Colleague made sarky comment about me re. GB News

[OneStepBeyondd]

Discussion at work earlier - does anyone watch the news. Another colleague and I said we don’t mind GB news on occasion to which someone said (directed at me) - ‘I didn’t have you down as one of them’ in a judgemental tone.

Is it me or is that a bit rude and unnecessary?

'legitimate news outlet'? 😆

Quite - hence the emoji.

If something which isn't a news channel in order to avoid having to act like a news channel but cosplays at being a news channel, then - to channel Mycroft - the suggestion of bad intent is manifest.

I worked that out all on my lonesome. However as we will start to see, men would rather listen to "AI" than women. Why do you think they invented it the first place ? Yes, it is for the betterment of mankind ? With the emphasis on "man".

On with the show !

Ironically, your dislike of having alternative political views expressed is very characteristic of actual fascism. Is expressing concern about NHS waiting times as part of a wider argument about the level of migration 'fascist' in your mind? I'm interested in how far you go with this.

It shows how removed mn is

I'm interested in this response. In my Labour constituency there have been two new estates built in the last four years, one of them completed earlier this year. Each has included a number of social housing units situated among upmarket, private housing. There were 17 new social housing units built, all to a very high standard of insulation with PV panels, solar hot water, heat pumps and batteries as part of a research initiative with a local university which will be monitoring their efficiency. Anyone moving in there will have, we hope, very low fuel bills and be warm and comfortable over the winter.

8 of those homes were allocated to immigrant families/ former asylum seekers. 5 of them were built for disabled people, some of whom are immigrants. 2 have gone to people born in the UK but new to this area. Some people who've been struggling to pay fuel bills in poorly-built older public housing or in urgent need of adaptations to help them cope in their homes are very upset that they haven't been able to apply for these new places, which would improve the quality of their lives no end.

At what point in their conversation with local councillors and our local MP would you say that their anger becomes 'stirring hatred against migrants'? (Your words.) I can see both sides of the coin: I see the needs of immigrants and asylum seekers but I also see the need and exasperation of people who've loved in poor accommodation for years. I don't know how you square it, but I don't think characterising anyone who speaks out in anger and frustration about something like this as stirring up hatred against migrants helps anyone. Demonising one group — largely white and working class — does not sit well with me.

In isolation, of course not. But as part of a narrative that makes immigrants the scapegoats for all the country's ills, and mentions migration rates and NHS waiting times in the same breath and leaves the uncritical viewer to leap to erroneous conclusions, yes.
Just for clarity, the crisis in NHS funding is caused by decades of underfunding.

So is arguing for lower levels of migration 'fascist'?

You’ve just told your work that you’re really right wing of course it raised eyebrows

I'm interested too.

Strange that the "fascists" are the ones who are open to a range of views and voices, while the "right side of history" just wants everyone with a different view to stfu.

Care to expand?

The loathsome Steve Bray, is a perfect example of this.

So just to be clear...your issue isn’t with media breaching impartiality rules, it’s with the existence of rules at all?

Ofcom isn’t some shadowy unelected conspiracy. It’s an independent regulator set up by our parliament to ensure standards in broadcasting, including protecting against misinformation and political manipulation. Its board is appointed by ministers, and its decisions are subject to public scrutiny and judicial review. That’s way more oversight than most media barons are ever subjected to.

As for Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper, yes people complained, but the number of complaints are irrelevant as to whether it breached impartiality rules. Ofcom assessed it under their framework and decided it didn't. If you disagree, write to your MP to challenge the ruling, but holding up one example as a reason to dismiss all regulation is weak logic.

And "free press” doesn’t mean free from standards. Accountability isn’t the enemy of democracy, it’s part of it and something that's been sorely missing from public discourse for the last decade or so.

So yes let’s keep questioning media bias but across the board. If you only care about bias when it affects your side, and dismiss regulators when they hold your preferred outlets to account, then you're not defending free press, you’re defending propaganda.

Ofcom is as impartial as the civil service.

I think you've just told us that you're a thoughtless idiot. You can listen to GB News and read the Telegraph and be a fully-functioning leftie, like me. Are you someone who limits your knowledge and understanding of the world by cutting out anything Owen Jones tells you you shouldn't touch?

Do you think it's a mark of intelligence to refuse to check out what the people you don't approve of think?

You go up in my estimation again, Pluvia; now you've brought Jones into it. I find him as odious a lefty as Ash Sarker.

I wonder how do the ‘righteous’ posters know what it is, if they never watched it. Is they ever watched it, then that also means they have watched it and therefore should be judged?

I know right? How dare they think for themselves.

I know and at the risk of being called a gammon 😆 🤣.

GB News is opinion isn’t it? I mean that’s fine; it’s not a careful detailing of fact. It is entertaining to some, ie Nigel and Katie Price’s bra.

Opinions can be entertaining and funny, but it doesn’t make them news, which is what OFCOM point out.

No, I don't believe in any state body deciding how media should be "regulated" or "accountable" or whatever other language you want to use. Accountable to who? Regulated to what standard?

I believe in the absolute right to free expression and if someone doesn't like a particular news source they can not watch it. With the exception of inciting violence against a particular person which has been illegal (and policed) for much longer than we've had ofcom.

The rest of your post just shows how bizarre and arbitrary these rules are. News can be entertaining, entertainment can be informative. Is a puff piece about a skateboarding dog competition news or entertainment? What if it follows an item on reporting on the war in Ukraine? I guess they'd need different presenters and programming for each one less the stupid uneducated viewing public between unable to differentiate between each one! There is no strict definition of either.

Any politician (you don't stop becoming a politician when you stop being an MP by the way) could make their own podcast and not have to face any of this nonsense just because it is a different media format. Ditto with making both informative and/or entertaining tiktoks, etc. It's nonsense, used to prohibit legitimate (if dissenting) political opinion. No idea why anyone would look to these arbitrary and contradictory institutions with any authority or use them to inform their judgement.

Quite. None so intolerant as the left, whom lecture and hector anyone who dare disagree with them.

What do people think The Guardian does

Or the BBC in its own way

👏 ✌️ 💯

Says someone insulting “the left”. 😂

Absolutely ES. How often is the Guardian used as a source on MN? I said it before, the Guardian is the left's bible. A news outlet which always has to be right, well because I read it in the Guardian. I often wonder how such prima facie, intelligent people, can parrot fashion one ideology.