Is the BBC an impartial news source?

Or has it degraded to simply spin the PR, agenda and massaged statistics to benefit the coalition government?

The reason I ask is in my eyes, the reporting over Syria, Ukraine was portrayed in a pro-military action way. Leaving out key points such as the 'acting' government of Ukraine took power by force. They didn't investigate the possibility that it isn't right to support a government who took power this way.

Another example. Today's headline "After 6 years, wages catch up with inflation" - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27047966

However read on and you can see this is including bonus payments, which the majority of workers do not receive. If these are not taken into account, wages are still below inflation figures. Not to mention this is using averages, which get skewed by the highest earners in the economy. Furthermore they are choosing to use the CPI (Consumer Price Index) figure to calculate inflation, which doesn't consider housing costs which are a huge portion of working to middle class salaries.
A more fair representation would be to use RPI (Retail Price Index) which includes housing costs in the inflation figure - But this would not suit the BBC agenda to make the government appear like they're fixing the economy. Of course because RPI shows a higher inflation figure, this is what companies use to justify their price rises 'in line with inflation'

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Reply 1

The_Dragonborn

No such thing as an impartial news source. EVERY news corporation, public or private, UK or elsewhere, has their own agenda, and it's there, no matter how subtle.

Reply 2

nersha

Ok perhaps I should have worded it differently - there is always going to be an agenda in any reporting, do you think the BBC is too biased towards the state?

Reply 3

Olie

Original post by majmuh24

Well, IMO it's significantly more impartial than most other news resources, but still not completely there. It is pretty difficult to remove all bias and be completely impartial though, so I'm not too surprised.

Posted from TSR Mobile

I agree, it would be naive to suggest its completely impartial, but I believe its certainly a lot better than most and as already said, is there a single news source in the world that is completely impartial?

Reply 4

El Salvador

It's as impartial as you can get basically. No human is without bias.

Reply 5

Lumberjack 101

For a state broadcaster it`s pretty impartial. Certainly compared to something like RT, or even Al Jazeera. Nowhere near as bad as Fox News.....

Reply 6

Cylos

When Grant Shapps threatened to cut funding, they are more likely to be pro-government. Despite some of TSR users thinks it is a frothing at the mouth, Bolshevik institution.
http://entertainme.excite.co.uk/tory-chairman-grant-shapps-threatens-bbc-funding-over-bias-N47384.html

Reply 7

DorianGrayism

Original post by nersha

The BBC are accused of being anti-coalition and you are accusing them of being pro-coatlition.

The BBC are accused of being Pro-Palestinian and then are accused of being Pro-Israeli.

Etc etc etc.

It seems like they are not bias. They just do shoddy journalism.

Reply 8

tengentoppa

The BBC are very biased, as shown by their reporting on Ukraine, Syria and the EU. It's always best to contrast various news sources to get a comprehensive view, and you should never be too over-reliant on one news source.

Reply 9

SMEGGGY

Biased. Always has been.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 10

yo radical one

Not at all

It's extremely pro-Royal family and anti-Israel, it's also very anti-Russian and anti-Assad. Most people perceive only biases which go against their views, but even for things for which I agree with the BBC, it sometimes shows a bias. I wouldn't say it's a left-wing bias as many people say, it's a Western establishment bias in my mind.

Reply 11

cole-slaw

Its certainly less obviously partisan than any of the daily newspapers.

Reply 12

A Mysterious Lord

What they do report tends to be fairly balanced, but they have a habit of not reporting anything that goes against their agenda.

Reply 13

Lumberjack 101

Original post by DorianGrayism

It seems like they are not bias. They just do shoddy journalism.

Going a bit off-topic, but I read a story on the bbc website a couple of weeks ago where the headline was "Dead piranhas found blocking sewers", but the actual statement from the water company they were reporting on said the fish weren`t piranhas. Just rewriting press releases with out even reading them properly.

Reply 14

anarchism101

The BBC, as with all public bodies, is expected to somehow be impartial, balanced, representative, inclusive and factual all at the same time.

Overall I'd say the BBC generally has a pro-establishment and to a lesser extent pro-government bias.

Reply 15

Classical Liberal

The BBC is one of the most unbiased news suppliers. The only one that is more unbiased is the FT. This is because the readership of the FT is businessmen who just want the facts and the actual narrative of stories.

Reply 16

n00

Original post by DorianGrayism

Well either that or one side may simply be wrong or maybe even trying to presure the BBC to be more biased or attempting to discredit the other sides argument that the BBC are biased.

Reply 17

MatureStudent36

Original post by nersha

Ok perhaps I should have worded it differently - there is always going to be an agenda in any reporting, do you think the BBC is too biased towards the state?

The state normally criticises the BBC for questioning it.

The BBC is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If it's not for you its against you. So far the BBC in Scotland has been criticised by the yes campaign for being biased against it, and the no campaign for being biased against it.

The current government has criticised it for being a mouthpiece for labour yet you claim it's a mouthpiece of the government.

The BBC was never pro military action. Military action was only the real option. When It was found out that the British population didn't care about Syria and therefore the bbc aren't really going to report on it. It's just another civil war as far as the population cares.

You may wish to read up about the Ukraine. It's not as clear cut as that.

Reply 18

Sunny_Smiles

no, in fact the current (or the old, I forget) manager of it actually openly admitted that it was left wing

Reply 19

caravaggio2

It is.
Could you ever have imagined it all but ignoring the Stephen Lawrence murder? Their coverage was, quite rightly, constant and informative. And I am not talking about the police covering their arse, I mean from day one.

Yet I had never heard of the Scottish boy tortured and the murdered by a gang of racist Muslim men until three years ago when I started reading political forums online. Not many could name him without research.
Like Stephens murderers they set out to look specifically for someone from another race, in this case white, found a fifteen yearold child and tortured him almost to death, then murdered him.
When eventually they saw fit to answer the years of criticism about their reporting of the case the BBC apologised and blamed something they called Scottish blindness.
The young boys name?.......Kriss Donald.