BBC biased or incompetent?

Channel 4 is more honest and balanced, and more prepared to challenge the lying politicians than the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation have ever been.

www.thedrum.com/news/2019/08/21/channel-4-s-dorothy-byrne-tv-needs-reinvent-itself

What does annoy me is when politicians make totally untrue statements which are then not picked up on by the interviewer. Thankfully, in the Ch 4 debate last night John Redwood was questioned about advising people to invest outside of the UK [which he then denied]. And when asked about his views on deselecting MP's refused to comment.

I don't care what political party an interviewee is from, I want to hear what they have to say, not to be continually interrupted by the interviewer.

I expect the interviewer to ask tough questions but equally I expect them to allow those questions to be answered

James O'Brien tweets-

"We’ve had ludicrously biased newspapers & incompetent, preening politicians for ever. All of the current mess - every grinding, stupid step of it - can be traced back to broadcasters letting liars, spivs & pantomime toffs spout their rubbish unchallenged because ‘balance’."

I totally agree with you Lemon, my DH and I have often made the same observations as you mention, when we’re watching news/discussion programmes. It’s annoying, newscasters and political interviewers are supposed to be impartial, and draw out the interviewees opinions by careful questioning. The audience is supposed to draw their own conclusions. There is an insidious attempt to brainwash the population by a large number of interviewers and it makes me cross.

Chestnut yes, me too, interviewers like the odious Evan Davis give anyone who isn’t left wing a hard time, and why do they imagine anyone is remotely interested in his own views anyway?
It seems to be a recent thing, as many interviewers are now doing this, sneering, interrupting and not allowing their guests to speak.They are idiots, as it just turns viewers off.

Change the record Varian.

I've never noticed the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation being biased against Farage. After all in the years before the fraudulent referendum, he was invited onto QT no less than 29 times!!!

The only other MEP invited was extreme brexit Tory Daniel Hannan. No other Tories, NO Labour, No Liberal Democrats, No SNP, NO Green MEPS , just Farage 29 times and Hannan once.

The Brexit Broadcasting Corporation just love Farage. Perhaps the Farage fans have got so used to the BBC's fawning attitude that someone asking him some searching questions took them by surprise.

Varian, I just hate someone who interviews in such a biased and aggressive way and makes his feelings about his interviewee so blatantly obvious. It was not possible for the audience to hear a reply and that's just not fair. By contrast he was so polite to Nicola Sturgeon and some of the others. The difference in his approach was wrong on all counts.

Michael Gove is an unprincipled liar who declared that proroguing parliament would be a totally undemocratic act and days later was backing it.

In the interview with Marr he was refusing to clarify that the government would be bound by the Rule of Law. Of course he got a hard time when he was being evasive. Journalists are supposed to probe for the truth, not roll over and accept any old thing that they're told.

I watched Andrew Marr yesterday morning and he obviously finds it very hard to conceal his dislike of Tory politicians. He asked Keir Starmer several sharp questions but did not pursue him as he evaded them; with Michael Gove he constantly interrupted and 'chuntered' whilst he was speaking. I complained when he conducted a particularly obstructive interview with Boris Johnson a few years ago, and did receive a long letter explaining interviewing techniques and containing an apology. When I hear politicians being interviewed I want to hear what they say, not the interviewer's thoughts; I can form my own opinion of the politician's techniques for evading straight answers.

Are you a Farage fan by any chance Chestnut?

I must mention here the interviews conducted by Evan Davis during the 2015 general election. He interviewed each party leader in turn, which were mostly okay. However, his interview of Nigel Farage was just beyond belief. He interrupted every reply with another question (or rather accusation) after about three words. He was aggressive and extremely rude. His questions were not even relevant to the election. I fully expected Farage to walk out, I really did, but he remained in his seat and made it through. I would have walked out! I have never seen an interview like it. Evan Davis showed an extreme left wing bias and clearly hated Farage. The next evening he was most polite to Nicola Sturgeon for her interview. I complained to the BBC (a first!) and got the usual guff back.

lemongrove; did you actually READ what trisher had written? Also, going right wing from left wing doesn't redress the balance. To redress the balance surely one needs to make sure that the audience is balanced and not extreme.

lemongrove the audience at QT is supposed to be balanced for each episode. There is no evidence of Pedley ever contacting left wing groups.

I agree that QT has been more right wing lately, but maybe they are just trying to redress the balance because they used to be famously left wing. Now the boot is on the other foot.

Agreed Lemongrove- if you read left wing and right wing stuff in turn and know people’s biases, you can allow for it and find the middle ground.

trisher ...that is nicely balanced out by many episodes of the programme having mainly left wing audiences, or if not mainly (in numbers) then they shout the loudest.
I expect lots of people won’t watch it anymore citing those
Noisy left wingers, hissing, booing and generally acting in an ignorant manner.
Both sides do it!

Oh for Heavens sake!
The BBC is not weighted on the side of Brexit at all and presents views from both sides.
Always best to watch a variety of tv news though.

Right wing Alison Fuller Pedley who chooses audiences on Question Time is right wing and almost fascist. Britain First, the EDL and various other things have been liked by her.
^Far-right Islamophobe Douglas Murray is “always a great panellist” on Question Time, Pedley writes. She “likes” far-right journalists Melanie Phillips and “shock jock” Jon Gaunt. In May, she “liked” a clip of Nigel Farage obliquely excusing violence. The same month, she encouraged Brexiteers “Better Off Out” and UKIP South Leicestershire to join a Channel 4 audience. In 2008, she invited two Republican groups to apply for a US Question Time audience. It seems these right-wing groups are the only ones Pedley publicly contacted*.

None of this takes place in a vacuum. Recent Question Time audiences seem angrier and more Europhobic, a fact that has not passed viewers by. “I haven’t been able to watch it due to the absolute absurdity of the audience”, writes one reddit user – “very extreme nowadays and not just your average opinionated types who just want to vent. There’s no nuance to it anymore, it’s all highly polarising rhetoric.” When Question Time aired from Boston (where Pedley invited the local EDL) people tweeted: “Since when was the agenda on #bbcqt set by the National Front?” “#bbcqt is the worst I’ve ever seen, can’t watch any more. Vile, racist and disgusting #switchingoff”.

In Today's edition of Politics Live ob BBC2, Jo Coburn allowed Boris Johnson loyalist Nick Gibb to repeat umpteen times the fallacious argument that MPs who are trying to prevent the UK crashing out of the EU with no deal were making it more difficult for Johnson to get the EU to offer a "good deal". If Jo Coburn was not prepared to question the truth of that statement, she should at least have shut him up when he repeated it again and again and again.

I think this shows us a number of things - that the Johnson supporters have no decent arguments, that Nick Gibb is obeying Cummings instructions to repeat, repeat, repeat (which worked at the time of the fraudulent referendum) and that the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation is still indulging this nonsense.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0008dkk/politics-live-politics-live

I think the BBC is very pro-brexit, and has been very keen to promote Farage for years. I think its political stance is firmly right-wing as so many of its political commentators and interviewers are obviously Tories.

However I think the BBC could also be seen as socially liberal, which annoys all the "disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" reactionaries and hence leads to accusations of a left-wing bias from them.

We should not just accept this and agree, as I have heard their spokesmen claim that one type of bias cancels out the other and being accused of bias from both ends of the political spectrum proves they are impartial. It does not.

I find this debate interesting. I, and many others I know of believe the BBC to be completely right wing biased. (QT, Laura Kuenssberg) to name but a few examples. Whereas others on here seem to be convinced they are Left Wing. Perhaps they really are 'on the Fence' - I still veer towards it having a Right Wing bias though.

The BBC is very biased on a variety of topics they seem to decide on an editorial line in the same way that a newspaper does.
The difference is that the majority of viewers believe that the BBC is unbiased which it is not

I must have been watching a different news coverage from the BBC as it has had quite a diverse section of people being interviewed, as with Sky News.

I have been watching Sky and BBC news on the 24/7 T. V coverage all day so maybe the time allocated BBC News coverage has come over differently?