Aug 25 2007
The BBC takes a justified pounding
Jeremy Paxman was in fine form when he rounded on BBC top executives for being unable to make their very large budget stretch to provide enough good programmes, and for failing to control phone in activities. He portrayed the Licence fee as a relic of the 1950s, and memorably said it was like taxing everyone with a washing machine to pay for the provision of one brand of washing powder.
Peter Oborne was also in good voice on Any Questions? Jonathan Dimbleby sounded shocked and surprised that anyone could think the BBC had a strong pro federalist bias on EU matters. Most of us think Peter was just expounding a fact. Research has shown that on news and news comment programmes pro federalists get more time, more speakers, and are interrupted less often. They are usually introduced with neutral or positive descrptions. We Eurosceptics are interviewed less often, with more interruptions and are usually introduced with a negative phrase.
I remember the height of absurdity when John Stevens decided to run in a European election as a pro Euro Conservative. Only the BBC swallowed his propoganda that he was as popular as the Eurosceptic Conservatives, and gave him air time to set out his silly stall. If I remember rightly, he ended up with 1% of the vote for his party, whilst the official Conservatives on an anti Euro platform ended up with 38%, and topped the poll comfortably.
Only yesterday we heard the bias again when the Today programme dismissed an honourable and interesting group of Labour MPs for daring to suggest a proper renegotiation at the IGC. The BBC clearly could not be bothered to research the true legal position concerning Treaty change and did not think it important that the government has broken its word on offering a referendum. Unfortunately for the BBC 80% of the public including many Labour voters and four leading Trade Unions do think it matters.
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
This is not the first time Jonathan Dimbleby has gone into attack mode when BBC bias is mentioned on Question Time.
In the last but one episode the Conservative person mentioned the “position of the BBC” to which JD started a hectoring attack for examples etc. Unfortunately the person ignominiously folded and backed off.
In the last Question Time in Liverpool I have to admit I have never heard an audience like it. They clapped at almost everything said but far more so for government supporters, so one had a feeling that the BBC had “papered the walls” - if this could be shown to be true imagine what a scandel this could cause?
It is about time JD let go to another person like Eddie Mair who filled the post admirably on his last showing.
The Conservative Party should pro-actively address the BBC bias by training its politicians in nuance etc and to advise them as to how to positively attack BBC bias on interviews for both Radio (4 especially) and TV.
I believe you would be surprised at how much support you would get by doing this.
Colin.
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The BBC has in effect become a decadent body. The way it can casually lavish an 18 million pound contract on Jonothan Ross is proof that the more revenue it has the more it wastes. There is no financial accountability at the BBC. Political coverage at the BBC lacks objectivity. There is bias in domestic and foreign reorting, particularly in relation to events in the middle-east. The BBC likes to present itself as being at the heart of quality broadcasting. However this is a myth. How often do we see Opera, Ballet, and quality arts programmes on the BBC? What we get instead is dumb-down trash where the general public are left to entertain the general public in base holiday camp style talent shows. The case for the privatization of the BBC has never been stronger. The TV tax licence fee cannot be justified. The time has come to wave goodbye to the wasteful BBC.
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Tony, the privately-owned digital TV channels we get in this country tend are dumb-downed. Compare for instance the documentary output of the History channel and Discovery to that of the BBC. The quality of the latter and its ability to provoke comment is greater in every way.
If the BBC is privatised, the quality will suffer. The last thing British broadcasting needs is another ITV.
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