Is a re-think in order about allegations of BBC bias?
Whilst I continue to believe that the BBC is merely 'neutral', rather than 'biased', I cannot deny that this story from Ananova worries me, when it reports that HMS Ark Royal has replaced the BBC by SKY for its on-board satellite news coverage, as a result of complaints by crew members. One assumes it must have been the pretty over-whelming view of many/most of the crew for the flagship vessel of the Royal Navy to take such action.
In the biased-BBC 'blog' there is extensive discussion about where the BBC is alleged to be falling down and I think it makes some fair points. I still believe that the reporters on the ground report as fairly as they can, but where I tend to have some sympathy with the arguments in this 'blog' is in its contention that the news analysis back in the studion leaves something to be desired. I quote one paragraph from a lengthy article:
Bias increases as the square of the distance: during the first fortnight of war, the BBC's coverage could be expressed by this formula. If you listened to embedded journalists describing the action where they were and did your own analysis of it, you got an acceptable view. If you listened to those journalists' responses to leading questions from the studio, you might be somewhat misled, but arguably within legitimate discretion of the BBC's charter of impartiality. If you listened to the BBC 10 o'clock evening news' analysis, you would be very seriously misled.
To this I'd add that some of the questions posed to reporters in Iraq by anchor-persons in the studio betray a complete lack of any 'feel' for what is going in a war-zone - a particular problem with one of the people on the 'Breakfast' programme. My view tends to be that it displays the ignorance, rather than the bias, of the anchor concerned as the war seems to be treated as a kind of video-game rather than a deadly-serious reality for those on the ground.
To summarise - I'll be watching this with a slightly different eye from now on.
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