The Biased Broadcasting Corporation

[markavfc40]

13 hours ago, bickster said:

I could have put it in the Tory topic but I think it fits here better

 

The thing that is even sadder than the interviewers response is that she is sadly right. Certainly enough people don't care.

The Tories have spent the last 11 years pushing the boundaries to what is acceptable, really ramping it up in the last couple of years, and now Tory politicians, backed up by right wing media turning a blind eye, can pretty much get away with anything.

[bickster]

57 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

The thing that is even sadder than the interviewers response is that she is sadly right. Certainly enough people don't care.

Yes true but has that ever been different? I don't honestly think it has. Public opinion seems to be swayed by the repetition of key words rather than looking at the facts of the matter and if this rumbles on, it will knock little chunks out of the opinion polls lead.

It also requires Starmer to step up to the plate now he has something to get his teeth into.

[markavfc40]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

 

It also requires Starmer to step up to the plate now he has something to get his teeth into.

In fairness he had one of his best PMQ's recently getting his teeth into the Greensill issue. If he can't gain ground out of what is going on now then he never will. 

Edited April 25, 2021 by markavfc40

[bickster]

1 minute ago, markavfc40 said:

In fairness he had one of his best PMQ's recently getting his teeth into the Greensill issue. If he can't gain ground out of what is going on now then he never will. 

Yes, these situations are made for his inner lawyer

[Seat68]

Someone has made a phonecall. 

 

[Delphinho123]

I must admit, I do find the BBC incredibly biased and inaccurate with some of the stuff they report. I try to steer clear of this Trumpian ‘Fake News’ rhetoric but just look at the way they’ve ignored (correct me if I’m wrong) the protests at the weekend. Roughly 300k protestors bringing central London to a standstill, our capital, and their isn’t a news story about it. Now, if this was a BLM protest/march, they’d have several articles about it, videos on their YouTube channel etc. 

Im not saying whether protesting is the right/wrong thing and certainly not commenting on the purpose of each protest but I do find it odd it’s been overlooked. 

[Davkaus]

Don't fund this corrupt institution. 

[chrisp65]

It’s classic really.

It’s being turned to shit so people will not miss it when it’s gone.

Where its at at the moment is pretty much win win for the tory scum.

 

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Don't fund this corrupt institution. 

The Tories want you to think like this

[Davkaus]

6 minutes ago, bickster said:

The Tories want you to think like this

They do, but it's too late, the organisation is rotten, and I'm not sure its salvagable anymore. 

[bickster]

Just now, Davkaus said:

They do, but it's too late, the organisation is rotten, and I'm not sure its salvagable anymore. 

Of course it is. It only requires a change in the governors.

[ml1dch]

Just another one of the bad guys getting their hands on a lever of power.

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

Thank God there will finally be someone in the media willing to discuss the presumed beliefs of the under-discussed 'red wall voter'.

Edited April 29, 2021 by HanoiVillan

[HanoiVillan]

So . . . Laura K's article (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56624437) on Boris Johnson's relationship with the truth. It's getting pelters, and I think sometimes there's an understandable impulse to think that when someone is getting yelled at from every angle, that it must be a bit unfair.

But people should resist that temptation, because her work is really Very Bad Indeed, in a very corrupting way.

To demonstrate, I have quoted here every time she refers to someone she spoke to, for this article or otherwise. This section is very long so I've put it in the spoiler tags, but you don't actually need to read all of this - I've just quoted the extracts to prove a point - but see if you can spot a trend in these:

Spoiler

 

Boris Johnson: What is the PM's relationship with the truth?

'[...]

Only one senior politician still in the game has ever privately told me something that was utterly, entirely, and completely untrue. It was proved publicly to be a lie a few days later.

[...]

It is not the first time in Boris Johnson's long career that he has faced questions about his conduct and character. But the stakes are so much higher now. His unique way of running things - and sometimes chaotic approach to decision-making - has, sources tell me, led exasperated colleagues in No 10 to nickname him "Trolley".

"You think you are pushing it along a path towards your goal then suddenly it veers off disastrously," says one insider.

If anyone wanted to submit accurate Freedom of Information requests on government WhatsApp messages, "you'd have to include the trolley emoji", adds my source. No 10 declined to comment on the name.

[...]

Some of his allies cite this desire to argue things backwards and forwards before reaching a decision as a strength, saying: "He challenges organisations and conventional wisdom."

Others have a more straightforward explanation.

"He is just sometimes unable to face the truth because he doesn't like making hard decisions," says one insider. Another says: "You are never sure what the real truth of a situation is." Others say it is hard to get clarity and a sense of purpose, or that it is "hard to work out where his motives begin and end".

[...]

First, the benign interpretation of how the PM operates. One insider who knows him well says it is simply "unfair and easy to cry 'liar', as the opposition has done".

"He's far more complex and strategic and people don't give him credit for how calculating and clever he is."

Another source told me Mr Johnson has a "genuinely selective memory" and that "'I choose to remember certain things or not remember others'" is his default way of dealing with the pressures of life at No 10.

[...]

One source told me that is why, right now, life in No 10 is bound to be tense and difficult.

"Part of the problem is that these two things, his personal relationships and his financial situation are colliding. He'll be finding it very difficult, and people trying to advise him will also find that hard."

But is he not telling the truth?

This particular source believes that the PM may try to evade questions about matters of the home and heart, but not on political issues.

"To a degree every politician has to go out and say things they don't always agree with. He is a professional and he does that."

[...]

An insider told me: "He frequently leaves people with the belief that he has told them one thing, but he has given himself room for manoeuvre," believing that, "the fewer cast iron positions you hold the better, because you can always change political direction."

[...]

"A lot of his magic has been those off-the-cuff comments, that's why a lot of the public like him," says an ally.

[...]

But another told me it has developed into a way of shrouding what's really going on.

"I think he is an extremely shrewd and calculating character that hides it all under the costume of a performer," says this source.

One Brexiteer even suggests his mannerisms encourage others to be complicit: "It's like a comedian, you are willing him on, you want it to be plausible" - even if, according to them, it simply isn't.

That's where his personal style, according to others, tips into something much less appealing. A former minister, once close to him, told me: "The problem is that it's becoming clearer that the PM treats facts like he treats all his relationships - utterly disposable once inconvenient.

"It's all about power. Facts, policies, people - they all get ditched if they get in the way. Whatever is necessary."

[...]

One former colleague compares him to the late Steve Jobs, the hard-driving founder of tech giant Apple. Jobs was said to have a "reality distortion field", described by his biographer as a "confounding melange of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand".

[...]

Mr Johnson's former colleague told me: "Is there wilful lying? I would struggle to point to a direct example. Does he recreate the truth to suit him? Yes."

This source, and several others, told me the prime minister has a "deep dislike of being accused of lying". Several sources have even suggested that during the 2016 Brexit campaign he was nervous about the now infamous promise, plastered on the side of his battle bus, to spend the £350m a week the UK sends to the EU "to fund the NHS instead".

[...]

Mr Johnson was all about "images, emotions, he didn't want to be pinned down to a number", says my source.

[...]

A veteran Brexiteer told me: "Boris is not one of us, but we put him there - and that is a truth he is never going to want to confront."

[...]

I've been told on more occasions than I can count that Boris Johnson trusts hardly anyone, and suspects almost everyone. As one source describes it, he "behaves in such a way that people eventually tire of him, feel let down, and behave in the way he feared they would". The breakdown in his relationship with his former adviser Dominic Cummings is spectacular evidence of that.'

from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56624437

 

 

I'm sure you spotted it already, but by my count she has referred to having been told things by people more than 20 times there, and not one single source is named.

Here is the introduction to the BBC's editorial guidelines on granting anonymity to sources:

'Granting anonymity is not ideal for programme makers or for our audiences.  Sources and contributors should speak on the record whenever practicable and their identities and credentials made known to the audience so that they can judge the source’s credibility, reliability and whether or not they are in a position to have sufficient knowledge of the subject or events.  It should also be remembered that the methods by which we disguise identities can sometimes compromise the content we publish visually and/or aurally through blurring the image or distorting the sound, for example.

There are, however, occasions where the reporting of a story or securing a contribution depends upon using a source or contributor who wishes to remain anonymous.  The decision to grant anonymity should be taken with great care.  The programme maker must consider why the person wishes to remain anonymous. Do they have something to hide beyond their identity?

When it is not self-evident to the audience we should explain to them the reasons why the production granted anonymity to a source.  The strongest rationale for granting anonymity is simply to protect the contributor from illegitimate retaliation, harassment or undesirable consequences for providing information.'

from: https://www.bbc.com/editorialguidelines/guidance/anonymity

If you were writing a column on whether Boris Johnson tells the truth, would you:

a] ask a lot of unnamed advisors, colleagues, insiders and friends familiar with the matter, and put what they say in quotation marks without giving the reader any chance to evaluate them, or would you

b] compare what Boris Johnson has said and done to the historical record, to see if he was telling the truth?

I don't many people would answer a], so why is that what Kuennsberg has done? What does that say about her journalism?

Edited May 2, 2021 by HanoiVillan

[bickster]

To be perfectly honest, I gave up after the first one. IF only one politician has ever told her a lie that she spotted then she really is in the wrong job

[Davkaus]

Well, that's just like, your opinion, HanoiVillain. To provide some balance, I'm tagging in our reputable investigative journalist from the other thread.

https://vote-watch.com/2021/05/02/laura-kuenssberg-is-brazenly-breaking-bbc-impartiality-rules-and-shes-using-your-cash-to-do-it1/

I can just imagine the author getting redder and redder in the face, and the keyboard becoming more and more coated in spittle as he angrily pounds out each paragraph, until the satisfying climax that'll have the BBC quaking in its boots.

Quote

 

Another journalist who seems to have forgotten her duty to provide facts rather than propagandist opinions, is Laura Kuenssberg, Political Editor of BBC News.

Kuenssberg’s convenient memory loss with regards to rules of impartiality has become so frequent in fact that one can only assume – if not in the early stages of Alzheimer’s – that her actions can be blamed not on ‘forgetfulness’, but on a complete disregard for impartiality altogether.

Accused over the years by the left-wing and the right of pumping-out politically-biased articles and news reports, the daughter of a former Labour party donor has, over the past fortnight, converted her Twitter account into what appears to be a never-ending soft furnishings catalogue – retweeting the posts of every anti-Boris journalist with a wallpaper fetish she can find.

The fact that VoteLeave was not a party-affiliated campaign group, and that the slogan was a suggestion rather than a ‘promise’, was of little relevance to her as she scrawled-out her attack on Boris Johnson.

And, just in case she didn’t feel that she’d broken impartiality rules enough, she polished it all off with a closing statement, claiming that Johnson sought to be popular rather than honest, and writing:

“To use one of his tactics, quoting the classics, the Greek philosopher Plato said: “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”

VoteWatch has registered a complaint with the BBC over such clear breaches of impartiality, and, if not resolved, will escalate the complaint to OFCOM.

 

Sources close to me have suggested that OFCOM are on high alert. 

[bickster]

Talking of the BBC and politics... now this one may be tenuous at best but is an example of the really stupid shit they do.

Yesterday on my Spotify, a new release by Nina Somone popped up for me, it's a single promoting a forthcoming live album. It's Nina singing "Little Girl Blue pts 1 and 2", it starts with Nina saying.... "They thought I'd given up with being political...." and essentially says anyone who thought that is an idiot but it clearly says the song is political (no shit!) sooooo

Listening toi Cerys on 6 whilst I was washing up, on comes the song but without the small monologue at the start. It's just idiotic, like the people she refers to in the bit they skipped, you'd have to be some sort of moron not to realise the song was political but you can't announce it on the BBC, good god no.

[blandy]

14 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

If you were writing a column on whether Boris Johnson tells the truth, would you:

a] ask a lot of unnamed advisors, colleagues, insiders and friends familiar with the matter, and put what they say in quotation marks without giving the reader any chance to evaluate them, or would you

b] compare what Boris Johnson has said and done to the historical record, to see if he was telling the truth?

I don't many people would answer a], so why is that what Kuennsberg has done? What does that say about her journalism?

I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. The BBC also has requirements around balance. That article is balanced, putting the charges and then covering some context and reasoning and defensive comments and leaving the reader to look at the overall picture. The BBC is basically not permitted to single out Johnson for a hatchet job based around current issues (decorating, bodies pile high) at their current state of development. If/when proof of lying about the comments, or the funding are brought into the daylight, then they will be able to go further.

Where I agree with you is that she could have gone further and noted that Johnson is an historically proven liar and cheat and woven that into the context, but then again Maitliss was rebuked for the piece to Camera she did on Cummins and lying. These journalists have bosses and editors. I think you’re picking the wrong target/tree here. It’s those bosses that cause instances of fair and accurate comment to be blocked or toned down, not the journalists. And the rules on sources for broadcast programmes are not really the right thing to quote when referencing political analysis articles, IMO.

[chrisp65]

Nobody is singling out Johnson for a hatchet job. The BBC is giving Johnson a perpetual easy ride because he’s a cheeky chappy with a different understanding of truth to us mere mortals. Good grief.

The very problem is the warped sense of ‘balance’. Balance has replaced journalism. This type of balance is where the BBC reports that some people think burning tyres might be bad for our health, others don’t. That’s not balance, that’s giving idiots and criminals equal billing with fact and honesty.

If I was a journalist and I couldn’t find instances of Johnson being a liar, I’d hope my bosses would get rid of me.

If I found those instances and my bosses stopped me reporting them straight, I really hope I’d leave such a corrupt organisation.

The rules the BBC set out for themselves are exactly what should be quoted when judging the BBC. 

I can see that without the BBC the game is up. But I can also see that right now, I’m not sure what the BBC is for. It’s certainly not working in my interest, and its not working from a position of absolute neutrality. Which leaves only one other option.

 

[bickster]

Peter Stefanowic (Sp?) has a video with over 12 million views that he posts to the BBC every day of Johnson lying at the dispatch box. It really isn't hard to find examples. Its actually harder to find examples of him not telling lies