How is the BBC left-wing biased especially after how they've roasted Corbyn?

They've gone on and on like a tabloid about Jeremy Corbyn, giving his opposers a lot more limelight, conducting Krishnan Guru-Murthy style interviews on him and twisting peoples' words - examples being pestering how he will address the Queen after not singing the national anthem, the amount of women in the shadow cabinet, and the Emily Maitlis 'it was a joke' saga that caused Dennis Skinner to rip her a new one.

Even as someone that doesn't associate with left wing politics much at all I've always been fairly tolerant about the BBC and usually seen it as generally impartial with the occasional 'borderline' reporter from either side of the spectrum. This treatment of Corbyn, much as I don't like his politics, assures me that there's far from a left wing bias anywhere, and in fact leans on quite the opposite. So I'm confused - why even after all this, do people still watch the BBC paranoid that there are production and journalist teams back there full of loony lefties??

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 1

abcd1230

8

The BBC swings one way to another. The BBC is left, it always will be. But the way I see it, is that it's trying to save itself from the Tories swinging the axe on it hence acts in a way that it doesn't report certain things as much as they should, that could damage the Tories 'image' i.e. about the Tax credits changes. But then again, that could be because Corbyn is taking over the spotlight which is probably more the left wing's fault than the right wing.
The amount of women is due to the fact that he used it heavily in his campaign, it helped him pluck votes from Cooper. Him not singing the anthem is because he's republican and it doesn't usually happen. It's not the mail, they're not shaming him. They're just stating the facts that anyone interested in politics should know.

Reply 2

caravaggio2

17

Would you say the Guardian is left wing?
They slaughtered him before the election.
I haven't read it since so I don't know about now.

Reply 3

scrotgrot

16

Guardian and BBC are not left wing, they are Blairite socially and liberal economically. Right wing nutjobs think this is what it means to be left wing because the Labour party were like it for so long. The right wing nutjobs don't realise that in fact they have a lot in common with the left wing nutjobs as represented by Corbyn

Reply 4

DiddyDec01

3

Original post by caravaggio2

Would you say the Guardian is left wing?
They slaughtered him before the election.
I haven't read it since so I don't know about now.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/12/jeremy-corbyn-not-one-female-voice

Reply 5

Dez

20

Classic selection bias. A person sees some left-wing comedian being given airtime on the BBC, and concludes the entire station must be left-leaning, ignoring all of the right-wing stuff they also give their broadcast time to.

Reply 6

adstratt

OP

1

Original post by Dez

Classic selection bias. A person sees some left-wing comedian being given airtime on the BBC, and concludes the entire station must be left-leaning, ignoring all of the right-wing stuff they also give their broadcast time to.

But on Question Time the Labour guy always gets a louder clap!????? Who duz the BBC think they is brainwashing us ugh license fee payers grr propaganda hmph outrage smh?

(probably completely ignoring the fact that David Starkey is also on the panel and has just given possibly the most right wing monologue you'll ever hear on TV)

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Reply 7

CriticalThinking

Original post by adstratt

But on Question Time the Labour guy always gets a louder clap!????? Who duz the BBC think they is brainwashing us ugh license fee payers grr propaganda hmph outrage smh?

(probably completely ignoring the fact that David Starkey is also on the panel and has just given possibly the most right wing monologue you'll ever hear on TV)

Posted from TSR Mobile

This kind of mockery is about as low as it gets. Completely inventing what people might argue and then writing it like a council estate teenager to make yourself feel intelligent. It's straw-manning at it's worst.

The BBC tries to be impartial but it's well known it swings to the left. The Question Time audience was always hand picked up until recently, and have you ever seen that "free speech" show on BBC3? Total propaganda.

Then there's the fact they give their employees free Guardian newspapers every day...

Reply 8

pol pot noodles

19

Original post by Dez

Classic selection bias. A person sees some left-wing comedian being given airtime on the BBC, and concludes the entire station must be left-leaning, ignoring all of the right-wing stuff they also give their broadcast time to.

What if a person sees more airtime and favourable spin being given to the left, constantly, for decades? Also I bet if you were to list all the times they've showed a right wing bias and I were to do a time they've showed a left wing bias my list would be much longer. Then we have numerous ex-BBC personnel who have come out and admit the BBC has a left wing bias. How many have ever said the opposite?

Reply 9

pol pot noodles

19

Original post by scrotgrot

Guardian and BBC are not left wing, they are Blairite socially and liberal economically. Right wing nutjobs think this is what it means to be left wing because the Labour party were like it for so long. The right wing nutjobs don't realise that in fact they have a lot in common with the left wing nutjobs as represented by Corbyn

Debatable but regardless, the BBC shouldn't be anything. It should be socially neutral and economically neutral. This is an organisation that claims such a degree of impartiality that it doesn't dare call ISIS by one of it's Arabic names because ISIS doesn't like the term and the BBC wouldn't want to offend ISIS. The BBC should take a similar standard of reporting when it comes to domestic politics.

Reply 10

Dez

20

Original post by pol pot noodles

What if a person sees more airtime and favourable spin being given to the left, constantly, for decades? Also I bet if you were to list all the times they've showed a right wing bias and I were to do a time they've showed a left wing bias my list would be much longer. Then we have numerous ex-BBC personnel who have come out and admit the BBC has a left wing bias. How many have ever said the opposite?

I don't know where you're dreaming the "for decades" part from, the BBC used to be incredibly right-wing, and it remains firmly pro-establishment even to this day. The more liberal leaning is definitely a recent phenomenon.

Some programs definitely lean left, but there are still plenty that remain right-wing. Overall the network is probably one of the least biased news sources around, especially compared to the newspapers. And when it comes to important coverage (e.g. elections) the BBC have generally been shown to be quite neutral.

Could they improve on that? Obviously their coverage is never going to be perfect. But I think calling the BBC biased when the Murdochopoly is still allowed free reign is rather ridiculous, personally.

Reply 11

LeCapitalist

1

Original post by scrotgrot

Guardian and BBC are not left wing, they are Blairite socially and liberal economically. Right wing nutjobs think this is what it means to be left wing because the Labour party were like it for so long. The right wing nutjobs don't realise that in fact they have a lot in common with the left wing nutjobs as represented by Corbyn

This, 100%. Labour hasn't been left-wing since the 40s. It's a centre-left/centrist party.

We should make love sometime.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 12

Aj12

18

Original post by Dez

I don't know where you're dreaming the "for decades" part from, the BBC used to be incredibly right-wing, and it remains firmly pro-establishment even to this day. The more liberal leaning is definitely a recent phenomenon.

Some programs definitely lean left, but there are still plenty that remain right-wing. Overall the network is probably one of the least biased news sources around, especially compared to the newspapers. And when it comes to important coverage (e.g. elections) the BBC have generally been shown to be quite neutral.

Could they improve on that? Obviously their coverage is never going to be perfect. But I think calling the BBC biased when the Murdochopoly is still allowed free reign is rather ridiculous, personally.

I'm not even sure how you keep an organisation that reports on political events completely neutral anyway. I think it is an unachievable ask. Simply by reporting on one event over another you are showing bias. Still if both sides are taking shots at you, you have to be doing something right?

Reply 13

The Owl of Minerva

14

What kind of leftie organization lets Jeremy Clarkson stay on the air as long as they did? The BBC are actually nauseatingly impartial imo.

Reply 14

sdotd

17

BBC do seem to lean to the left

Reply 15

meenu89

19

Original post by LeCapitalist

This, 100%. Labour hasn't been left-wing since the 40s. It's a centre-left/centrist party.

Have you not heard of Michael Foot and the 1983 election manifesto? Most political commentators would say that was 'left wing'.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 16

slade p

4

BBC is certainly left wing.

Reply 17

ibzombie96

17

People on the left hate the BBC because it's intolerably right wing, and the right hate the BBC because it's is disgustingly left wing.

I think that's evidence the BBC's essentially doing its job.

Reply 18

LeCapitalist

1

Original post by meenu89

Have not heard of Michael Foot and the 1983 election manifesto? Most political commentators would say that was 'left wing.'

Well, it depends on what you mean by the "Labour Party" and how you define the centre and the left.

What is today regarded as "centrist" would, in the mid 20th century, be regarded as right-wing. And what today we regard "left-wing" would, in the mid century, be regarded as "consensus, centrist". See the so-called post-War consensus.

Now, what did the 1983 manifesto advocated? abolition of the private means of production? no. Jacobinist persecution of the clergy? no.

It advocated nationalisation of certain industries and banks (a key tenet of the post-war consensus), establishing a minimum wage and withdrawing from the then EEC as well as nuclear disarmament.

Again, in our current political discourse (established mainly by the woman in your avatar), the above is regarded as extreme left-wing whatever. In the 50s, this was part of the post-war consensus which Labour instituted.

Furthermore, Labour has many strands. Foot represented only one strand which, as it turned out, was not the dominant one and never has been since the 60s and the so-called stagflation crisis. The Labour Party like all parties has individuals within it which are socialist or left-wing (Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn) and individuals who are centrist, centre-left (Tony Blair and the vast majority of the Labour party members and supporters).

TLDR: Labour has always been on the political mainstream centre.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 19

nixy49

1

What I'd like to know of JC is, would he have put future generations on the hook by bailing out bankers...... would he have jailed them?

How is the BBC left-wing biased especially after how they've roasted Corbyn?

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