Think Tanks on the BBC’s lawn

 

 

A video of Jacob Rees-Mogg giving the EU what for and telling a few home-truths that the BBC doesn’t dare voice…he mentions the rise of  extremist parties [left included] but blame sit on the EU’s lack of democracy.  Pretty damning stuff.

And here’s Simon Jenkins in the Guardian of all places giving a pretty accurate take on the BBC’s bias with a very revealing comment about Lord Hall’s views…..though have to disagree with the usual narrative that the BBC’s referendum coverage was very balanced….

The best way to tackle BBC bias is make it plain for all to see

Though the corporation had a good Brexit, it must still address the narrow monoculture that skews key decision.

After the Brexit vote last June, Robinson’s boss, Lord Hall, went round the London dinner circuit wailing that BBC balance had “lost us the election”. It had given too much credibility to leave. I disagree. The BBC may have “lost” the election, but it was not during the campaign – rather through its years of brazen pro-EU bias.

The campaign was ironically its finest hour. Amid a deluge of lies from both sides, the corporation kept a clear head. Nothing and no one was left unchallenged. [LOL]

The BBC’s former director general Mark Thompson makes a valiant attempt to chart these rock-infested waters in his book on political language, Enough Said. He had to wrestle with a BBC which is palpably left of centre, never challenging any plea for public money or any demand that “something must be done” about the world’s ills.

The doctrine of due impartiality thus allowed producers discretion in their casting.

  As [Nick Robinson] rejects all suggestion of bias, except that old cliche “the bias against understanding”, we must ask, yes, but who is to be the judge?

I like the BBC’s familiar cast of two antagonists, of “A v B”……But it is also dangerous. It can reduce debate to stupidity, to false opposites and excluded views. It vests extraordinary power in the producer to orchestrate – and distort – debate.

There is no such thing as “pure” news. Everything you read in a newspaper or hear on a radio, every question asked and answered, is the outcome of a human decision to accord it priority over another item. That even applies to humans who program computers to privilege certain stories. All information is “edited” by someone claiming a right to choose, a licence to bias.

We can accept the BBC view that any opinion must be weighed in the scales of significance before being unleashed on the public. But we must ask who is doing the weighing, what is their inherent bias.

I may love the BBC and defend its independence to the death, but it is an alarmingly narrow monoculture. Politically, it is not diverse. It staged a good Brexit debate, but by then its past bias had loaded the outcome. I am all for “due impartiality”, but to whom is impartiality paying its due?

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12 Responses to Think Tanks on the BBC’s lawn

  1. Owen Morgan says:

    Perhaps, for the first time in his seventy-three years, Jenkins has managed to say something halfway sensible. Where he was, when the Beebyanka was trotting out unfiltered bilge on behalf of the Common Market/EEC/EC/EU, since the early Seventies, at least, is anyone’s guess.

       35 likes

  2. Grant says:

    The Mogginator should be PM. He is head and shoulders above all the others.

       53 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      He also seems immune from the deranged affliction most pols have, from Blair to Cameron to May, of wanting to be liked more than respected.

      Yet comes across as truly likeable too.

         51 likes

      • Grant says:

        Guest,

        One of his greatest fans is , surprisingly, the young SNP MP Mhairi Black. She said he was so helpful to her and she could “listen to him all day ” !

           28 likes

  3. Fedup says:

    Alan,
    Thank you for providing the excellent video of JRM in full forensic flow about the EU. I wondered about the date he spoke as well as any repost to his words. I couldn’t image many socialist or liberals being able to counter JRM without getting abusive or emotional.
    It’s a pity the BBC parliament channel can’t broadcast such stuff for the benefit of people who think beyond their own views. It would be a better public service than listening to the smug ‘journos’ on the Today programme .
    Just on another point – the msm seem to have accepted that people will be run over on purpose by terrorists motivated by ( unmentioned ) causes if you look at coverage of the Stockholm attack compared to Westminster . Perhaps good not to promote terrorism through lack of publicity ?

       34 likes

    • Grant says:

      Fedup,

      The BBC want to control and sensor what we see so that it can fit their own political agenda. They would never broadcast that debate with The Mogginator because he totally demolishes everything the BBC stands for.

         44 likes

    • Jerry Owen says:

      Fedup
      …’without getting abusive or emotional’. The left start off abusive and emotional then quickly degenerate into violence!

         30 likes

      • Fedup says:

        Jerry,
        Agreed – i was just trying to be a bit polite about those poor deluded people of the Left – such as Abbott, lady Nugee, comrade Heil Livingstone and the rest of the thankfully diminishing pool of prospective BBC employees after the next election .

           7 likes

  4. Flexdream says:

    The EU kills Europeans on a scale that ISIS can only dream about. But these victims die coughing quietly, not screaming.

    “20 years of the technology being incentivised in Europe in the knowledge that its adoption would reduce global warming emissions but lead to thousands of extra deaths from increased levels of toxic gases.”

    ” .. the European commission was lobbied strongly by big German car makers BMW, Volkswagen and Daimler, to incentivise diesel.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/22/the-rise-diesel-in-europe-impact-on-health-pollution

    Then there are the efforts made by the EU and NATO to facilitate and encourage illegal immigration and people smuggling.

    Perhaps this is a 2 pronged approach to promote demographic change?

       16 likes

    • vesnadog says:

      “The EU kills Europeans on a scale that ISIS can only dream about”

      Its all down to those deviously-trained Jesuits! Most of the EU leaders are products of said Jesuit School! Check it out yourself!

      “Jesuits formed the vanguard of the Catholic Church, like the European elite is the vanguard of the European integration. Both portray themselves as ‘the elite’, elevated above the ordinary people. Their methods are very similar. A sophisticated lie or purposeful deception is allowed when framed in the interest of the greater goal. A barely contained cynicism typifies the attitude toward the normal citizen, the ignorant fool, who within a democracy needs to be protected from himself.

      http://www.djeppink.eu/en/blog/we-are-all-jesuits

         6 likes

  5. 60022Mallard says:

    Rather than putting £10 on a horse in the National, £10 on JRM leading the Conservatives and / or being PM is likely to see a better return.

    As for Simon Jenkins the drip, drip, drip continues. If the BBC do not fix the leak it could well become a flood.

       14 likes

  6. Cranmer says:

    Thank you for posting that video. It was a real tonic for me on a somewhat depressing day. All I can say is, thank God that we still have some men of his calibre in Britain.

       17 likes