvement is being reported in the MSM. However, in June, seemingly, Debkafile was reporting that the Turkish police had arrested Al Qaeda-linked Syrian Al Nusra terrorists with a store of Sarin Gas.  I didn't see anything about that in our papers or TV then or later .....did anybody?.

The Royal Charter which defines its editorial Policy specifies that we should do all we can "to ensure that controversial subjects are treated with due accuracy and impartiality" in our news and other output dealing with matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy. It also states that our output is forbidden from expressing the opinion of the BBC on current affairs or matters of public policy, other than broadcasting or the provision of online services. The Accuracy, Impartiality and Politics, Public Policy and Polls sections of the Editorial Guidelines incorporate the BBC Trust's code as required under Paragraph 44 (5) of the Agreement, giving guidance as to the rules to be observed in connection with Paragraphs 44(1) to 44(4) of the Agreement.

That wishful thinking policy description has gradually, over the years, been conspicuous in more and more issues more by its absence than in its implementation..and I make no apology for citing the completely one-sided coverage of the Scottish Independence debate as an example both of the ignoring of the Charter....and of being a mouthpiece for Government.  Tony Hall, at the Edinburgh TV Festival, admitted that the corporation will struggle to maintain its impartiality...but they are not impartial now...so  how much worse can it get?  Oh, I know how much.......they are sending Jim Naughtie north to do Good Morning Scotland two days a week.   

They have become particularly lazy in certain areas 'news' rather than 'current affairs', if you see what I mean. Some of their 'current affairs' output is still of the highest standard for what it is (more of that later!), but the actual 'news' programs have fallen into the trap of popularism, and assuming that 'the people' only want to know whichever soundbite sounds most sensational. It's not just the BBC who are doing that, of course, but in the world of 24 hour news the BBC (and others) have failed to realise that it doesn't have to be just the same report played over and over (along with some irrelevant crap about films or new gadgets that have no business being on that channel at all, and Matthew Amroliwala endlessly going 'ummm...ahh...' as he tries to think of something to say!).

A 24 hour news channel has the available time to go into stories and issues a little more deeply, but in its desperation to be 'sensational' and 'appealing' it isn't trying to do that effectively. Of course, if there is something 'big' going on 'live' they will go on about it endlessly, but usually there's nothing to say because things don't develop that quickly. They could and should go into the political stories much more deeply than they do, because there is much more to know and say about those.

They do have other political output, of course, and the Daily Politics, for example, is actually quite good, for what it is. What it is, though, is a panel-based political chat show with occasional guests, not a serious and in-depth examination of political issues, who is saying what and why, and what the known and established facts are to judge them against (and what other possibilities there are, and so on). Question Time is generally OK as a debate program, although it's gone too far with having 'non-political' 'extras' on now, increased the numbers on the panel, and so reduced our ability to actually hear what the politicians themselves have to say as they debate (which is what it should be there for). Newsnight is like a micro-news24, concentrating on stories because they are 'big' with the public, not because they are actually the ones that need close and careful examination. There's the odd 'special programme' (Panorama, etc.) on something that goes into a bit more depth on an issue, and those can often (not always, as we know!) be very good, but only when it's an issue where there are points to be scored for 'discovering' something 'shocking' anyway. BBC Parliament is the only way to see politics in action and hear more of what is really going on, but it's not exactly 'engaging' much of the time, and only presents the things themselves in their entirety but without any contextual information at all, so few people actually watch much of it. There's a definite gap in the market there that the BBC should be providing something to fill, but isn't.

That is why they appear to 'support the government' - political reporting is generally based on who is giving the most prominent information for them to repeat, and that is always inevitably the government, because they have the government machine at their disposal as well as their party machine, and also control much of the agenda for parliament and the political system. The main opposition party comes next, of course, and they are presented as 'the alternative view', followed by some small occasional couple of sentences of mention for everybody else, without actually spending enough time on any of them to allow people to see what they are saying at all. It appears, therefore, to 'support' the government, and more than that to support the continuance of an almost entirely 2 party system with an 'either/or' choice for the people, rather than reporting or investigating the full picture of politics. It keeps other parties in a position where they either can't get their distinct message across at all, or in some cases are able to hide their real nature behind a few clever populist soundbites and a single charismatic leader. That isn't good for politics, and isn't good for the country, and the BBC should be doing better.

Having said all that, it's by no means the worst broadcaster or media outlet out there, and does, I think, make genuine efforts to be independent and at least not actively spin stories to a particular political agenda or viewpoint. for that reason, I think it does an important job and has an important role that should be continued, but I don't think that that should mean that it shouldn't be criticised for not being as good as it should could be.

cenydd........if you were watching  BBC Scotland and some of the main BBC programmes UK-wide,  and listening to the Radio.......Radio Scotland mainly, but also some Radio 4 at this time.....you would be thinking they were the most blatantly biased taxpayer funded entity in the Western World..bar none.  The print media in Scotland and the rest of the UK are no better...but at least they have to make profit and will cater for their chosen demographies. The BBC should not have a chosen demography.....which is currently the pro-union one.  It makes a mockery of its self-claimed unbiased and evenhanded reporting when that is only obligatory in the few weeks before a vote......whether that is for MPs, MSPs or referenda.  The insidious drip-drip of bias by a public and publicly funded broadcaster  has them nowadays looking more and more like Fox News than the BBC I remember from childhood.  

Might be worth having a look at one or two of these videos...which are a tongue-in-cheekish look at the way the pro-union campaign is being reported to see what I mean Fear Factor Scotland