The BBC, ABC, and SBS Will Always Be Biased
Rod Liddle, ex-editor of the BBC’s Today program, and now uber-curmudgeon columnist for the Spectator, is one of my favourite journalists. He is always sarcastic, rude, embittered, cynical and negative. Just as all good columnists should be.
His last two pieces for the Spectator have focused on the ‘cultural pecking order’ at the BBC. Here are his views on who is open for attack at the Beeb and who are ‘off-limits’.
Category I – Groups the BBC feel its staff must roundly abuse or even physically chastise
The BNP
Non government-approved Islamic Groups
Any Imam who has hooks rather than hands
Category II – Groups towards whom the presenter should display contempt or quiet hostility
Conservative MPs
UKIP
All Israelis other than those ‘who are activists within peace groups’
Evangelical Christians
Supporters of the Countryside Alliance
Roman Catholics
Paedophiles
Chairmen of Multinational Corporations
Scientologists
Category III – Groups to whom the presenter should affect an air of studied indifference or mild distain
Members of the Labour Government (unless they were against the Iraq War)
Category IV – requires the presenter to fawn in a sickening manner and, on occasion, even proffer sexual favours
Pop Stars wishing to write-off African debt
All disabled people
‘Ordinary’ members of ethnic minorities
‘Moderate’ Muslims
Charity Spokeswomen
Bearded scientists in spectacles who insist the Earth is going to turn into a cinder by the year 2012
Those wishing for a ‘neutral’ bias at the BBC are smoking something strong. No news organisation can be neutral. It’s simply impossible. The best and only solution is to privatise the BBC and let their bearded charity workers compete against the other ‘biased’ stations such as CNN and Fox News.
The same applies to Australia’s national broadcasters, SBS and the ABC. End the taxpayer subsidies ($80 per head solely for the ABC), release them to fight in the open market and allow their biases to flourish.
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I take this to mean the BBC forms some kind of democratic socialist establishment, or Tory left wing.
This issue mainly relates to news and current affairs. Drama and other entertainment from these sources is quite varied.
The ABC was not always politically biased, or at least not left-wing. During the Menzies years it was criticised for stodgy conservatism while trying very hard to be objective.
At one stage the BBC was held up as a pillar of objectivity, including in the Middle East where local media were seen as corrupt. Not any more.
The ABC’s bias is partially reflected in the way it deals with issues and those speaking about them (as with the post relating to the BBC) but even more in the way it selects its agenda.
For example, there is a story focusing on aborigines in the ABC TV news most evenings. Quite often the story has no particular significance and would never be considered were it not for the aboriginal element.
Scary stories about the environment, global warming and business misdeeds are also frequent. Stories about personal philanthropy, Australian business success and the benefits of a more efficient waterfront are not.
The problem of bias is not that it exists, but that it is unaccountable. The ABC’s finances remain precisely the same whether it reflects the preferences of most Australians or the sole views of an ageing leftie who lives in Darlinghurst.
Aside from the fact that the market is quite capable of doing what the ABC does, that’s a key reason it ought to be privatised.
As I mentioned with Pommygranite in the last 2 weeks the BBC obviously believes that Gordon Brown is their new “Messiah”, and if they intensify their open support and bias toward him they can keep their jobs for 6 years rather than the expected 2 years.
The bias on Radio 4 is now so bad I have to turn it off most days and go to Radio 3 – but now they are even encroaching on this service.
Colin -the mind boggles as to how they can encroach on Radio 3.
Mark – according to a friend who works there, 90% are fully paid up Blairites. The views of those few right-of-centre journos are ‘ignored at best’.
Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any votes in privatising the BBC. It’s still very popular. Same with the ABC and SBS?
Lots of resistance to ABC privatisation – I’ve had many arguments with my lefty friends on this topic. One of the problems is that they consider the commercial channels as full of crap. They’re right, but it’s not exactly a free market.
I’d be happy enough to delay it’s privatisation while we deregulate the rest of the industry (eg, more channels, less content requirements/restrictions, allow digital tv to multi-channel and datacast, and so on)… this might then make privatisation easier to sell.
Question for Pommy – I haven’t been in the UK since late 2000, so am curious as to your impression of bias. Which is worse – the ABC or the BBC? I always found the beeb very rigorous in its newsgathering, and careful in its reporting. If there was a bias it seemed to be against Israel, although it was always careful where British Jews were concerned.
I’ve been living in the UK since 2001 and I simply ignore the BBC’s television coverage of news events in favour of online sources (including the BBC’s website). Their TV news service is as superficial as any other TV network, biased or not. I simply don’t watch enough of the beeb to have an opinion on whether their editorial stance and the balance of the types of stories they focus on. This is probably as daming as anything, I consider the BBC irrelevent as a news or opinion source.
SL
I haven’t really watched enough ABC, i’m afraid, to make a comparison.
The BBC is staunchly Blairite though – left-of-centre, tree-huggers, fair-traders, debt-relief-for-Africa, pro-Bono
etc etc. And yes, very anti-Israel.
Nah mate, if anything the BBC is just making up for when it was identified by the Glasgow Media Group (Bad News and More Bad News, seminal works on media bias) as blaming the striking miners and other unionist workers for the state of the British economy in 1970-80s. 19 times out of 20 the television news would refer to strikes as the root of the problem and only once mentioned that the owners of UK business were mostly investing in new plant overseas thereby creating mass unemployment and deadening domestic market demand.
Recently, the Glasgow Media Group produced the Bad News from Israel which examined just how biased the BBC and other UK media is in favour of Israel’s military activities. There you have it Pommy et al, people with expertise in the field have sat down with recording devices and analysed the text of media rather than just repeating what their favourite sarko reactionary journalist has spouted.
How quickly they forget that Palestine was stolen from the British Empire with a terrorist bombing campaign and political assainations. Possibly justifiable given that Britain was blocking the passage of jews en masse to Palestine during the early part of world war two.
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By the way, I am visiting the Demidenko family when I visit the Ukraine and Russia next week as they are seeking defamation charges to be brought against SkepticLawyer under overarching international and EU law. You will be picked up when you arrive in the UK and placed in a cell with on a Greek island with Tony Mokbel (some would be jealous).
I see he’s escaped from the asylum again.
I’ll get my mum the psychiatrist onto you Hjelmy!!
The special Crisis Assessment Team backed by mortar fire from the Australian Army of Statehood are on their way!!
If anyone is up to it (ie has done some research or knows what they are talking about), I will field serious comments on this thread relating to comment 8.
erm.. comment 9..
Who’s Parkos? GMB’s eviller, madder twin?
Parkos, there is nothing in comment 9 worth commenting on seriously.
Parkos, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quote a source.
I sometimes listen to JJJ mainly because I don’t have a CD player in my car. I channel surf a lot.
They are definitely green, left, socialists. Definitely.
Their current affairs program, Hack, is expert at creating problems where none exist. There is no doubt to a definite left wing bias. The bias is also very evident on the morning show. Green activists are interviewed constantly. The hosts continually complain about sweat shops in third world countries, environmental issues, evil corporations, ad nausea. I even suspect the music is chosen on left wing subject matter to a degree.
Lots of resistance to ABC privatisation – I’ve had many arguments with my lefty friends on this topic. One of the problems is that they consider the commercial channels as full of crap. They’re right, but it’s not exactly a free market.
It’s not a perfectly free market, but it helps all the same to compare like with like.
The free-to-air commercial channels rely on advertising dollars for their income. As a result, they are forced to include programming that will get the right sort of people to watch them. (The sort of people the advertisers want).
The ABC is a subscription TV service. It is paid for by a subscription (albeit a forced one). In that sense it is comparable to a Pay TV station.
Many of the pay TV stations have programming equal to and better than any of the ABC’s flagship programs. And they will cost you much less than $80 per year each, despite the fact that the ABC has over 40 times as many (forced) subsribers.
For $1000 a year I get over 40 channels, or $25 per year each. That’s less than half the cost of the ABC, a channel which I never watch.
And I should add that that $1000 per year is split between 3 members of the household, who also pay $240 a year between them for the ABC.
Therefore you are getting the entire foxtel package (over 50 channels) for about 3 times the yearly cost of the ABC.
It’s a giant rort that needs to stop. The ABC’s budget is simply overwhelmingly huge for what it does – which is very little.
OK parkos, http://www.gla.ac.uk/centres/mediagroup/badnews.htm
Before spouting on, I will point out that the BBC is reckoned to be biggest producer of media in the world in terms of content and consumption. As a result, it is possible to get all sorts of opinions through their outlets, and not just in the comments sections of web articles. However, there are identifiable trends within parts of its overall discourse.
“Who’s Parkos?” great reply mr granate, really getting into the issues raised. You clearly did not go to a university that wins the world debating contest regularly (the UK unis rarely do in spite of the way Murdoch builds them up). I would not recommend it as a course of action however.
Okay I am going to agree with you for a whilst showing you the error of your own analysis and kick the arse of the Glasgow U Media Group at the same time.
The BBC in the UK is often on the side of the Blair government when he is a stodgy conservative working/upper class idiot who should hook up with his friend Thatcher.
Case in point Donald Currie (jailed animal rights activist):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6215144.stm
This news item was presented on the evening news last year. It is a total shafting of the bloke involved, his reasons and his organisation. He was trying to stop people actually involved in torturing animals and this is more noble than those involved in the labour-conservative dialectics.
This was then followed by a news item about the London man whose health was destroyed by a medical drug experiment involving humans. An update on this man’s condition:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5121824.stm
The knowledge position being presented by the placement of the two items was clearly that Donald was a nutter because without animal experiments more plumbers will be disabled by inept doctors.
They failed to point out that it was because of animal torture experiments that Ryan the plumber has ended up in a wheelchair. The drugs he took were tested extensively on animals. Not only is it morally reprehensible, but animal experimentation is evidently a failed science. I really dont care about the economic costs of stopping the vivisection industry when people and animals are dying horrible deaths now.
Under new anti terrorism legislation this raid was carried out on 32 animal rights activists, although only one was charged and even his charge may not have been accurate:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6610429.stm
Blair knew, the BBC backed him up..
Life and liberty were jeopardised once again.
Liberty is life/love ie Leben or Liebe in German.
That should answer some of your questions about “what is a libertarian?” for today.
RE JJJ
a lot of the music reefers to marijuana and its consumption. Which is a feature of advanced capitalist libertarian economies like the Netherlands.
Is this the leftism you are talking about Tim? becuase it is not really left at all.
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Restore the previous comment 20,
there was nothing offensive in it.
I hope this doesn’t mean you cannot handle intellectual debate.
My family named Australia, and started the currency and education systems. That is “who is parkos?”
If you want to continue living in our imagination and get on Mr Granate, you will restore the comment and deal with the issues relating to liberty (animal and human) and media bias or concede.
I will not stoop to using racist insults like “pommy”.
parkos
i don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re clearly even madder than i had at first thought.
if a comment has been deleted, it wasn’t by me. there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that you could say that i would find offensive.
Alright you are off the hook son, but someone will pay!!
I suspect Humphreys as he thinks the economy is about riding on the sheep’s back in Armidale..
Everyone is biased, there are those who think they think objectively and those who try but know better … .
DS, that is a terrible thing to say, I for one am totally unbiased.
I am also always right, fortunately I am a very tolerant person and make allowences for everybody else being wrong.
Good point though.
Everyone is biased, but we aren’t forced to pay for them to be biased, except in the case of the ABC.
To say that the ABC is biased, is an absurdity, the staff who talk, whether it be TV or radio, are denied freedom of speech, by Howard. The staff are too fearful to exercise their right to freedom of speech.
Howard has taken control of the ABC, like no other PM before him, resulting in a dumbed down version of what it used to be.
DavidL’s comments referring to the history of the ABC are way off the mark, he obviously was not alive in the 1960s when the staff of the ABC, did not hold back on criticising the government of the day, much more so than the commercial media, at the time.
David is also off the mark when he talks about the current ABC news, which is mostly “Howard says” propaganda, and Western propaganda, not about Aboriginal affairs.
I am bored by stock exchange reports or any reference to business greed and success, whether it be on ABC or corporate media. Manic commercials and advertising reflect the Australian way of a mickey mouse existence.
“Bias” to use a, “you beaut mate” is a sporting word used by indoor and outdoor bowls players, it also is used for a short and curly when avoiding at all costs “truth”.
To say that it is without bias is a bigger absurdity.
Jaye – you say that the ABC is not biased. And then you say it is controlled by John Howard. If it is controlled by John Howard then that suggests bias. You need to make up your mind.
Silly me Jaye Newland. You are quite right – of course the ABC reflects John Howard’s views. It also reflected the views of Paul Keating before him, and Bob Hawke before that. It’s perfectly obvious ABC staff, like all journalists, are mindless automatons who merely parrot the views of their owners. They are absolutely not independent individuals who use their position to promote their uniformly ‘progressive’ views. Thanks for pointing out my error.
Cooment 20 is missing when viewed in Firefox and present when viewed in Safari (apple osX)..
Carry on up the shearing shed.