As I say, it's better to take the word of people who have worked there, even very recently. If confirmation was needed, the appointment of Jess Bramnar, very firmly of the left of politics is it. Very loudly, and abusively anti Tory, and Johnson, vituperatively and patronisingly anti brexit, an apologist for the all the horrors inflicted by Venezuala's far left leaders, this woman is now editor of BBC NEWS and BBC World channels. The BBC do not even see this as unusual, or controversial, because to them it isn't. She is one of their own. Fran Unsworth is also due to leave shortly, and if she is not replaced by at least a similar left leaning figure there will be a gigantic uproar. Much as we'd all like it to be, the BBC is not politically neutral, and barely pretends to be. It's time it charged those who wish to pay for it, and stop prosecuting those who do not. If it is as good as it claims it is, it has nothing to worry about.
Speaking as someone who claims to be 'Middle of The Road' this thread has perplexed me. I don't recognise the BBC being described. Since it's made up of PEOPLE, it will of course have some failings, but I take comfort in the fact that BOTH major parties complain about bias in favour of the other. And being critical of a Government is by no means a bad thing in itself. No Government is likely to be perfect. I confess though, again, to having very low standards when it comes to how I expect Politicians to behave.
Brammer’s a piece of ****…. posts tweets and then deletes them when it doesn’t gain the traction. We are in the grip of the Maoists here… make no mistake!
Maoists like Kuenssberg, pull the other one. . Honestly mate its impossible to know who to believe these days. Sadly the days of people like Melvyn Bragg making it, seem to have long gone. Dads Army
Yes, it is indeed made up of people. But for all it's high altar trumpeting of " diversity", there is very little diversity of type and opinion among it's journalists. Again, according to those who have worked there, if you have any political sympathies which are not of the left, you had better keep them quiet. Marr: " The BBC is a metropolitan, left leaning, Eurocentric organisation". He said that when he was still working there and had to mind his ps and qs. Many others have said much more and more critically. Jane Garvey, who still works there, once described the scenes in the back newsroom after Labour won in 97. She described wholesale popping of champagne corks, banners up, streamers flying and the all rest. No one has ever contradicted her account. It has never occurred to anyone there that there might be something not quite right in this. In the years that followed there was a cross pollination between the BBC, Labour Party and The Guardian, with many people moving from one to the other, often at significant levels. As for having a go at the government - which isn't there job at all actually- I don't really mind it. But you found very little evidence indeed of such an approach between 1997 and 2010. It is basically making itself untenable, and once the non payment of the licence fee ceases to be a criminal act, an absurd position in itself, its demise will be certain.
I don't know what a news feed is to be honest. But as a rough guide I would see some news on telly, usually ITV, sometimes BBC, will see the Telegraph daily, The Guardian regularly as it's free, ditto the Independent, and other occasional papers, though they are quite rare. My own observations on the BBC are based from around about the mid eighties, when I took notice. It was then that I noticed how hostile the BBC were to the government of the day, which I can say I didn't mind at all at the time. But this changed pretty quickly after 97, when they became cheer leaders for Blair and co. But really, again, it doesn't matter what I think, check out all those past and present employees I mentioned They worked or work there. They know.
I think you make a good point there. Even on sites such as this, where Politics is only a side issue to the main purpose which is the affairs of SAFC, rather than those of Boris, there is a tendency from many to assume that they MUST always be right and anyone who disagrees with them mus always be wrong. It is perhaps, something of a human failing. So when applied to, say, The BBC, those who lean to the Right will see that organisation as having a Left bias, and vice versa.for those of the Left. And I will accept that being in the middle, politcaly, and despising most Politicians anyhow, I see it as pretty even handed. Obviously they will be more critical of whatever Government is in power, than they will be of the opposition. By definition the opposition are unable to do much harm. But if we was to see what happens when major News Organisations are truly biased, all we need to do is to look back at Trump's time in as President.
Just look at the long list of ex journalists who have said that the BBC is a left wing organisation. They know, we can only guess. Look at their recent appointment of a left wing rottweiler, ( her own description!) as Head of BBC news. But as far as I know, there has not been one single ex employee who has ever complained that the BBC is " right wing". The BBC is unfortunately, and institutionally left wing. That is where they see the middle ground, where they have planted their flags, and they attack anything which isn't deemed by them to sit there. I don't mind this, but I mind being coerced, at point of law into to paying for it. If they are so good, why do they have to prosecute people for not buying their product? It's the artwork thing a Soviet 1950s correctional centre would gave dreamed up. As for Trump, every single main broadcaster in the US campaigned against him in the 20 election, even Fox let him go. Almost every newspaper likewise. They almost all now, apart from Fox , routinely ignore the staggering state of the POTUS, who cannot read a teleprompter properly, cannot answer questions and is in visible physical and cognitive decline.
When she was reporting on the Brexit vote, it was discovered a few months before hand that her and Emily Maitless of Newsnight had both applied for American Dual citizenship and an American Passport.... Other well known BBC news reporters during that time were reported in the daily papers as having also applied for Irish and European passports. Now the question I asked myself at the time, without any answer, was why would they do that?. Sure she and Maitless we always showing their left wing tendency's in the run up to the Brexit Vote as well as putting the UK down and pissed off UK citizens. The underlying trend now seems to be the BBC clearing out those who were shown repeatedly to voicing their own personal political views and not reporting news factual articles. .Good riddance
Seems logical enough to me to protect your job as best you can. Any Current Affairs Reporter who could get dual citizenship, but who failed to do so, would in my view, have been foolish. I would call this nothing more than contingency planning. Just in case you meet border problems you have another option that MIGHT help. In their position, I would like to think that I would have had the sense to do the same, and I suspect that it would be hard to find many people more in favour of Brexir that ME. Nor am I Ultra Left wing or Ultra Right wing. Were such a description possible, I would be anti politician anfd Ultra centerist.
Fair enough that. But the problem lies in where the centre actually is, or more critically, where some think it should be. The BBC, as this is mostly about them, have made no bones about where they see the centre, and for some time it has been on the left, ( though not the far left, which is why they gave Corbyn some of what they give Johnson) , very Eurocentric, almost Eurofanatic, and fairly dismissive of any kind of patriotism , which is a long standing turn off for the institutional left. The centre is where the votes are, which is why Blair won, and why Johnson won; enough voters are disinterested enough to ignore the colour of the rosette. But it's not where the BBC is.
