Had it not been a bank holiday yesterday I would've seen Johann Hari's commentary piece sooner about how the BBC contains a right-wing bias. Yes, really, he did argue that point, I'm not kidding.
Hari's thesis (if you can call it that) for his argument is based on looking at the people who are on the BBC and what their background is, adding them up, and thus making the assessment that the BBC is biased to the Right.
So he starts with the usuals, Andrew Neill, cites the Today programme and John Humphreys as a Daily Mail person, Michael Portillo's employment, Jeremy Clarkson, Chris Moyles etc. I'm not going to fisk it, just read it.
The problem Hari has though is that he doesn't actually understand the argument about the institutional leftism within the BBC. It is not measured by looking at the presenters but instead looking at the default positioning of argument used in its editorial content.
For example, whilst you see the Government being attacked, you will never see it attacked from the right, even, might I add, when the presenter may very well be from the Right. The attack will always come from the Left of the position being attacked, and that is the point about the bias.
Public spending is the classic example. All public spending, especially increases is good. Any decreases are bad. That is the default position of BBC editorial. You will never hear someone being questioned on matter of public spending saying "why should we spend more on X?"
The idea that the BBC is biased towards the Right based upon the backgrounds of a handful of it's presenters is simply nonsense. It's the content and the subtext of its editorial position which matters, not whether Nick Robinson used to be in the Young Conservatives.
I think perhaps Hari should read Robin Aitken's book.
4 comments:
Hari is just an Politically Correct moron!
Cherry picking a handful of presenters as proof of right wing bias? I rest my case that this guy is 'aving a laugh innit.
I read the article and likewise a few eggs do not make an omelette (on their own). I don't think of it as a political leaning bias but that the BBC takes a position of oppositionalism. Publicly spoken dissent to most government policy comes not from the right but the left, the BBC tries to act as a voice for that and will probably continue to do so. Whether that should be its role is a different question, but that voice is stifled politically (beyond those deemed to be the lunatic fringe).
Yeah, and then there's the way the politically correct modern policeman gets the better of the reactionary throwback on Life on Mars every week. It's a dead give-away
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