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Original poster

BBC bias. Boris 51.5%: "tight margin". Hollande 51.7%: "clear victory"

144 replies

longfingernails · 07/05/2012 10:40

The left-wing propoganda spouted by the BBC really is relentless.

I am disappointed that they got off with a cash freeze in the licence fee. A 75% cut would have been far more appropriate.

OP posts:
treefumaster · 09/05/2012 21:31

Fox News is sceptical on most of those

Um. Yes because Rupert Murdoch is sceptical on most of those. I'd rather pay the licence fee than have Murdoch tell me what is and isn't right.

claig · 09/05/2012 21:36

I am also happy with the licence fee, but I agree with Tory MPs who question the balance. The DIrector General admitted that the BBC did have a 'massive' lean to the left. It is good that they are working to change that, since it is funded by all the people.

As NoVack said above, the Daily Mail likes to have a go at the BBC. Why?
Because it sees teh BBC as having a lean to the left. You won't find the Guardian often having a go at the BBC.

edam · 09/05/2012 21:41

No, it's because the Mail is a commercial rival of the BBC, especially online. And because the Mail needs to bash the Beeb to justify the worldview it peddles to readers that everyone is out to get middle class hard working families. It's all a left-wing conspiracy, apparently, even when there's a largely Tory government in charge.

Boris did surprisingly badly - at one point his team started packing up at the count, apparently, because it looked as if he'd lost. It is not biased to say the Mayoral result was a lot closer than anyone had anticipated.

edam · 09/05/2012 21:42

(Btw, any Mail fans, do take a look at the website and judge it against the editorial stance taken by the Mail on pornography.)

claig · 09/05/2012 21:43

edam, the Director General, no less, admitted that the BBC had a 'massive' lean to the left. Everybody knew it and everybody knows it. That is why the Mail criticises it.

claig · 09/05/2012 21:47

'BBC Director General Mark Thompson has admitted the corporation was guilty of a 'massive' Left-wing bias in the past.
The TV chief also admitted there had been a 'struggle' to achieve impartiality and that staff were ' mystified' by the early years of Margaret Thatcher's government.
But he claimed there was now 'much less overt tribalism' among the current crop of young journalists, and said in recent times the corporation was a 'broader church'.'

edam · 09/05/2012 21:47

I don't think it was the DG, I think it was the Beeb trust, whose chair is Chris Patten, a former Tory minister. IIRC - if you can pull up a reference I'd be interested.

edam · 09/05/2012 21:52

Ah, found it, it was Mark Thomas (ex-DG) but he was talking about when he joined as a trainee in 1979, ffs.

Btw, you'll find the ranks of the newsrooms of the Tory press are largely staffed by people with liberal views. You wouldn't notice it in those papers, though. Everyone has to stick to the (Tory) party line, including on social affairs.

claig · 09/05/2012 21:53

Everybody knew it, and the DG eventually admitted it.
The left bias doesn't show in Strictly Come Dancing or the Voice, but it appears in much more important opiinion forming programmes.

NovackNGood · 09/05/2012 21:54

(Btw, any Mail fans, do take a look at the website and judge it against the editorial stance taken by the Mail on pornography.)

what does this mean

NovackNGood · 09/05/2012 21:55

claig you are unfortunately just spouting out conspiracy theories. The Daily Fail has an agenda against the BBC because they have a hugely loss making website whereas the BBC has an exceptionally well respected, award winning website.

edam · 09/05/2012 21:56

Look at the Mail Online. It's all about pap shots of women showing as much flesh as possible. Makes Nuts and Zoo look like the journal of the Mothers' Union.

Claig, you are confusing what Mark Thomas claims he remembers about the early days of his career more than 30 years ago with what happens today.

claig · 09/05/2012 21:58

Yes, you are right. The establishment is liberal, always has been, always will be, and there will always be a licence fee to ensure that the message gets through.

Some commentators in the Mail and Telegraph even say that Cameron is not a 'real' Tory, that he is more liberal and is happy with the LibDems in coalition.

claig · 09/05/2012 22:00

Novack, the Mail's website is the leading news website in the world, ahead of even teh New York Times.

I'm not spouting conspiracy theories, I'm saying what the Director General of the BBC said, that the BBC had a 'massive' lean to the left. You seem to believe that anything you are ignorant of or with which you disagree is a conspiracy theory.

claig · 09/05/2012 22:04

I don't care one way or another if the BBC is biased. I am a realist, that is the way the world is and it is not going to change. That is why the licence fee will never disappear. We are not like the United States, and never will be.

claig · 09/05/2012 22:06

And the BBC is better than Fox News. But I also like having Fox News to see a different story. I am all for lots of competing media with different points of view. I prefer that to monoplies, be that state or private.

NovackNGood · 09/05/2012 22:09

You have been listening to Murdoch claims in Leveson too much.

He said it was left leaning in 1979. THIS IS 2012. 33 years later.

motherinferior · 09/05/2012 22:12

Ho yes, OP, you're right. Filthy, filthy socialists, smearing their socialist filth all over the place. Too filthy and socialistic for words.

claig · 09/05/2012 22:12

I don't listen to Murdoch, I don't read his papers, I read the Mail, and there are lots of articles in the Mail that point it out in 2012, just like the one in the Mail about the Director General.

NovackNGood · 09/05/2012 22:13

Hate to bust our bubble Claig but at the 1st of May 2012 it was ranked 11th in the world with 24million users using Global Traffic Rank, and U.S. Traffic Rank from Compete or Quantcast data.

motherinferior · 09/05/2012 22:15

(Ah, but that was just Socialist Bias because everyone knows the first of May is a Filthy Socialist Festival. I expect it zoomed up again the next day.)

claig · 09/05/2012 22:16

I don't read the Telegraph, but some of their commentators are much more forthright about thebias than Mail commentators. It doesn't mean that they are all right, but it's unlikely that they are all wrong, and you won't find anything similar in the Guardian compaining about BBC bias.

Ponders · 09/05/2012 22:19

the Mail's website is the leading news website in the world, ahead of even teh New York Times

define "leading", claig...

The Mail promotes itself like mad in the US (hence all those generally ill-educated comments from US readers). It might have more hits than any other newspaper website but that doesn't make it a leading news website Grin