Post by Teddy Bear on Sept 7, 2007 0:29:51 GMT
Today's Daily Express makes the following observation:
LEFT-WING BIAS THAT SHAMES THE BBC
Thursday September 6,2007
By Virginia Blackburn Have your say(1)
Just what is happening to the Today programme on Radio 4? While we are accustomed to the fact that the once great BBC is run by a clique of Lefties who came of age in the Sixties and haven’t had an original thought since, the Today programme stood out as one of the last bastions of unbiased integrity on the Beeb.
No more. Anyone listening recently might as well have been tuning in to Labour HQ, so much has it turned into the broadcasting wing of the government.
Is the Today programme biased towards the Left? Do bears have a particular fondness for the woods?
Take yesterday. A BBC political correspondent did a piece about David Cameron’s recent policy statements.
There was, as usual, all the rubbish about a “lurch to the Right,” but then, in one of the most tortuous analogies I’ve ever heard, this reporter compared recent Tory thinking to the song Let’s Do The Time Warp Again. Eh?
This song was a very funny part of a very funny Seventies film called The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but what it has to do with current Conservative thinking could be written on the head of a very small pin.
Today, in its galumphing way, was clearly trying to say that the Tories are dinosaurs who have not moved forward in the past 30 years, something that is grossly untrue but increasingly typical of what passes for reporting on the programme.
We’ve known that Today has a Left-wing bias ever since the ludicrous James Naughtie used the phrase “we” when talking to a government minister a few years ago.
But this is getting beyond a joke. The pathological hatred of all things Tory is marking the programme out.
Everyone knows society has become more violent over the past decade, that educational standards are slipping and that our hospitals are now places where you catch a disease rather than the reverse.
But I have lost count of the number of times a news item about yet another crisis has been modified with the unchallenged and usually untrue, “Of course, it was worse 10 years ago” (ie, when you-know-who were in power).
Oh yeah?
Not, it must be said, is it only the Conservatives who feel the full ire of Today.
But their other targets are also all closely linked to the Right. For some reason, Israel has become associated with Conservative thinking so it, too, is frequently attacked. Not that the BBC would admit it: it is still fighting to suppress a report that says its Middle East coverage is grossly unfair.
The same applies to Europe: the Tories are more eurosceptic than Labour, so guess which way the Today wind blows? Yup: it’s now under investigation for being so ludicrously pro-EU.
What is so tragic is the greatness being destroyed. My mother once witnessed a BBC correspondent being protected by crowds in Czechoslovakia when it was still in the Soviet bloc.
The BBC was probably the most respected media outlet in the world: “Let them know what’s going on here,” said one of that crowd. You can’t imagine that happening now.
Just about the last remaining element worth anything on Today is John Humphrys but even he said this week that BBC3 should be shut down to free more money for programmes like his.
Maybe he has a point but not for much longer. Today: RIP. Frankly, it’s getting too much for the rest of us to bear.
qKeira Knightley is beautiful. Why, then, did she wear to the premiere of Atonement a dress that highlighted the only bit of her not worth highlighting – her chest?
As for claims that the dress, left, made her look like a goddess – well, goddess, schmoddess.
A book came out recently called Gods Behaving Badly, all about Greek deities still alive but living in very straitened circumstances in North London. The story may become a film. Was Keira auditioning?
Thursday September 6,2007
By Virginia Blackburn Have your say(1)
Just what is happening to the Today programme on Radio 4? While we are accustomed to the fact that the once great BBC is run by a clique of Lefties who came of age in the Sixties and haven’t had an original thought since, the Today programme stood out as one of the last bastions of unbiased integrity on the Beeb.
No more. Anyone listening recently might as well have been tuning in to Labour HQ, so much has it turned into the broadcasting wing of the government.
Is the Today programme biased towards the Left? Do bears have a particular fondness for the woods?
Take yesterday. A BBC political correspondent did a piece about David Cameron’s recent policy statements.
There was, as usual, all the rubbish about a “lurch to the Right,” but then, in one of the most tortuous analogies I’ve ever heard, this reporter compared recent Tory thinking to the song Let’s Do The Time Warp Again. Eh?
This song was a very funny part of a very funny Seventies film called The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but what it has to do with current Conservative thinking could be written on the head of a very small pin.
Today, in its galumphing way, was clearly trying to say that the Tories are dinosaurs who have not moved forward in the past 30 years, something that is grossly untrue but increasingly typical of what passes for reporting on the programme.
We’ve known that Today has a Left-wing bias ever since the ludicrous James Naughtie used the phrase “we” when talking to a government minister a few years ago.
But this is getting beyond a joke. The pathological hatred of all things Tory is marking the programme out.
Everyone knows society has become more violent over the past decade, that educational standards are slipping and that our hospitals are now places where you catch a disease rather than the reverse.
But I have lost count of the number of times a news item about yet another crisis has been modified with the unchallenged and usually untrue, “Of course, it was worse 10 years ago” (ie, when you-know-who were in power).
Oh yeah?
Not, it must be said, is it only the Conservatives who feel the full ire of Today.
But their other targets are also all closely linked to the Right. For some reason, Israel has become associated with Conservative thinking so it, too, is frequently attacked. Not that the BBC would admit it: it is still fighting to suppress a report that says its Middle East coverage is grossly unfair.
The same applies to Europe: the Tories are more eurosceptic than Labour, so guess which way the Today wind blows? Yup: it’s now under investigation for being so ludicrously pro-EU.
What is so tragic is the greatness being destroyed. My mother once witnessed a BBC correspondent being protected by crowds in Czechoslovakia when it was still in the Soviet bloc.
The BBC was probably the most respected media outlet in the world: “Let them know what’s going on here,” said one of that crowd. You can’t imagine that happening now.
Just about the last remaining element worth anything on Today is John Humphrys but even he said this week that BBC3 should be shut down to free more money for programmes like his.
Maybe he has a point but not for much longer. Today: RIP. Frankly, it’s getting too much for the rest of us to bear.
qKeira Knightley is beautiful. Why, then, did she wear to the premiere of Atonement a dress that highlighted the only bit of her not worth highlighting – her chest?
As for claims that the dress, left, made her look like a goddess – well, goddess, schmoddess.
A book came out recently called Gods Behaving Badly, all about Greek deities still alive but living in very straitened circumstances in North London. The story may become a film. Was Keira auditioning?
