Also a statement that rings true to the very day

Opinion pieces and analysis have their place, but when they are the total output from any news source, then we have allowed ourselves to be turned into consumers of our own prejudices. Who believes a word in the Guardian, who believes a word in the Telegraph, who reads the Independant at all? Is the daily Mail a newspaper at all? The readership of these papers are people who want to re-affirm their own world view , not people who want to find out about the world – and now news channels are going down the same route. The fact that we can discuss the biases of different broadcast newslots accross the channels is a sign they are getting politized. I now watch Newsround with my children – very little comment.

Justforfun

“You just don’t understand the readers, do you, eh? He’s the bloke you see in the pub, a right old fascist, wants to send the wogs back, buy his poxy council house, he’s afraid of the unions, afraid of the Russians, hates the queers and the weirdoes and drug dealers. He doesn’t want to hear about that stuff (serious news).”

This is why all the papers and news outlets that veer to the right have higher audiences and circulations.

For all you intelligent folk that post here, whether a news channel is right/left/Marxist/Stalinist etc is irrelevant as you are able to use your critical faculties to think for yourselves.

However, your average bloke who gets all his news from The Sun, The Mail or some other Murdoch source is too thick to think for himself….And this is why McKenzie’s statement still holds true today.

Thanks.

Is that too much to ask or is it an old fashioned view?

Justforfun

“I also think the reporters should be from all walks of life, cutting across class, gender and regions especially… that enforced diversity would be the only way to ensure there is lots of different opinion and the news is varied enough.”

What a ridiculous statement.

If someone criticized Pickled Politics for having too many British Asian males as commentators, we could quite easily point to the diverse range of comments made by the likes of Kulvinder, Jagdeep, Muzamdar et al.

The BBC should give up any pretence to impartiality, be privatized, and then it can operate as the high-quality, left-wing channel that you want. If there is enough demand for that sort of thing, it will be fine.

But if you think it’s left wing and I think it’s right wing, how are we going to correct it?

My solution would be that it thinks more carefully and radically about how it presents the news and how it packages that programming so that:

1) the focus is on informing the viewer about context and all the different arguments
2) acknowledge the bias in the position they’re taking. so for example, coverage of live8 should have taken alongside coverage saying that: ‘implicit within our coverage is the assumption that live8 is a good thing and that this is how Africa will be helped. But now we’re going to challenge those assumptions’.

I also think the reporters should be from all walks of life, cutting across class, gender and regions especially… that enforced diversity would be the only way to ensure there is lots of different opinion and the news is varied enough.

And, as Arif said, transparency on how news is selected and what news is selected given the competing headlines.

But generally it provides enough breadth of information for me to at least sometimes disagree with the way it presents the news, usually because it provides a context which seems misleading. I probably get the knowledge tp believe it is misleading, because other reporters in other stories have previously taken a different editorial line.

I also don’t like the way the BBC and most other channels select news, somehow focusing on some conflicts and injustices to the exclusion of others. However it is sometimes BBC documentaries which first raise my awareness of those other conflicts.

If I have a right to make demands on the BBC as a license-payer, I would argue for a greater degree of transparency (eg a policy) on how news is selected and packaged for broadcast, which explains its rationale and can constantly develop. If it were developed by some sort of open process, it would end up reflecting something about the “values of society” which would be interesting in itself. And if we wanted we’d all be able to pinpoint where we disagree much more meaningfully than saying “right wing bias” or “lapse of judgment”.

Kirsty Walk – what is the explaination for her?

Justforfun

And the BBC has not dumbed down? Just look at most of their programmes:

- One which promotes gambling
- Hidden camera show
- A number of reality TV shows
- Programmes with Graham Norton on
- Eastenders all the time

Why does ‘dumbing down’ mean that a channel instinctively moves to the right? Is your position on the European constitution similar- that the people do not know what is best for them? Would you argue for the retention of the BBC’s licence fee if it was right-wing?

But if you think it’s left wing and I think it’s right wing, how are we going to correct it?

Not necessarily. In an increasingly fragmented market, as is the case, news stations are forced to respond by becoming more sensationalist and dumbing down news as entertainment so they can get the widest possible audience. The market for proper coverage becomes so small that its then not sustained because proper journalism requires invesment. Just look at the poor state of broadcast news in America as a good example. HEaven forbid that was to happen here.

“Privatised stations not only end up dumbing down further, but inevitably move to the right even further.”

That rather suggests that the private channels are responding to public demand; not everybody supports the Islington world view.

Those who accuse others of bias reveal their own.

Errr no. The answer to a bad situation would be to correct it, not make it worse. Privatised stations not only end up dumbing down further, but inevitably move to the right even further.

The solution here is to force the BBC to higher editorial standards, not sell it off. The market will not deliver better news.

There are two reasons I say this.

People on the left seem to claim that the BBC is right wing when there is some prominent news story where the BBC is accused of being left-wing. It strikes me as a defensive reaction – a negotiating position if you like.

The other reason is that you never hear anyone on the left calling for the BBC to be sold off/ senior management fired/ etc etc. If you think it’s right wing, and I think it’s on the left, let’s just agree to abolish the licence fee. At least neither of us is paying for it then. We should both be happy with that. (If you really do believe what you’re saying).

Bishop Hill – so when Sunny says he doesn’t believe the BBC has a left wing bias, you disbelieve him? Do you think he is lying, or what?

Here you go – I’ll say it – I think the BBC has a right wing bias. Don’t believe me? Why?