Post by Teddy Bear on Sept 13, 2015 17:48:37 GMT
The eminent Christopher Booker at the Telegraph shares his view.
BBC bias, yesterday, Today, and tomorrow...
An exchange on the flagship morning radio show revealed the corporation's true colours
Quite a talking point on Tuesday (among those awake early enough to hear it) was a weird interview on the Today programme between Jim Naughtie and chairman of the Commons Public Administration Committee Bernard Jenkin, one of 37 Tory MPs who had just helped defeat the Government’s attempt to set aside the normal “purdah” rules during the promised EU referendum campaign.
Jenkin tried to explain that this vote, supported by MPs of all parties, was simply a bid by Parliament to get the Government to obey the rules. But Naughtie only wanted to play up the idea of “Tory rebels” discomfiting the prime minister. As Jenkin calmly proceeded, Naughtie began making those familiar impatient little noises, with interjections of “oh” and “look”, which show that an interview is not going the way he wants. Then Jenkin committed the unforgivable sin of referring to the way BBC coverage of matters EU is so biased.
When he mentioned its long familiar habit of wheeling on Europhile spokesmen to agree with the BBC’s party-line, as it so relentlessly did during the campaign for Britain to join the euro, Naughtie exploded “can I just tell you that is simply not true”. When Jenkin again referred to the BBC’s “cultural bias”, Naughtie groaned “oh, for goodness sake, this really is tedious”.
I recalled the time back in 2000 when I presented the BBC with five fully-documented examples of how it had led the news with claims that some major international company, such as Nissan or Toyota, had threatened that, unless we joined the euro, they would pull out of Britain. In each case, the company trenchantly denied that it had said anything of the kind. But when I asked the BBC why it had not reported any of these denials, it merely replied that “BBC News is not biased. Our coverage of the euro-debate is balanced, fair and accurate”, while ignoring my question.
The real point, as I have observed here before, is that, on a whole range of issues, from the EU to climate change, the BBC is so lost in its own groupthink that it simply does not recognise just how biased it is. And the point about people who have become caught up in groupthink is that, whenever anyone dares question it, they can only respond with a flood of angry intolerance – as Mr Naughtie again so neatly demonstrated last week.
An exchange on the flagship morning radio show revealed the corporation's true colours
Quite a talking point on Tuesday (among those awake early enough to hear it) was a weird interview on the Today programme between Jim Naughtie and chairman of the Commons Public Administration Committee Bernard Jenkin, one of 37 Tory MPs who had just helped defeat the Government’s attempt to set aside the normal “purdah” rules during the promised EU referendum campaign.
On a whole range of issues, from the EU to climate change, the BBC is so lost in its own groupthink that it simply does not recognise just how biased it is
When he mentioned its long familiar habit of wheeling on Europhile spokesmen to agree with the BBC’s party-line, as it so relentlessly did during the campaign for Britain to join the euro, Naughtie exploded “can I just tell you that is simply not true”. When Jenkin again referred to the BBC’s “cultural bias”, Naughtie groaned “oh, for goodness sake, this really is tedious”.
I recalled the time back in 2000 when I presented the BBC with five fully-documented examples of how it had led the news with claims that some major international company, such as Nissan or Toyota, had threatened that, unless we joined the euro, they would pull out of Britain. In each case, the company trenchantly denied that it had said anything of the kind. But when I asked the BBC why it had not reported any of these denials, it merely replied that “BBC News is not biased. Our coverage of the euro-debate is balanced, fair and accurate”, while ignoring my question.
The real point, as I have observed here before, is that, on a whole range of issues, from the EU to climate change, the BBC is so lost in its own groupthink that it simply does not recognise just how biased it is. And the point about people who have become caught up in groupthink is that, whenever anyone dares question it, they can only respond with a flood of angry intolerance – as Mr Naughtie again so neatly demonstrated last week.