LEFT LEANING?

Is this progress? First the headline;

Some 100,000 more people will be without a job before the end of the summer, according to a new report.

And then, a few paras later…

The left-leaning IPPR said it expected 50,000 more men and 50,000 women to become unemployed this year as public sector jobs continued to be cut.

So, a Labour linked think tank spews out pro-Labour propaganda and it is taken and given huge prominence by the BBC. At least there is an acknowledgement that this is a biased source for the headline. But is that good enough? Thoughts?

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14 Responses to LEFT LEANING?

  1. GCooper says:

    Notice how it’s always ‘Left-leaning’, as opposed to ‘Left-wing’? They’re using the word ‘leaning’. to mitigate connotations with the real Left.

    ‘It’s only a little bit Left, dahling. Nothing to worry about at all.’

    Now contrast with ‘Right-wing Republicans….’

       16 likes

    • Mice Height says:

      Or ‘far right’, which is the label given to anyone who isn’t overly keen on their town being transformed in to a Third World slum.

         20 likes

      • Pah says:

        Yes, those chaps should be refered to as ‘left-wing’.

           2 likes

        • Mice Height says:

          Or they could simply not assume they know their political beliefs when all decent people of any political persuasion would be disgusted by the site of our troops being abused at homecoming parades.
          Strange how they don’t introduce the Communist thugs of UAF, Searchlight/Hate Not Hope as ‘far left’ though.

             3 likes

          • Mice Height says:

            and given that in pretty much every survey, 70% + of the British public want immigration seriously cut, then that makes an awful lot of the population ‘extremists’ in the eyes of the BBC.

            Still, I guess children being executed for witchcraft, the return of tuberculosis, honour killings, post-code gang warfare etc. etc is far outweighed by the benefits of ‘diversity’ hey . . .

               4 likes

  2. David Vance says:

    Notice that this story is being run on BBC news without the “left leaning” appellation. Shame.

       13 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Shame it’s happening, or shame on them?
      Without an easier video version of newsniffer, they know exactly what they are doing.
      While the written version may be more accurate (though the collective dissembling at ECU is a Jessica Rabbitesque hoot… ‘It’s not biased… that’s just a conclusion you’ve drawn… from the way we wrote it”), the A/V broadcast version often takes it as far into ‘what we can get away with’ territory as possible. And is nigh on impossible to track, capture and highlight. Especially when the kapos move in later to ‘tidy’ up any lingering evidence. Like the recent Titanic iceberg ‘story evolution’, where the ‘facts’ from 1912 suddenly required a rewrite over 24hrs in 2012.
      I do note that the more context-helpful description to frame the headline claim (ie: a punt by another one-degree of separation ‘group that suits’) has moved to a para well after the first usage, presumably as part of the mobile-friendly ‘you get the full story later on’ explanation currently being touted.

         0 likes

  3. chrisH says:

    Rattling through various political biographies.
    Philip Goulds was interesting-a delight to see the likes of Matthew Taylor, Lance Price and the gang of more than four cropping up in various guises with grand titles and links to nebulous Brown-Blair projects for The Project..
    The roots of the IPPR, FPI and all the many others are all seeding trays for the media and tomorrows politicians of the Left…all paid for by us, and all on Beeb speed-dial to talk up the revolution in the making.
    Same names, different flags of convenience…all sailing on the fetid, state sponsored wind turbines personnified by the Kinnock Corporation and Prescott and Partners!
    Any BBC reporting of any “research” rarely stands after we check on who sources, staffs and funds these fairy hammocks for liberal squits and Stool Index standardised exhibits.

       9 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      as are many of the quangos (no bonfire yet) and ‘charidies’…lots of shrieks about the tax relief for charities but many are merely lefty action groups.

         11 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        As are all the unlabeled “independent” vox pops they bring in for comment.

           9 likes

  4. David Preiser (USA) says:

    At least they’ve started labeling these things. They never used to and we’ve been complaining about it for years. Baby steps!

    Let’s just hope that to “balance” this out, they don’t start labeling every non-Left group or person “far Right”.

       9 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      Agreed, never seen that before, only IPPR, no tag.

         5 likes

      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        If I recall correctly, the BBC said last month they were going to start doing this. Somebody brought it up here, but I can’t remember who or exactly what prompted it. As with previous attempts to balance the style guide, we’ll see how long it actually lasts.

           8 likes

  5. Wild says:

    The State funded Leftists at the BBC appreciate that headlining the news with made up facts by Left-Wing pressure groups is blatant propaganda. Mentioning their political affiliations every now and then (everything to the Right of Lenin and to the Left of Shirley Williams is moderate to them) has nothing to do with balance, and everything to do with constructing a fallback position if the people who pay their wages call them out about it.

    For the same reason expect a mention to be made (once in a blue moon) of a report by a right-wing pressure group, but ONLY if it can be used in a Leftist cause, for example if it attacks a specific Conservative Party policy.

    If a report or article or book came out that attacked one of the central Leftist assumptions of the BBC they will completely ignore it. Just look at how much coverage the BBC gave to the book by Peter Sissons when he pointed out the endemic Leftist bias of the BBC. or the (non-existent) hand-wringing at the BBC over claims by Michael Burke that it is mostly run by and for Guardian reading Leftists.

       7 likes