quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Firmhand... Why should a news organisation be 'pro-american'? Are you arguing that the BBC is biased because it's not 'pro-american'?

There are 'pro-american' news companies: a great majority of them are in America. And so it should be  .

I wish to add that the sources you quote for 'BBC bias' are:

1. The Daily Mail, which has bitched about the BBC from times immemorial; the Daily Mail belongs to Associated Newspapers, which isn't exactly the most progressist organisation;
2. The Times, which is a bitch of News Corporation - we all know who owns it.

The Mail and the Times don't like the BBC... because the BBC isn't biased in their favour.

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

It's living on it's past reputation, not on it's current behavior.

In these days of widespread media availibility I doubt very much that people would rely on a news media's reputation only.

When would you say the BBC 'turned' and became biased, exactly?

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ORIGINAL: Darcyandthedark

If you do feel that the BBC holds US bias, I would not disagree persay.  But I if you felt it was negative towards the US, I would disagree.
 
I believe you have to listen very carefully to news items at times, because they do reflect both sides on an arguement, however it will focus on one particular point over another at times - and unless you listen and take in every word they say and only focus on a single point, you could be swayed to a bias.
 
But if your sensible, you don't.
 
the.dark.

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

As I've mentioned before ... the reason I posted was in reaction to someone saying how "unbiased" they were. My interest was in being "Fair and Balanced". 

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

As I've mentioned before ... the reason I posted was in reaction to someone saying how "unbiased" they were. My interest was in being "Fair and Balanced". 

Then we all agree. The BBC IS "fair and balanced" to a tee.

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

The BBC employs a small country's worth of staff. You will find that the news are written in such a way as to be extremely balanced.

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Here is today's page on the BBC News website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/. Observe how the news are listed by continents. Observe how world events are covered. Not just events in the United Kingdom. Granted, the main story is about Afghanistan and what a failure the West's actions have been over there. I'd like to see another medium (apart from Le Monde , do you read it?) that covers world news quite so extensively.

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Perhaps this smacks of bias, because it doesn't support the military interventions in Afghanistan?

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

What you may object to is that some of its columnists express their personal views when they write a personal column, but that's standard fare in the journalistic world. Perhaps at this point in the debate we should take a tangent and argue about the nature of journalism in general?

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

When would you say the BBC 'turned' and became biased, exactly?

These four factors have significantly accelerated, and indeed intensified, the spread of media liberalism since I ceased to be a BBC employee 40 years ago. It still champions the individual against the institution. The BBC's 2007 impartiality report reflects widespread support for the idea that there is "some sort of BBC liberal consensus". Its commissioning editor for documentaries, Richard Klein, has said: "By and large, people who work in the BBC think the same, and it's not the way the audience thinks." The former BBC political editor Andrew Marr says: "There is an innate liberal bias within the BBC".

For a time it puzzled me that after 50 years of tumultuous change the media liberal attitudes could remain almost identical to those I shared in the 1950s. Then it gradually dawned on me: my BBC media liberalism was not a political philosophy, even less a political programme. It was an ideology based not on observation and deduction but on faith and doctrine. We were rather weak on facts and figures, on causes and consequences, and shied away from arguments about practicalities. If defeated on one point we just retreated to another; we did not change our beliefs. We were, of course, believers in democracy. The trouble was that our understanding of it was structurally simplistic and politically naïve. It did not go much further than one-adult-one-vote.

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Firmhand:
I mean that I see no conflict in a news organization having deep biases about certain issues, and how it shapes it reports, and at the same time walking softly around certain powers in order not to kill the golden egg

quote:

ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

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Firmhand:
I mean that I see no conflict in a news organization having deep biases about certain issues, and how it shapes it reports, and at the same time walking softly around certain powers in order not to kill the golden egg

There is no question that the BBC was under pressure to avoid open conflict with the government in the period leading up to the renewal of the charter. But you show signs not just of misunderstanding how any media organisation works but also the particularities that exist between the UK's Gov't and its state broadcaster.

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ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

Gavyn Davies (Chmn) and Greg Dyke (bbc1 controller) both resigned alongside a reporter called Andrew Gilligan, after refusing to bow to Govt pressure to reveal a source (re. the 45 minutes claim). That is called integrity. Gilligan is unquestionably to the right of the political spectrum, look at his work before and since, but he put his own prejudices to one side and told the truth.

When the US claimed to have taken Baghdad and all the American correspondents hid their faces, knowing it was a lie, Gilligan took his crew to the centre of the town and said "Look, they are not here yet, they're miles away on the outskirts".

Not because he is a "liberal" - he isn't. But because it was the truth. The US Govt was lying.  Is that really an anti-American stance? No, it was the journalistic integrity the BBC is famed for and which Fox is infamous for removing from its reports.

As for Antony Jay, if he's so concerned that the BBC is a leftist bastion, why did the BBC commission series after series of his political comedy, "Yes, Minister" with its strongly conservative leanings? He's a millionaire thanks to that show, when if what he says was true, no-one would even have heard of him. He's venerated in the media today for his writing ability but no-one doubts that his take on certain matters is pretty flawed.

If you can, you ought to provide actual examples of BBC bias. Not the claims, rumours and generalisations of the usual crop of  knockers, loonies and has-beens but actual instances of bias. For every claim you've published, you can find one which states the opposite. And that sums up just how close to neutral the Beeb is - it's critics sit at both ends of the spectrum.

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ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Let's postulate that the BBC has a "liberal" bias.

Since when has the word "liberal" been a negative one? Since the Republican party started using it as an insult for those who were on the left from them (a LOT of people were called liberals when really... they weren't).

VERY generally, liberalism is a current of political thought that believes in individual liberties, the rule of law, and a free economy. I hardly think this makes it a hotbed of radicalism..

In many people's opinion, the BBC is a rather conservative medium because they believe it's liberal.

Thus, whether you're on the right or on the left of liberalism, you're never going to believe the BBC is truly independent.

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ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/07/24/do2402.xml

Too easy.

I detest Boris Johnson but  in this piece he talks about the fact that Gilligan was pro-War. That he was criticised for not supporting false claims by the Coalition of the Killing uhh Willing is out there. If you were "impartial" you'd have seen it when you investigated the right wing claims you espouse above.

You did check them out first, right?

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY
Check "who" out?

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It's an opinion piece by a British MP about some of your politics.  I saw absolutely nothing about how a BBC reporter scooped the lying Americans who were claiming they controlled Baghdad.

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Uh ... please quote to me the "right wing claims" I have made to date in this thread?

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ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY
Check "who" out?

"Them" =  the claims. You did check the veracity of the claims made in your vaunted links. Right?

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ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

It's an opinion piece by a British MP about some of your politics.  I saw absolutely nothing about how a BBC reporter scooped the lying Americans who were claiming they controlled Baghdad.

Gonna be a long night, then? It's a piece by a Tory politician describing the impartiality of the BBC and the way in which Gilligan did not allow his own support for the war to turn him into a cheerleader for it. You asked for something bearing out Gilligan's impartiality and you got it.

His report about the taking of Baghdad was a TV piece. I know it happened because I saw it. But then, I actually watch the BBC as opposed to reading about it and forming an opinion that way. I told you what was out there, seek and you shall find.

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ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

Uh ... please quote to me the "right wing claims" I have made to date in this thread?

That's impossible since you don't see them as right wing and would simply launch an interminable link fest if I did. I put it down to the absence of neutral reporting in your diet.

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RealityLicks
As for Antony Jay, if he's so concerned that the BBC is a leftist bastion, why did the BBC commission series after series of his political comedy, "Yes, Minister" with its strongly conservative leanings?

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ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

Hijack alert

What ever happened to the Iraqi information minister? The guy who I saw on TV assuring the world that Baghdad was being staunchly defended, whilst the US tanks were driving by in the background?

Whatever the crap he was spouting and had spouted in the past, I really couldnt help but admire the guy

E

On June 25, 2003, the London newspaper The Daily Mirror reported that al-Sahaf had been captured by coalition troops at a roadblock in Baghdad. The report was not confirmed by military authorities and was denied by al-Sahhaf's family through Abu Dhabi TV. The next day al-Sahaf himself recorded an interview for the Dubai-based al-Arabiya news channel. Al-Sahaf said that he had surrendered to US forces and had been interrogated by them. He was reportedly paid as much as $200,000 for the television interview, during which he appeared very withdrawn in contrast with the bombastic persona he projected during the war. Many of his answers consisted of a simple "yes" or "no". He refused to speculate on the causes of the downfall of the Iraqi government and answered only "history will tell" when asked if video clips purporting to prove that Saddam Hussein was alive were genuine, amid speculation at that time that Hussein had been killed during the war.

His fame quickly evaporated as the war continued into the "insurgency" phase; from the middle of 2003 onward, he faded from the public spotlight, and is no longer a figure in the war.

Although questioned by American authorities, al-Sahhaf was released, and there has been no suggestion of charging or detaining him for his role in the Saddam Hussein government. He is now living in the United Arab Emirates with his family.

When asked where he had got his information he replied, "authentic sources—many authentic sources".[5] He pointed out that he "was a professional, doing his job".

quote:

FirmHandKY
Generally, to me, a US "liberal" today generally believes in: multiculturalism, increased government control, group versus individual rights, the hatred of Christianity, anti-free market, and a distaste of Western culture, institutions and history among other things.