The BBC's champagne socialists

In an unguarded moment the BBC Radio Five Live's Jane Garvey remembers how the BBC greeted Labour's 1997 victory with champagne.  Listen here.  And courtesy of Biased BBC, here is the transcript:

"Ah, well - I had been up for most of the night but I was doing this Five Live breakfast programme with our colleague at the time - it was a bloke called Peter Allen so - I had to get a bit of sleep, and I do remember I walked back into - we were broadcasting then from Broadcasting House in the centre of London - all very upmarket in those days - and the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles - I will always remember that (Allen laughs) - er - not that the BBC were celebrating in any way shape or form (Allen, laughing - 'no, no, no, not at all') - and actually - I think it's fair to say that in the intervening years the BBC, if it was ever in love with Labour has probably fallen out of love with Labour, or learned to fall back in, or basically just learned to be in the middle somewhere which is how it should be - um - but there was always this suggestion that the BBC was full of pinkoes who couldn't wait for Labour to get back into power - that may have been the case, who knows ? but as I say I think there've been a few problems along the way - wish I hadn't started this now..."

And we shouldn't take any comfort from the fact that the BBC has apparently "fallen out of love with Labour".  Any falling out reflects BBC employees' anger at the Iraq war - not a return to Reithian standards of impartiality.

Related link: The BBC refuses to answer Robin Aitken's critique

Comments

[Edward]

I remember when Jane Garvey was back on local BBC Hereford and Worcester in the day...

In fairness to her, she always seemed sound enough...

[Tory T]

Pretty shocking. In government we need an inquiry into bias at the BBC.

[Opinicus]

I see the "falling out of love" remark as a rather desperate attempt at truespeak to prove that the BBC was again where it should be - in the middle, by which she probably means rooting for the LibDems.

When we get back in we do not need an enquiry. We need to identify those Conservatives in the BBC keeping their heads down and promote them after kicking out the Labour placemen. The BBC is politicised, it cannot regain its virginity. It must be the compliant whore of whoever is in government. That is a far more satisfying revenge.

[Mark Fulford]

The transcript doesn't do justice to the barefaced admission in the recording. If you have the means to listen to it, I recommend you do.

[Alan S]

I see that Iain Dale is creeping to Radio Five on his blog. Really pathetic. He's obviously keen to keep his occasional slot on the Sunday morning programme. His blog is becoming something of a creepathon. He sucks up to Lord Ashcroft regularly and is always advocating promotion for Conservative MPs (but never criticizing them). At some point this wannabe MP might stop pulling his punches. I won't hold my breath.

[Simon Chapman]

Should we inaugurate a Naughtie award for shameless bias?

Guito Harry put in a brave effort when "interviewing" Glenys Kinnock on election night a couple of weeks ago (something on the lines of: "Don't you sometimes think you are like Monty Python and what have the Romans ever done for us. You have given them free bas passes....." and went on to give a long list of Labour spending and claimed achievements.)

The comments above are however a Classic-winning entry in any year.

The only difficulty is the regularity of the award. Weekly or monthly? Annually would surely lead to an unmanageably crowded field.

[George Hinton]

Well no surprises in that exchange, though some back-pedalling when the reality hits.
Will the individuals be disciplined for their actions and bias? i think not, as the leftie influence at the BeeB goes all the way to the top.
So, they are disenchanted with NuLab, well now they have Gordo to fall in love with, and Old Labour.
This just demonstrates that the Tories must NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE of thinking that they can deal with the BBC and cosy up to this nest of vipers and licence fee leeches.

[Londoner]

Towards the end of teh 1997 election re-run the other day, Paxman was asked to sum up and just said with a wide grin "It's been a lot of fun". This latest revelation puts this into context and confirms that he didn't just mean that the programme had gone well.

Makes it all the more funny that the BBC and the Government later fell out so spectacularly though.

[True Blue]

Journalists tend to be left wing, that's a fact, in the same way that officers in the army are more likely to be Tory voters. I don't care how they vote.

The columnists and editors of the Daily Mail, Telegraph are right wing, but their journalists come from the same pool as any other newspaper and are quite capable of toeing the editorial line.

So the question isn't "are people in the BBC left-wing", but, is the editorial policy of the BBC biased?

The Labour government fear Paxo and his chums so much that they will rarely face him. The BBC response is to read out Government statements in a sarcastic voice, or wheel on left-wing weirdos and give Tory shadows the limelight. There might be a slight bias, but nothing significant. The media as a whole is overwhelmingly right wing (although they tend to put the appearance of competence first) Until recently, we haven't had that.

The British public have great confidence in the BBC, and we are going to come across as a bunch of whingers if we start complaining about it. It's only the 10% at each end of the political spectrum who think there is bias, and that includes most of the people here.

[Justin [email protected]]

Truly shocking. It's high time we privatised it!

[DrFoxNews]

What a load of fuss about nothing. BBC employees are as entitled to political beliefs as the rest of us, and it's hardly a surprise that a few of them chose to get a bit merry on election night in 1997. As long as BBC output doesn't reflect any political partiality, I really can't see what the problem is.

[malcolm]

A few years ago I might have agreed with you True Blue. Not now. Two recent examples of overt bias were the BBCs coverage of the recent local elections and Blairs resignation. No fairminded person could have failed to recognise it. The BBC is not like other institutions, it is paid by all of us and cannot just cannot be allowed to show the partisanship it routinely does now.
Interested to see examples of your claim that the BBC 'wheel on left wing weirdos and give Tory shadows the limelight'. I'm not saying it isn't true just that I've never seen it.Equally I'm interested in your assertion that it's 'only 10% at each end of the political spectrum who think there is bias...' Do you have any sources for that statement?
BTW Are you the same True Blue who used to blog on this site last year and espoused the benefits of mass immigration?

[Jennifer Wells]

Do you ever watch BBC News, DrFoxNews?

[DrFoxNews]

Yes.

[V]

An officer’s duty isn’t to report politics without bias.

There are right wing journalists but, according to Aitken and others, they don’t get to progress in an organisation that is institutionally left wing. Despite our targets culture, the BBC somehow has no target for employing representative political viewpoints.

It’s as if the BBC imagines that its journalists are so intellectually superior that they can successfully master their own prejudices. Perhaps they can in their actual reporting, but their choice of story and line of attack is too frequently questionable. For example, today I note that the story of John Reid’s alleged indecent proposals hasn’t been picked up by the BBC. I wonder if an outgoing Conservative Home Secretary would have been allowed such an escape.

[Graeme]

We should say *nothing* about the BBC now ... just keep note of findings like this Garvey one. All out privatisation won't work as a policy Justin (it won't sell) -- we need to be far more clever and take a much longer view.

So we do this by banning the BBC from competing in any arena where there are commercial rivals (kidzzz channels, magazines, websites) and by forcing it to open up its archive for digital purchase (none of this crap about being allowed to rewatch something for a week on a microsoft (spit) machine) ... turn it into an iTunes.

Give that a few years and it won't be difficult to kill off the licence fee because most it's 'institutional' status will have withered. Hopefully in rapid enough time for us to organise a p45 party at white city, where we can dance up and down with joy as the parade of low-intelligence dumb losers, who read out Labour party press releases on a daily basis (at best) or report government initiatives in glowing terms because they actively love them (at worst), leave their gleaming offices for the last time. I bags the right to give Naughtie his!

[William Norton]

Simon Chapman:Should we inaugurate a Naughtie award for shameless bias?... The only difficulty is the regularity of the award. Weekly or monthly? Annually would surely lead to an unmanageably crowded field.

I'd advise a Tour de France-style system. Take nominations for the first week, and announce that Mr/Ms X is "in the lead". So, at present, Guto Harry [or whatever he's called] is wearing "The Red Jersey". Next week, trawl through the next batch of events and see if anyone has overtaken him by being even worse. If they have, the jersey passes to a new race leader. Whoever has the jersey at the end of the year has won. Nice cheap photo op publicity for Tim when he turns up at Broadcasting House to deliver the jersey for Christmas.

The overall weekly effect on CH would be rather like Wat Tyler's bonfire reports.

We could push it wider, and have nominations for the Most Pointless Attempt To Take The Lib Dems As A Serious Political Party, with a jersey which looks red in the north and blue in the south.

[True Blue]

"Equally I'm interested in your assertion that it's 'only 10% at each end of the political spectrum who think there is bias...' Do you have any sources for that statement?"

No, as an exception to In this case, I just pulled it out of my ass.

I'd like to see a poll on this site about BBC bias. I suspect about 50% would say that the BBC is biased, and my educated guess is that a decent proportion of people who post here are in 10% of the political spectrum. I say do a poll. Very biased, slightly biased, neutral.

My own opinion - slightly biased, but not worth worrying about.

I'm the same True Blue who said that net migration can be a benefit to the economy. I didn't use your "mass immigration" Mail-ism though. Not the thread for that old saw though. Are you the same Malcolm who thinks that Tory policy will be to leave the EU some time before the next election?

[R.Baker.]

I wonder where Malcolm pulled that one from.

[Simon Newman]

The BBC is well to the left not only of the public (which regards itself as slightly left of centre), and of the Conservative party (which seems somewhat to the left of the public on most issues), but even of the current Labour government, and all criticism of the government from the BBC comes from the left. The BBC's own institutional view doesn't seem much to the right of Red Ken Livingstone's hard-line neo-Marxism.

I think the best approach would be to (a) scrap the license fee and (b) end the broadcasting 'impartiality' requirement; which as in the USA would lead to the growth of non-left-wing broadcast media. Leftist state media, such as PBS in the USA, isn't inherently harmful if (a) it's not funded by involuntary taxation and (b) countervailing voices can also be heard.

[True Blue]

Mori BBC poll figures:

Asked recently which of the four main broadcasters they would term "trustworthy", nearly two thirds - 60% - cited the BBC. In contrast, 26% said ITV, 16% mentioned Channel 4, and 14% Sky. (Mori, 2006)

Daily Mail Readership survey (if the BBC has a left-wing bias, I think you'd hear it here?)

Do you think the BBC mainly supports or opposes the Labour Government, or neither particularly supports or opposes it?

%
Mainly supports 17
Mainly opposes 7
Neither 57
Don't know 20

In 2003 Mori:
The BBC
59% Trustworthy
26% not trustworthy
15% don't know.

In other words, the general population has about the same level of trust for the BBC as readers of the Mail. What does that tell you?

[malcolm]

R Baker, I 'didn't pull that one' from anywhere. I'm pretty sure I never said it, I certainly don't think it likely.
I merely asked 'true blue', as I distinctly remember you saying that you would not be blogging on this site again. What changed your mind?
I would agree with you that the BBC is still trusted by many in the country. The Conservative party needs to be much more persistant and skilful than it has been to date in pointing out its constant left wing bias.

[Mark Fulford]

The BBC has just released a story: Doctor application system ditched

It’s a timely example of the BBC’s inexplicably poor coverage of the trashing 10,000 junior doctors’ careers.

From this BBC headline you might think “problem solved”, and you’d think that because of the BBC’s extraordinarily blinkered approach to the issue. Like this headline, their coverage has been almost exclusively about faults in the MTAS recruitment system. As with its previous “crisis averted” headline, the BBC has been far too ready to miss the real story and regurgitate the government spin. So, in case there’s a BBC hack reading, here’s the real story, as simple as I can make it:

Whatever the recruitment system, if you squeeze 30,000 junior doctors into 20,000 training posts, you’re left with 10,000 doctors without a job. And, lest you’re confused about what a junior doctor is, here’s an excerpt from The Guardian:

I know this because it is the conversation that has been going on in my home. My husband, an orthopaedic registrar, is trying to assess whether he has any hope of becoming a fully trained surgeon, or whether, after committing 12 years - five as a student and seven as a doctor - he should leave medicine altogether. He hasn't cried - he is too numb for that - but I have never seen him so ashen. A registrar with seven-and-a-half years' experience, a period of research, a regional prize and a list of academic publications…

[True Blue]

Malcolm said
<<
I would agree with you that the BBC is still trusted by many in the country. The Conservative party needs to be much more persistant and skilful than it has been to date in pointing out its constant left wing bias.
>>

Yes, because it's so subtle that only certain really clever online pundits can spot it, not like those dolts in the general population who blindly trust the BBC. If the finely tuned attennae of Mail readers can't spot it, then it's subtle indeed. You sound like a Marxist talking about "false consciousness"

Instead of bleating about bias we should be leading the news agenda. The British people hate bad losers.

Mark Fulford, BBCs take on this is pretty much identical to the Daily Mail's http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=455061&in_page_id=1770, although the BBC quotes more critical voices than the Mail.

This seems to be a similar line to the entire right-wing media. I'm sure you can come up with something better than that.

[malcolm]

'You sound like a marxist,' well that's a first! I'd quite forgotten your style of debate 'trueblue'. Do you get all your facts like your opinions 'from your ass'?

[Mark Fulford]

Mark Fulford, BBCs take on this is pretty much identical to the Daily Mail's

LOL - so now the Daily Mail is the benchmark for the BBC! Does that mean that we should all be paying a license fee to the Mail too?

[True Blue]

<< Mark Fulford said:
LOL - so now the Daily Mail is the benchmark for the BBC!
>>

The Dail Mail provides a perfect comparison with the BBC. If a right-wing paper and the BBC report the same story in the same way, you can hardly accuse the BBC of left wing bias on that article, can you?

The question of the license fee is entirely separate to that of bias. If you want to end the BBC because of bias, rather than address the perceived bias then you are acting out of pure selfish partisanship. I want to privatise it because it's a waste of my money, not because of any bias.

Malcolm, glad to see you are still responding to reasoned argument with your laser-like focus on the irrelevant. I never said I wouldn't blog here again - your fact checking is up to its usual standard. I like to pop back here every now and then to see what Chad is up to, and whether the anti-Cameron brigade have admitted their errors. I have no need to pull opinions from my ass - I can just read your posts instead.

How are you so much better at perceiving bias than the average Mail reader? When you are in a small minority who perceive bias, and other people of similar political persuasion do not, either you are on to something amazing or your are a consipiracy theorist. Which is more likely, I wonder?

[malcolm]

Who knows trueblue? I can't check up my references to your promise not to blog here as Tim only archives diaries from August 2006 and I think you made that promise before that. This I suppose also prevents me checking up your statement on my thoughts regarding the EU which I am pretty sure is not true.

[Sean Fear]

According to the latest poll on Trust, conducted a couple of weeks ago for the Economist, 62% trust BBC journalists "a great deal" or a "fair amount", but that figure has dropped by 19% since 2003.

As to the main point, it's hardly in doubt that the ethos of most BBC journalists is anti-Conservative. When they criticise the government, it is from a left-wing perspective. Thus, even if one were to consider that the BBC was more critical than supportive of the government, that would be entirely consistent with an anti-Conservative BBC.

WRT the MORI survey and the Mail readership survey, the questions are different ones, so the answers can't be treated as comparable.

[Mark Fulford]

Following your argument, if The Telegraph and Guardian agree on a story, they’re not biased. Is that right?

The BBC and The Mail both repeated the Press Association story almost verbatim. But if the BBC is a high quality, neutral broadcaster, shouldn’t it be pitching itself between, say, The Telegraph and The Guardian?

[Mark Fulford]

If you want to end the BBC because of bias...

I don't want to end the BBC. I want it to be a genuinely equal opportunities employer -- giving right- and left-wing journalists the same prospects. I want its standards to be higher than The Mail's. I want the person at the top to occasionally be someone other than an ex-card-carrying Labour supporter.

Is that at all unreasonable?

[malcolm]

I echo your sentiments Mark.

[True Blue]

<<
This I suppose also prevents me checking up your statement on my thoughts regarding the EU which I am pretty sure is not true.
>>

Well, I'm disappointed but not surprised you won't take my word for it. I didn't throw my toys out of the pram. I'll admit it's a possibility that I mixed you up with someone else regarding the EU. Sometimes my ass fails me.

Incidentally, if you really do want to search, you can google:

site:http://conservativehome.blogs.com

for any phrase you like and it goes back a long way.

[DrFoxNews]

Those who shriek 'bias' about BBC output based on the political sympathies of its staff are insulting the intelligence of BBC employees, by suggesting they are incapable of producing objective programming, and the viewing public, by suggesting that we are unable to tell if what we are watching/listening to is balanced and that we are unable to make independent judgements about what we see/hear.

The broadcast media industry in this country does tend to attract a disproportionate number of people with metropolitan, liberal, left-of-centre views and so, statistically speaking, it's not really unreasonable for there to be more lefties than Thatcherites working for the BBC.

Is there a discernible leftist skew to BBC output? I'd say not, certainly compared to that of Channel 4 anyway. (Although if one compares it to the theo/neocon rhetoric that passes for news and informed commentary from our friends across the pond at FOXNews, you might have a point...)

[True Blue]

<<
Following your argument, if The Telegraph and Guardian agree on a story, they’re not biased. Is that right?
>>

No - it's a sample of one. But, if you presented it evidence of bias in either camp, I'd have to say it that is wasn't evidence of bias in either camp, but evidence of a neutral new agenda.

You presented an article as evidence of bias, I showed that it wasn't.

If you want to demonstrate that the BBC has left wing bias, you need to compare it to both left and right wing news agendas and show that it tends to the left.

And you are now subtly switching from an accusation of bias to an accusation of bad reporting. Or perhaps the Press Association is biased now?

[Sean Fear]

"it's not really unreasonable for there to be more lefties than Thatcherites working for the BBC~"

Given that it advertises for journalists exclusively through the Guardian, I'd say it's unsurprising there should be so many lefties working there.

[Simon Chapman]

William Norton @1256 - an excellent idea. I think we have a way forward, although my preference would be for a t-shirt with a large pink O on the front. Ethically-sourced of course.

We need an impartial adjudication committee to assess the entries and decide the leader. Any takers? Early entries are Garvey and Guito Hari. Which is the week 1 leader?

The great thing is that this little competition might actually achieve something. There is an outside chance that it will eventually embarass some at the BBC, and whilst the winner might try and claim it as a badge of honour, no BBC journalist enjoys being put in this sort of spotlight. It might cause some of them to review their practices.

In all seriousness we should do this - this would be a classic blog-based campaign - just the sort of thing our Editor is currently pushing.

[True Blue]

<<
Given that it advertises for journalists exclusively through the Guardian, I'd say it's unsurprising there should be so many lefties working there.
>>

"Damn! I'd have to buy a left wing paper to look for a job!" Yeah, that would stop the right wing journalists. If these hoards of disenfranchised right-wing journalists would only swallow their principles and buy the Guardian for the media section, we'd be saved!

Nobodies disputing that most journalists are left-wing. For God's sake, most of the journalists at the Mail are left-wing except the columnists and editorial staff. It's their job to follow the editorial policy, and they do it well.

Perhaps we could follow Mr Fulford's suggestion have pro-Tory affirmative action at the BBC? We could bring this in across the civil service, too, as their political views must impact their work. Perhaps the police could do with a few more left-wingers sympathetic to the anti-war movement? Or maybe we could just let professionals get on with their jobs and stop whinging?

[Sean Fear]

I don't know why you're so desperate to defend an institution which is basically hostile to the party which you claim to support, True Blue.

I don't think that impartiality is actually that important in a journalist, or any sort of opinion former. I don't mind hearing journalists explaining things from a left wing persepctive. I just wish we'd hear the opposite point of view on the BBC. That is the context in which Mark Fulford is making his suggestion. It would actually make the BBC a good deal more interesting if Conservative points of view were heard as often as left wing ones.

[Bill]

The BBC in its current form is well passed its sell by date. For choice abolish it; if that is not possible reform it. The status quo is not acceptable.

[True Blue]

<<
I don't know why you're so desperate to defend an institution which is basically hostile to the party which you claim to support, True Blue.
>>

I don't agree that the BBC as an institution is significantly biased or hostile to the Tories. I've seen evidence that people in it are left wing and almost certainly hostile to the Tories, but not that the reporting is.

They are pretty good at including representatives from all mainstream parties in debates, and their moderation is pretty fair. That said, the BBC is wrong in principle because it should not be funded from taxpayer's money.

Do you think Question Time is fair, for example?

Which TV service would you say is less biased?

[Mark Fulford]

You presented an article as evidence of bias

No, I presented it as an "example of the BBC’s inexplicably poor coverage". The accusation of poor reporting was there at the outset -- there was no subtle switch.

I'm not calling the PA biased; today's article is factually correct. What I am saying that it's only part of the story. The BBC's broadsheet equivalents are picking up on the job losses with slightly more vigour and rigour. I imagine that the BBC would be leading the hunt if it was a Conservative government in power but, as you suggest, perhaps that's just paranoid.

What's undoubtedly true is that as long as the BBC remains left-dominated, it leaves itself open to speculation that personal views tint its output. I'd have some sympathy if the problem had no solution...

[malcolm]

ITV news. Compare Ceefax or Teletext political coverage on any day of the week.
Listen to Broadcasting House on Sunday mornings on Radio4 any week of the year and tell me it's not biased. Listen to any interview Jim Naughtie has ever done on Today and count how many times he's attacked politicians from the right. I've never heard one. I don't think you'll find much support on this blog trueblue, but then you never have, have you?

[Ted]

Sean
The problem is that reportage has been replaced to a large extent by in house commentators.
Even in reportage the BBC rarely reports what has happened but leads on upcoming news (press releases from spin doctors on what Gordon or Dave will be saying later; likely contents of reports). This style of reportage is very open to spin as the leak presents a spun view of what will be said and so sets the bias of discussion.

Then when discussion occurs they turn to a BBC expert for his views - so you get Rita Chakrabati regurgitating what her "sources" have told her or Nick Robinson trying to be "balanced". This presents the BBC as the viewers independent arbitor of truth. It becomes less news and more opinionated current affairs.

For example Sunday's Brown speech was all about Brown announcing Ecohomes ; briefing provided to BBC in advance with spin on Gordon trumping Dave's greeness which set the days agenda. Better would be for BBC to say Gordon Brown was continuing on his leadership launch and would be majoring on housing. Then after the speech report what Brown had said and give equal time to Tory/Lib Dem response. No additional comment required - let viewers make up their minds.

[Bill]

There was a survey (a couple of years ago I think) of MPs and their views of the BBC. What amazed me (and I cannot remember the figures) was the significant number (though I do think it was a minority) of Tory MPs who did not appear to have a problem with the Beeb. Is it any surprise that whilst the Conservatives won (in part) the economic battle they lost the wider social and cultural war over the last half century or more.

[a]

The BBC have no party bias. They attack Tory governments from the left. They attack Labour governments from the left. What could be less biased ?

[Robson]

Privatise the lot of it.

[Buckers]

We shouldn't forget last weeks 'legacy of Blair' consensus group on Newsnight, where Alastair Campbell, Polly Toynbee, Alan Milburn, Charles Kennedy and David Hare where all pitted against Michael Howard, seemingly the lone voice of the right.

Also, a few months back, I recall being bewildered that Newsnight choose to focus extensively on an innocuous story on David Cameron's family history and his various properties, instead of reporting on the politically explosive Loans for peerages scandal, which had just that say been at the forefront elsewhere for some revalation that now escapes me.

I know many of the contributes at ConHome relish reading the the bias of Nick Assinder's weekly report and scorecard from Prime Minister's Questions which is really beyond parody. There's something very insiduos about forcing the public to pay a license fee to access the BBC's rival channels.

[Simon Newman]

TrueBlue:

"In other words, the general population has about the same level of trust for the BBC as readers of the Mail."

This tells me that the general public & Daily Mail readers trust the BBC. This is likely because they don't know much about the BBC. I expect regular viewers of the US' Fox News mostly trust Fox News, likewise. The British as a whole tend to change their opinions slowly - not long ago, medical professionals were still trusted without question. And it's only when you have access to alternative news sources that you can readily detect bias in action - we know the Daily Mail or Independent are biased because we can compare them against a bunch of other, different, viewpoints. Broadcast media by contrast are extremely homogenous; SKY or ITV News are barely distinguishable from the BBC; in fact you get more variation from Channel 4! Their documentaries recently have been excellent, and far less mindlessly conformist than the BBC's product.

[Simon Newman]

Incidentally, I'm 34 and I grew up trusting the BBC and what it told me, as did everybody else AFAIK. And reading the Daily Mail or Telegraph didn't change that. It was only very recently that I started to realise how the BBC lied, how it slants reality to its own ends. The breakthrough for me was watching Fox News on Sky and seeing how Fox manipulated reality in pursuit of a right-wing neocon agenda, then realising that the BBC was employing the exact same techniques for its own left-wing neo-Marxist agenda. This was a fairly lengthy inductive process, I doubt most people have the time or inclination to go through it.

[Don Hoyle]

The BBC is biased but, as pointed out above, it is quite subtle. For instance, how many times do they give measures out in metric, implying that we are all cognisant of metric distances or areas, for instance?

Incidentally I heard Jane Garvey's report about the champagne-lined corridors she stumbled down the morning after the '97 GE when Labour won. Peter Allen more or less prompted, even dared her, to tell us her memory of that time and she went ahead. No doubt upstairs there were some eyes rolling as she spoke.

BBC R5 Live is politically rather irreverant towards the implicit leftery, in many ways, especially Peter and Jane, although I seem to remember Peter Allen as a bit of a left-wing firebrand in his early days. Anyway, I like the road reports on the news progs on R5 Live and you can nearly always hear the programme on medium wave, unlike FM (R3 and 4), which fades like b*ggery because they are diverting power to the DAB channels.

[Don Hoyle]

That should have been "Champagne-bottle-lined" corridors. Sorry.

[Matt Wright]

Agree with Ted, the trend has grown for the BBC to give a story some strange twist (probably based on the PR spin from a party, usually Labour) and then have reporters interviewing each other about it. Its almost as if the media itself has become the story nowadays. It almost never adds anything to real debate and often detracts and devalues debate and democracy. The public then become increasingly switched off and parts of the media then blame politicians!

Matt

[Matt Davis]

There is only one solution and that is to bite the bullet, break up the BBC and sell it off in a trade sale of sustainable units so as to preserve what is actually good about it. For example sell the excellent natural history unit to the Discovery or National Geographic channels, Eastenders to one of the major independent programme producers such as Grundy or Talkback or whoever. The radio channels will be snapped up by existing and perhaps new radio investors such as Chrysalis or Capital etc etc etc.The only bit that will then have to reason for existence will be the news and current affairs bits and they're the parts with the unacceptable political biases.

[Traditional Tory]

And we shouldn't take any comfort from the fact that the BBC has apparently "fallen out of love with Labour"

Judging by the coverage the BBC regularly give Cameron one might be forgiven for supposing they had converted to Bluelabour. Michael Howard was never given anything like this sort of coverage.

Loathing as I do the sound of Cameron's prissy "elocution school" tones, I have to keep the zapper permanently on hand when BBC news comes on.

[Alexander Drake]

By your comments above, "Traditional Tory"/"Tory Loyalist"/"Alex Forsyth" etc, am I to understand that in addition to being a Labour apologist, you've got a class-based chip on your shoulder as well?

A petty and ordinary view on your part if true. Not a very conservative viewpoint, I'd have thought.

[True Blue]

Would that be the Ceefax owned by the BBC, Malcolm?

I represent mainstream Cameron-supporting Conservative opinion. I don't expect the majority of voices on this blog to agree with me, particularly the loud ones. If they did, it would be pretty boring. A few people do. I usally agree with Mark for example.

Mark, the reporting on the BBC about the doctors was more critical than that in the Mail, and pretty similar to that on the other papers, as well as ceefax, teletext, itn and every single other media outlet I can find. And if a "political tint" is not an accusation of bias, what is?

You can't have political quotas in public organisations. There are more left wing than right wing journalists, and the BBC is representative of that fact.

It's also politically ill-advised to harp on about this. It's like knocking the NHS. If even Mail readers think there's very little bias you are on a sticky wicket. The BBC is an organisation with 62% approval. It's a damn site more popular than we are, and I bet more trusted, too.

[Sam McG]

You people couldn't give a stuff about the bias; you simple want your own agenda on the BBC, and are annoyned that they don't slavishly report the things you're interested in or champion your beliefs. Not one of you would speak up if you felt the BBC was biased towards your own view.

There are always going to be minor examples of where some individuals in the BBC are unable to attain the high standards of impartiality, but that doesn't, as you often suggest, mean there's an institutional bias. What a load of tosh.

[True Blue]

<<
This was a fairly lengthy inductive process, I doubt most people have the time or inclination to go through it.
>>

Yes, only the party intellegensia can see through the BBC's neo-Marxist agenda. Until we own the the means of media production, the lumpen proleterait will have to continue with their false consciousness that the BBC is a basically neutral media institution, the fools.

[realcon]

Apart from Humphreys there is no political interviewer at the BBC who presses hard questions at leftist dogmatists (Paxman just asks random indignant questions in all directions). When Humphreys packs in there really will be no point in listening to the Today programme - it's bad enough now for the blood pressure.

[malcolm]

Yes that would be exactly the same Ceefax that is owned by the BBC trueblue.
In answer to Sam McG, I certainly would not want the BBC replaced by some form of British Fox News. I would support a BBC that is encouraged and if that doesn't work, forced to be more balanced in its political coverage.

[Mark Fulford]

"Mark, the reporting on the BBC about the doctors was more critical than that in the Mail, and pretty similar..."

True Blue, I obviously didn't make it clear enough when I said that the reporting of individual stories is usually accurate. I feel the bias is in which stories the BBC reports, the angle taken, and where they dig. Given the BBC's left-wing composition, it's not hard to see how bias might arise. Here are some quotes taken from newsletters of a group campaigning for the doctors:

"There seems to be an opening at the BBC for stories on this issue which are 'hooked' on patient care."
---
"Even the BBC seems to be feeling a change! There was a wonderful piece on the Today programme this morning, with the excellent Edward Stourton - a solid piece of balanced, challenging, informative public service broadcasting."
---
"Channel 4 News are absolutely committed to this issue"

I read this as: the BBC are less interested than Channel 4 and, with the exception of one radio report, the BBC prefer stories that fit its angle.

As for quotas... part of the BBC's job is to present balanced political coverage. Take Acas as an organisation that also has to provide comparable balance. Would it be right if the Acas council were totally employer-dominated, relying on business leaders' fairmindedness to achieve balance?

[Simon Newman]

TrueBlue:
"Yes, only the party intellegensia can see through the BBC's neo-Marxist agenda. Until we own the the means of media production, the lumpen proleterait will have to continue with their false consciousness that the BBC is a basically neutral media institution, the fools."

Like I said - and you seem to be ignoring what I write - I want a variety of political viewpoints on the broadcast media and I don't object to the BBC having a Marxist viewpoint, I would just like to be able to see other viewpoints also. I wouldn't want all British TV news to resemble Fox News any more than I want them to all resemble the BBC.

And it's clearly not just the 'lumpen proletariat' who labour under 'false consciousness', you seem to be doing a pretty good job yourself there TrueBlue.