BBC tackles allegations that it has ?an innate liberal bias?

[Cobol74]

Just in case anyone has any doubt what so ever :

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article1968952.ece

Now why this should concern members of this forum is that given half a chance the BBC would love to can Top Gear. The way to for them to stay safe is either be a specialist small programme on one of the out of the way channels like BBC 3 or 4 - too late I hear you say. The only other option is for Top Gear to be so popular that they would have to be kept on.

I would take any and all rumours of TG being taken off seriously - they are after all not PC. BUT Bloody good fun.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/18_06_07impartialitybbc.pdf

 

[teeb]

Just in case anyone has any doubt what so ever :

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article1968952.ece

Uhh...so?

The problem is that many people accuse the BBC of a left-wing bias, and this may well be the case. In terms of reporting however, why is that any worse than the right-wing slant Fox News gives everything ("Earthquake in India, Democrats blamed")? In my opinion, BBC articles (of the online variety) are usually the least biased news sources available, and are the ones I choose to go to.

Whereas newspapers have 'opinion' columns, and some news programs have a "My say" slot, the BBC news website doesn't have prominent opinion columns, and there aren't BBC-paid presenters giving 'their opinion' on news programmes.

I appreciate the main counter-argument to 'why is this any worse' is that the BBC is taxpayer funded. Then again, Sky News (for example) is funded by Sky subscribers. Newspapers are funded partly by their readers.

Besides, the article mentions things like ensuring both sides of an argument have equal airtime. When it comes to less newsy programmes like Top Gear, how would you do that? And in for example Doctor Who, where the Doctor is very anti-guns, are you going to have a 13-episode series where the Doctor shoots everyone up just to keep the NRA happy?

Now why this should concern members of this forum is that given half a chance the BBC would love to can Top Gear.

Why would they? Top Gear is the most popular BBC2 programme there is at the moment, and for the BBC ratings are key (since they don't have advertising, advertising money isn't important). Besides, the current format of Top Gear has never pretended to be strictly news or strictly facts - it is very deliberately opinion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/18_06_07impartialitybbc.pdf

I didn't read this, to be honest, further than the first couple of pages. The search function didn't find any references to Top Gear explicitly though. And it looks like a lot of bumph.

 

[nomix]

So, if the BBC is biased to the liberalists, they want Halliburton to purchase the NHS, sell the Navy to Exon-Shell and push for removing all taxes and laws interferring in any way with personal and ecconomic freedom. Is that right?

And if we JUST interpret "liberal" to mean "in love with progression", that should mean the Conservative Party in Britain, shouldn't it? It's like that French bloke they elected president, in reality, Royal was more conservative than what's his name.

Beeh.

Everybody knows the BBC has a leftish angle to their news. In the same way most national broadcasters have, normally. In the same way Fox has a rightish angle.