[Oldmanmatt]

Yeah cos UKB is really diverse.

Does it need to be?

Of course, there’s quite a few varied professions represented in the posters and most regions of the UK and several overseas posters (both UK nationals and others), so it’s not entirely unrepresentative.

I’d wager it’s fairly representative of that part of the population that avidly consumes current affairs and “news”, other than celebrity gossip and simple headline reading.

[Offwidth]

I don't agree with that. I think arguments around political bias deflect from the main role of the so called 4th estate: to hold governments and other important bodies to account; that means whoever is in power should get much tougher scrutiny than the opposiion. A public funded broadcaster should be front and centre in this and protected from political interference by statute. The BBC is very much in decline in this respect and has been for a long time, in operational focus, and governance and is facing terrible prospects for future finance. Right now it gives way too easy a ride for Boris and co who are hardly hiding they are the most incompetent and dishonest and one-sided 'tory' government in modern history. The best bits of the BBC news (there are still many) are in some of the least watched/listened parts of it. I consume a lot of BBC output especially BBC news(all formats), BBC1, 2 & 4, R4, R6; and do this live, recorded, and on the website, Sounds and I player.

I think the OP is behaving like a wasp but the discussion is useful.

[T_B]

Matt - You asked for a straw poll of media consumption on a discussion forum with one woman (big up Naomi), dominated by white professional men mostly aged 30 - 60. It’s not exactly representative of the general population is it?

Anyway, as a white professional man aged 45 I’m more concerned that Rock Climbing can be recorded as an activity on Strava. I don’t have a BBC licence and I try and keep away from Twitter. Anything owned by Zuckerberg I’m on the other side of and it makes me squeamish. But you’ve gotta put food on the table somehow.

[Durbs]

One thing that stands out for me is the use of "intellectual" as a reason to be against something.

Anti-liberal/right/socialist whatever makes sense to me, but what platform is "anti-intellectual"? Isn't that literally the "alternative facts", populist, opinion bullshit that news shouldn't be?

I fully support having opinion pieces, and bias in newspapers is understandable - but isn't anti-intellectual pretty much saying "keep the people uneducated and pliable"?

[Ru]

Matt - You asked for a straw poll of media consumption on a discussion forum with one woman (big up Naomi), dominated by white professional men mostly aged 30 - 60. It’s not exactly representative of the general population is it?

Whilst I completely understand what you mean, it's also not wholly unrepresentative either. The average age in the uk is mid 40s and 86% of the population is ethnically white. The site does lack female representation, that's a fair criticism. The average income of the site probably fits quite well with the national average. I'd guess the level of education on the site is higher than the national average, but then I'd also guess that most regular consumers of news also have a higher than average level of education. So apart from the male/female irregularity the site probably represents the majority consumer of UK news quite well, even if it fails to represent the complete cross section.

[Loos3-tools]

Who's anti intellectual?

[Oldmanmatt]

Who's anti intellectual?

My Mum’s cousin, on her father’s side. Likes knitting and watches ‘Countdown” religiously. Votes UKIP.
Not really an Auntie, not sure what you’d call her, Great Aunt? Second Cousin? Nosy old bat?
Never sure how that works.

[TobyD]

I don't agree with that. I think arguments around political bias deflect from the main role of the so called 4th estate: to hold governments and other important bodies to account; that means whoever is in power should get much tougher scrutiny than the opposiion. A public funded broadcaster should be front and centre in this and protected from political interference by statute. The BBC is very much in decline in this respect and has been for a long time, in operational focus, and governance and is facing terrible prospects for future finance. Right now it gives way too easy a ride for Boris and co who are hardly hiding they are the most incompetent and dishonest and one-sided 'tory' government in modern history. The best bits of the BBC news (there are still many) are in some of the least watched/listened parts of it. I consume a lot of BBC output especially BBC news(all formats), BBC1, 2 & 4, R4, R6; and do this live, recorded, and on the website, Sounds and I player.

I think the OP is behaving like a wasp but the discussion is useful.

I see where you're coming from, but your comments about the government more or less seem a little too close to 'it doesn't agree with me'. However, I would say that they haven't always questioned the government in their most prominent news reporting, but that robust criticism is there if you look a little deeper. Programming like more or less, the briefing room, panorama, Newsnight have all investigated and criticised the government's performance in different ways.

Other things that the BBC does well - niche music is amazing. R2, R6, R1 later in the day....
Drama like Line of Duty, educational programs...

[Ru]

Who's anti intellectual?

See the last sentence of the quote from the video you posted in your third post in this thread. You quote the video as it refers to an "arrogant, intellectual, liberal left elite."

Also: Pol Pot.

[Oldmanmatt]

Who's anti intellectual?

See the last sentence of the quote from the video you posted in your third post in this thread.

In the interests of balance and acknowledging progress in the debate.
This raises the very clear issue, that Dan has modified his worldview in response to reasoned debate.

Early in the debate it was the “Liberal-left-intellectual-elite”, now “left and right don’t matter “, leaving us with only “Liberal”, “Intellectual” and “Elite”.
Had a quick peek at the dictionary (OED, not Urban), not entirely sure which of these is the derogatory term?
Dan?

[ali k]

I would say that they haven't always questioned the government in their most prominent news reporting, but that robust criticism is there if you look a little deeper. Programming like more or less, the briefing room, panorama, Newsnight have all investigated and criticised the government's performance in different ways.

The cynic in me would suggest the above is a way to deflect any criticism of bias in the organisation, by having something to point at to show they're capable of questioning the government line. You shouldn't have to rely on niche programmes like the ones you list to find robust criticism. And how often do the most watched/viewed BBC news channels/pages refer back to these programmes in any meaningful way to give them any prominence?

[spidermonkey09]

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2021/02/bbc-and-battle-truth

I thought this was a very good recent piece on the topic.

I agree with both Toby and Ali. When viewed as a whole, the BBC is broadly fair and balanced. When viewed primarily through its popular news and politics shows I think it shows an excessive willingness to brief the government approved line as 'news' instead of properly investigating whether that line is true. I think this probably feels worse than it is after 10 years of Conservative government as the media landscape has changed so dramatically since the last Labour government we don't have anything to compare it to; eg Kuenssberg and Nick Robinson didn't have Twitter when Blair was PM.

An excellent recent example of this was the Philip Rutnam/ Home Office settlement. The story here was pretty clearly that the government had settled and paid off Rutnam. Kuenssberg's tweets explicitly centred the government line that they had not admitted liability: https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1367493740869406722. I appreciate not everyone here uses Twitter but it can't be denied the platform is arguably the most powerful media entity currently, so what reporters say on there is hugely important, much more so than what is said on the 6 or 10pm news.

[teestub]

I guess to some extent we have the Blair government and Campbell to blame for popularising spin and being ‘on message’ too. I’m not really old enough to remember, but it seems that before that era, you could actually get answers out of a politician put up for interview, rather than having them come on and repeat whatever the correct line is, no matter what the question.

I had to stop listening to Today as this became increasingly more widespread and frustrating. You could tell when Humphrys knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of a guest and would just start asking more extreme questions to try and get them off script.

[JamieG]

Other things that the BBC does well - niche music is amazing. R2, R6, R1 later in the day....
Drama like Line of Duty, educational programs...

Definitely. Radio 2 in the evening has some great shows. I like both Sarah Cox and Jo Wiley's shows (but they aren't really niche). The real standouts are Cerys Mathew's Blues Show, Bob Harris' Country Show and Liza Tarbuck's random assortment of blues/rock/pop etc. Fab.

[sdm]

When viewed as a whole, the BBC is broadly fair and balanced. When viewed primarily through its popular news and politics shows I think it shows an excessive willingness to brief the government approved line as 'news' instead of properly investigating whether that line is true.

If the second point is true, I think this invalidates the first point. When the majority of the popular news programs (including the rolling news soundbites across their entire radio network) and political shows are not fair and balanced, the BBC as a whole cannot be fair and balanced.

A few niche shows that most people have little exposure to cannot redress the bias of the majority of their popular content.

[ali k]

When the majority of the popular news programs (including the rolling news soundbites across their entire radio network) and political shows are not fair and balanced, the BBC as a whole cannot be fair and balanced.

Yep, this was my point. I completely stopped listening to R4 fairly recently, having had it on in the background driving or cooking or waking up to Today programme etc for years. Now I just listen to 6 Music to try and avoid the news but you still get a bit every hour squeezed into about 30 seconds in a Newsround stylee and it's basically just a list of the goverment lines for the day. 6 Music is fairly niche but I bet it's the same on R1 and R2 where the majority of BBC listeners are.

[slab_happy]

You asked for a straw poll of media consumption on a discussion forum with one woman (big up Naomi)

*coughs*

Not that it alters the basic point about the demographic skews of UKB.

But assuming that everyone on the internet is male unless otherwise specified is also its own kind of problem.

[spidermonkey09]

Yeah, fair point. I don't think BBC News per se is inherently biased towards the Tories though, I think they probably have a pro-government line whoever happens to be in charge. It will be interesting to see if that is true if the Tories ever lose an election again!

[Loos3-tools]

Who's anti intellectual?

See the last sentence of the quote from the video you posted in your third post in this thread. You quote the video as it refers to an "arrogant, intellectual, liberal left elite."

Also: Pol Pot.

I didn't read it as anti intellectual, more anti the monopoly of a specific group of people whose background, ideals / values / goals and world view etc are placed above and at the expense of all others. The occasional visible exception to that being reminiscent of a public body staff consultation prior to change of work policy. A face value tick box exercise. Yeah I found myself fantasising this morning about how 'Maggie' would have handled this. 

Nb Barrows I know I’m not very clever and have the evidence to prove it 😖

[ali k]

It will be interesting to see if that is true if the Tories ever lose an election again!

Guess we'll never know then 

[abarro81]

When viewed as a whole, the BBC is broadly fair and balanced. When viewed primarily through its popular news and politics shows I think it shows an excessive willingness to brief the government approved line as 'news' instead of properly investigating whether that line is true.

I started writing a response to earlier posts, but this sums up my overall view better than what I was writing... having said that...  RE sdm's point, I see where you're coming from, I guess it might average out nicely in a raw way but not when weighted for viewers/listeners. So you're probably right from a global viewpoint but it's easy for people like me to trick myself a bit by listening to the right selection of progs! I guess that's also maybe why it manages to attract the ire of both sides

I had to stop listening to Today

I listen to Today much less now too, though I still like PM, which somehow seems more inquisitive, even though it basically goes over the same stuff. Maybe Evan Davis is just good at tricking me

Okay, there are 4 points here:

What is the corona narrative
...

Don't hold your breath for a sensible reply. Dan's lack of ability to answer straight questions makes me wonder if he's in training for a ministerial role. Or perhaps a role at his beloved BBC, his propensity to get sucked in to spouting a certain narrative without questioning, reasoning or explanation makes the Today presenters that he so hates look like paragons of virtue in this regard.

[Somebody's Fool]

The criticism the BBC gets from the right basically amount to saying that people with left views are sometimes allowed a platform, and that some of the staff have liberal views.

The criticism the BBC gets from the left is based on actual incidents ranging from breaking electoral law, doctoring footage, lying, general unprofessionalism from its political journalists and a catalogue of editorial 'errors' which coincidentally all fall in the favour of one political party.

Are we to believe these are somehow equivalent?

[mrjonathanr]

Just as the corona narrative is starting to look on shaky ground they ramp up the behavioural nudges or deflect with identity politics.

Okay, there are 4 points here:

What is the corona narrative
What is the recent counter evidence
Identify the increased behavioural nudges
How is the BBC increasingly using identity politics to distract viewers

I am not clear what they are. Please can you unpack this for me?

Will you answer this Mr Tools?

[NaoB]

You asked for a straw poll of media consumption on a discussion forum with one woman (big up Naomi)

*coughs*

Not that it alters the basic point about the demographic skews of UKB.

But assuming that everyone on the internet is male unless otherwise specified is also its own kind of problem.

Word up sister.

I reckon plenty of women read these forums but can't be bothered to post (or am I projecting....?).

My tuppence worth: if you've ever read anything about yourself or stuff you know lots about in the media, it teaches you that they all talk nonsense and that you should take everything with a pinch of salt. So I just get the gist of what the BBC report and take it as a rough indication of what is really going on. It looks like they are doing at least a half decent job from where I'm stood, although I do not have a BBC license cos life's too busy to make the most of it. I rate radio 6 most of the time though.

[abarro81]

if you've ever read anything about yourself or stuff you know lots about in the media, it teaches you that they all talk nonsense and that you should take everything with a pinch of salt.

Ha, yeah, there were a few news reports on some of the work my group did when I was doing a PhD and anything in the non-specialist media was total bollocks.