Poll - how biased is the BBC?

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1809974]

Comments

[drplokta]

News organisations that report the facts tend to be seen as biassed towards the left, because they favour the reality-based community rather than the faith-based community. That doesn't mean that they're really biassed, except in favour of reality. (For financial and business news, specifically, this apparent bias is reversed and fact-based reporting is seen to favour the right.)

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

The BBC is secretly run by albino nuns in Uganda.

[chess]

The BBC is primarily biased to 'its own survival' - it's currently a little right-biased around the edges because it needs to kowtow to the current government, but regularly this has required a left-bias.

I don't know unbiased sources of news, I'm not convinced they exist; I try to get news from a range of sources with a range of biases in order to put together the whole picture.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I think the BBC is bias towards the government and the establishment. Just because this is how the BBC survives, and it's how establishment pillars tend to be.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Overall, I think the BBC is pretty unbiased but the main news (6 and 10 pm) seems to have lurched to the right somewhat recently. Having said which, I'm left biased so it's probably only marginally biased at worst even now.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

This actually. And I see we agree on the wonder of channel 4 news too :)

[makyo.livejournal.com]

I think it's a bit more complicated than a simple, well-defined position on some left/right political spectrum. Some of the journalists working at the BBC are clearly left-leaning in their personal political views, and obviously this is going to influence the tenor of the things they write. But there have been a number of cases recently where the BBC has very notably failed to report the "left-wing" side of the argument, instead going along with the "right-wing" viewpoint. (No media organisation which was solely biased to the left would continue giving airtime to the Tax Avoiders' Alliance, for example.)

So I think that sometimes they're biased to the left, and sometimes they're biased to the right. Mostly, I suspect, they're trying to present the truth as they see it, in a way that won't annoy the government of the day too much.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I've always admired how the Channel 4 news team are always quite happy to ask difficult questions of whichever party is in power. They gave Labour a hard time, and they're giving the Tories a hard time too. Which is how it should be.

I think I'd describe them as... humanist, more than socialist. So rather than having a left or right stance, they're more just focussed on... things we feel to be right and wrong as people? Maybe? I don't know. But it's the only news I can watch without throwing stuff at the tv.

... don't get me started on Reporting Scotland.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I also think the BBC go too far out of their way to give airtime to those on the other side of any issue. No matter how much a minority or how loony, they seem to go to great lengths to give airtime to some organisations in a bid to appear unbiased.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with that but then I share their focus. Jon Snow is one of my heroes.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I've seen BBC stuff that's biased either way (or in totally other ways); and my own biases make me spot more right-bias than left-bias anyway. I think they are broadly OK, but could probably do better in parts. They are definately biased towards reporting UK news, and within that I think towards reporting things that happen in London.

I don't really think there is any one single unbiased source of news; I try to get news from a wide range of sources, especially on issues that interest me.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

I am unable to answer this question, as "right" and "left" have different meanings here, and also I don't experience enough BBC to know either way. :)

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

We have some news agencies in the US that do the same thing, which is unfortunate, because not every crackpot theory is on equal footing with valid/logical/scientific theories. Ideally, homeopathy, end-of-the-world, and vaccines-cause-autism (to name a few) would never see the light of a news day again.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Left / right is a little simplistic (but probably necessarily so for the purposes of your poll). The BBC Trust's own report into BBC bias concluded that the BBC was biased towards its own view of the world. I forget the exact details, but I think it was summed up by:

The Guardian is the best newspaper in the world. Why would anyone need to read anything else?

Young > old.

The European Union is A Good Thing and anyone who disagrees is clearly a nutter.

Global Warming is clearly happening, is clearly man-made and is clearly the most important threat to the world and therefore must be stopped at all cost...and anyone who disagrees is clearly a nutter.

Political correctness is A Good Thing and anyone who disagrees is clearly a nutter.

Multiculturalism is A Good Thing and anyone who disagrees is not just a nutter, but a racist nutter.

Unrestricted immigration is A Good Thing and anyone who disagrees is also a racist nutter.

People who live in rural areas are probably nutters.

Since older people are somewhat more likely to be small 'c' conservative, bias towards younger people's views can appear to be anti-conservative and this can be interpreted as being anti-(big 'C')Conservative.
Since most Eurosceptics are right-wing, pro-EU bias appears left-wing. Since many people who think that man-made global warming is not the best reason to endanger the global economy or increase the power of the state are right-wing, bias in favour of things like Kyoto appears left-wing.
Since opposition to political correctness is usually a sign of being right-wing, then bias in its favour appears left-wing.
Opposition to multiculturalism isn't really a right-wing / left-wing divider, but I'm pretty sure it was mentioned in the report. The same with immigration.
And there are generally more right-wing types than left-wing types in rural areas (and vice versa in urban areas), at least in England, so urban bias appears left-wing.

I generally agreed with that report. While I doubt that there are many people at the BBC who set out to bring down the 'evil Tory-led government', I can believe that a disproportionate number of people at the BBC:
prefer to read The Guardian or The Independent over the Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph
live in London
are below the age of 50
hold pro-EU views
take their understanding of environmental matters solely from George Monbiot



I think it's very difficult to get truly unbiased news. But as long as news media is honest about its affiliations, I don't see a problem. The problem with BBC news is that many people do think it is unbiased (or even has a right-wing bias according to some people answering your poll!), even when the Trust itself concedes that this might not be so.

Personally, I find Sky News to have rather less of an inherent opinion than BBC News which gives it the appearance at least of being less biased. This is somewhat ironic for a part of the Murdoch empire.

One final point. BBC News is a small part of BBC output. Bias may be more subtle. If say the subject of gay marriage is discussed in a scene in Eastenders and popular characters are in favour but the nasty characters are not, then that is arguably bias. Well, not just one scene, but if that were to happen throughout several episodes and several shows, then that would be bias.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think over the whole of its broad news and current affairs offering the BBC is the most unbiased news organisation I know.

I agree with the earlier comment that some of their reporters (and I presume editors) are clearly left or right leaning.

I like Channel 4 News very much. I think its main news bulletin less biased towards the establishment but I think it lacks the breadth of the BBC and the consequent ability of the BBC to delve into alien, fringe or minority positions if it wishes. There is for example no Channel 4 equivalent of From Our Own Correspondent that I’m aware of.

Overall I like the pro-active approach the BBC has to balance. I do agree sometimes they take this too far and / or fail to point out that minority positions have very little support.

I also like the FT for its “just the facts, ma’am” approach to the news. I get the impression that it would as accurately as possible report what had actually happened in, say Gaza, and then leave you, the reader, to decide if a) if the Israelis needed to stop being bastards, b) the Palestinians should stop doing shit, c) you could make a £1m going long on Christmas roses as Israeli exports will be cut off.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Thinking about this question I’m wondering if we tend to notice bias in the news that we don’t agree with much more than bias that we do agree with.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I think that's definitely true.

[andrewducker]

The people who think it has a right-wing bias are the ones who are upset about its handling of things like the disability benefit being cut, the Occupy demonstrations, and other anti-establishment movements. The BBC coverage of the Pope's visit to Scotland was very establishment (from my understanding) and managed to skim right over the demonstrations against it. They view this support of the establishment as being essentially right wing.

Or, at least, that's my understanding.

[andrewducker]

Also, some of them put New Labour on The Right as well...

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The BBC is biased towards drama, I think, though it seems a bit less so than it used to be.

It used to have a strong anti-Israel bias (I remember how exciting it was to hear the first story that was just Israelis doing stuff). At this point, Palestinians seems to have pretty much dropped off the radar, which I think is overdoing it.

I've heard that a lot of Al Jazeera is ex-BBC-- anyone know whether this is true? I've guessed that the shift at the BBC is the result of pro-Palestinian people not being there any more, but I don't know whether there's anything to this theory.

[khoth.livejournal.com]

We probably also define bias at least somewhat in terms of our own views. Someone on the left will see that the BBC reports more things to the right of Correct than to the left, and vice versa.

I'm not actually really sure what an unbiased source would be supposed to do. They can't (and shouldn't) report every possible view on everything ever, and refusing to judge and treating all views, however unsupported, equally just amounts to a systematic bias against reality.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

As others have said, I think it's more complicated than left/right bias. Politically speaking I'd say the BBC is probably centrist, maybe slightly left-leaning. I do however find them a little populist - they seem to tap into the popular view of a thing, and that's what gets reported as fact. Cf the Pope's visit demos being downplayed and a lot of the reporting on the riots being really dismissive of anyone who wanted to look beneath the surface damage to a deeper root cause.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I also am not sure what an unbiased source would look like.

The difficulty with reporting every possible view is as you say.

Some judgement is required and some filtering of importance, or else what are they adding to the process of finding out about the world.

For me there is also the difficulty with the difference between fact, interpretation, theory and opinion.

Tricky.

[xenophanean.livejournal.com]

I think that the BBC are inherently slightly left-leaning, however, in the current environment they feel the need to purposefully lean to the right for safety's sake. I think the BBC feel if they're currently seen to be even slightly left-leaning, they'll be torn apart and sold by the current government.

[xenophanean.livejournal.com]

And yeah, I know it's "Independent"

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

That was my point in my comment. As humans I don't think we are actually capable of being unbiased and therefore I don't see how anyone can report the news in a totally unbiased fashion. The trick is knowing and accounting for bias.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Yep. Reality has a well-known left bias.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

This, exactly. It's particularly disturbing when health issues are reported.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

I think the BBC stay pretty near the centre of wherever the Overton window is at the time, at least with regards to their news reportage. Along with that, there's a certain amount of unthinking small-l liberal bias (as opposed to Liberal bias - if anything they're biased against the Lib Dems, sadly) on social issues that affect the metropolitan middle classes.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I think that there are different kinds of bias, some worse than others.

The BBC, while they may be biased, tend to actually report most newsworthy stories. Some news outlets with a strong bias of one kind or another actually avoid reporting stories which don't fit the view of the world that they espouse.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

And similarly, unless you deliberate watch/read things in order to get annoyed (that's not meant to be snide - many people I know do this, they enjoy being able to have a rant at the TV or blog about whatever has irritated them), you're also more likely to consume news that fits your worldview. If you lean to the left, why would you get your news from a right wing paper?

The Myth of Objectivity

[0olong.livejournal.com]

I tend to point people who think there's such a thing as unbiased news reporting to this essay. I think the BBC tries harder than most British news outlets to be seen to be objective, and all things considered they do a fairly good job of it, but the 'objectivity objective' is inherently elusive, and sometimes actively unhelpful - as when it leads the news to give something like equal weight to perspectives on factual matters which are rightly dismissed by almost all experts in the field (this is a trap that much of the media has regularly fallen into on things like global warming, MMR & autism, and so on).

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Jon Snow is awesome isn't he. I love how he really tries to force politicians to answer the questions. In a much better way than Jeremy Paxman does it.

[thakil.livejournal.com]

I would agree with this. It tends to favour the govt of the day, or the approaching govt...

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I also agree with this.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

Unrestricted immigration is A Good Thing and anyone who disagrees is also a racist nutter.

I don't think I've ever seen a piece in favour of open immigration in any major UK news outlet. If the BBC has published such a piece, could you let me have links? It happens to be my own view, but I usually feel like I'm in a minority of one in any setting other than a gathering of Green Party supporters. I'd love to see more public support for it.

(If the BBC Trust report you were referring to is the rather curiously titled From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel: Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century (PDF), that says the BBC came late to the debate on increasing immigration restrictions, not that it supports their removal.)

[tobyaw]

The BBC, being a large, bureaucratic, tax-payer funded organisation, tends to do little to challenge large, bureaucratic, tax-payer funded solutions to any problem.

The BBC loves the the civil service, the Olympics, the NHS, the European union, state education, the lottery, universities, public transport, and arts funding. It consistently shows little understanding of small businesses, private education, euro-scepticism, the Tories, the countryside, and, for that matter, anyone and anywhere outside the M25.

I think this bias is innate and will never change, and is more to do with the organisation and history of the BBC than with politics, but because of the issues involved, it often appears as a leftish or centre-leftish political bias.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

That's also definitely true.

The reason for left-leaning types to get at least some of their news from a right-wing paper (and vice versa) is to get a balanced view. This shouldn't just be a balanced view on a particular issue, but also a balanced view on what issues are out there at the moment.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Sorry, yes - you've just made exactly the same point that I made above in replying to another of your comments! That'll teach me to reply without reading the whole thread...

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. You've added a motive to the behaviour I described above.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

That is the report, and looking at it again, you're absolutely right. The report does make the multiculturalism point in quite some detail, but not the unrestricted immigration point. My mistake.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

The BBC are first of all biased in their own interest, which equates to supporting the status quo and the continuation of the license fee.

I don't like them, but they're preferable to the alternatives.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

No worries. I was quite surprised to see that it's going on for four years old now - easy to forget details in that time.