So, it looks like Boris is going to win.....

[JeremyVile]

Boris Johnson.
How the feck did that happen??

Hoping the BBC are just joshing with us...

[Swedes]

Policyw - I agree. I am not a huge BBC user. R4 and Newsnight Review is my fodder. R4 - see no evidence of any bias at all and Newsnight Review is massively biased but this is more than balanced out by Nick Robinson reporting from outside Downing Street on a bad day for the Labour Party.

[onebatmother]

chefswife, sorry, I wasn't very clear, was I?
I was saying that there may be, perhaps, a cultural liberal bias in News Reporting, which is reflective of an under-40, educated workforce: but that this in no way amounts to a political bias.

But that elsewhere in the BBC's output - which I would argue is just as influential in terms of insidious influence - the bias is only towards what will rate - or sell internationally - and that this position is directly opposed, as a working ethos, to liberalism.

Is that clearer? if not, I'll try again. I am a bit of a derbrain tonight.

[policywonk]

But missey, BJ WON. The Standard's campaign against KL was a huge part of the story. Whereas The G's campaign against BJ was unsuccessful, and therefore Not News.

[chefswife]

Ah Combustiblelemon?I think so too. They just skim along the top, not offend or accuse or anything to anybody.

Yeah, Liberal is a dirty word in USA. They?re the Democrats.

[JeremyVile]

[FairyMum]

Radio 5? Really? I thought the white van men were all tuning into Nick Ferrari on LBC?

[onebatmother]

OR, Misseyhissey, since PT was commenting specifically about an UNJUST ADVANTAGE for right-wingers, it should simply be taken as an attempt to re-balance a shockingly partisan local media?

It is ABSOLUTELY FREAKING WRONG that the Evening Standard, which has FREE political advertising in the form of their Headline Boards, on every street in Central London and beyond, has been able to perform an insidious drip-drip against Ken on the grounds of his (still unproven) "corruption".

I will never buy the Standard again. I'm so devvered that I forgot my youthful repulsion for them.

[policywonk]

I think Andrew Marr was a big part of the 'bias', such as it is (and I still don't think it amounts to a hill of beans).

Really, I defy any of you to listen to Radio Five between 7 in the morning and midday, any weekday, and still tell me there's a left-wing bias across the BBC. It's cobblers. There might be a liberal bias in documentaries (OBM knows more about that than me). I don't see it in light entertainment. I definitely don't see it in news and current affairs.

I'd definitely like to be spoon-fed some examples. I'll await them with interest.

[chefswife]

Sorry onebatmother? are you saying that it is a commercial bias that dictates the BBC reporting? I understood the comment cultural bias as mainstream thinking? which I suppose is also commercially influenced? I?m all confused now.

[CombustibleLemon]

I thought 'liberal' was only a dirty word in the USA.

I have noticed that a lot of the BBCs documentaries and news programmes seem to avoid going into much depth nowadays. The football corruption one in particular had me still waiting for the actual evidence to appear when the credits came on.

I'm never sure if that's just my age though- did the documentaries in the 80s scrutinise the subjects more closely, or was it just that they seemed more complex because I was a child!

[Swedes]

Seeker - How about Newsnight Review?
John Harris, Tom Paulin (my favourite), Stewart Lee, Germaine Greer, Rosie Boycott, Hari Kunzru, Andrew Collins, Joanne Hari, Jeanette Winterson, Michael Rosen, Will Self etc. I think NR respond occasionally to the bias by inviting on Gove.

[missyhissey]

Discussed this with DP: he watched BBC news 24 last night (too late for me) and said that Polly toynbee was interviewed and given plenty of opportunity to attack BJ and complain about negative campaigning against Ken by the Standard.

In the interests of fairness a conservative commentator should then have been given to chance to contribute also and mention the negative campaigning against BJ by the Grauniad, no?

[chefswife]

It?ll be interesting to see if the bias leanings change somewhat if and when the Tory government gets in. I do agree that it is culturally biased. The BBC certainly touches on subjects with the sign off of the reporter fuelling a very particular way of thinking.

If you need layman, spoon-fed and precisely cited examples of BBC?s bias, I think someone posted earlier to give her a couple of weeks.

[onebatmother]

I think that is probably true Combustible.

But in these turbulent days, a 'cultural liberal' bias is very, very different from a political bias. Many young people (incl. BBC young people) deplore politicization in any form (which makes me want to cry).

Though in some respects, a depoliticized but educated youth is precisely who should be moving up the ranks at the BBC. In News, anyway.

My experience of making documentaries for the BBC (as a freelancer) is that, when we're talking more generally and not confining ourselves to News and Current Affairs, the liberal, um, starting-point of those who hold real decision-making power only goes so far.

After several culls, there are few in the BBC who don't, at the first sign of trouble, jump to march to the beat of the market.

That is the problem - not liberal bias, but a commercial bias towards the greatest market share. Which, ultimately, is never liberal.

[seeker]

That's an opinion. Andrew Marr thinks there's a bias. You think there's a bias. Neither you nor Marr has actually given an example of this bias.

[CombustibleLemon]

In October 2006 Andrew Marr said: "The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias."

[missyhissey]

Ok, how about the quote I mentioned from Andrew Marr, a former political editor at the BBC "the bbc is not impartial or neutral.... there is an innate left/liberal bias at the bbc"

That's got to be fairly concrete surely.

[beansprout]

Can I just say that last night I dreamt that BJ died and this was A Good Thing.

[seeker]

I would LOVE to hear a concrete example of the BBC's left wing bias, I really would!

[onebatmother]

lol at idea of the BBC wearing little albino wig, and bobbing.

958 posts.

Do you see where I'm going with this JV?

[onebatmother]

that was to CL! Not Bridie3. I'm not that odd.

[Oliveoil]

oh get a grip you whining southern jessies

ffs



boris for mayor yeeeharrrrrr

[onebatmother]

You're wrong. It's bobbing about on the surface.

Oh look! It's got a little albino wig on!

[Bridie3]

I'm a BBC fan but I do think there is a left-wing, metropolitan bias. I think the reason that Beeb folk find this a strange accusation is that, seemingly, the vast majority of them (certainly in London) are left-leaning.

And that's been the case for a long time. So many of the key people in the BBC during the post-war years were radicals. It's in the culture.

The thing I would say is that the bias is less evident to me now. I think ten years of Labour have shown that all the virtue and all the vice do not lie neatly on political lines.

Although this occasionally irks me, I still wouldn't go to any other channel for news or current affairs. And in a crisis, the BBC is the one organisation I trust to tell me the truth instead of the speculation. It's a very important part of our culture.

[CombustibleLemon]

I object to your hurtful accusation.

I didn't lower the tone. I torpedoed it, and it sank without a trace.