Twitter and Facebook definitely used to be much more fun. It seems to now be all curated and shared content designed to infuriate people (and that certainly works!). Twitter still can be great fun on nights like Eurovision when hashtags are generally used by like minded people to poke fun at it all but you’re right in that even the most benign comment can attract some very opinionated responses.
I think the BBC have made themselves out to become the confused outliers of a selected few with these new guidelines in place.
The way in which they are interpreted are probably there to unfurl a lot of division among themselves & the public in how they get their correct message across to various strands of British & wider society while on & off social media. In general terms whatever content that you post on social media; your viewpoints from the content that were decided on beforehand through this medium by you does say a lot to make you be the type of person you are to other people around you in society.
Your opinions on particular subjects does make you have an influence towards others that may also affect you in time. And from what I may understand from reading these guidelines; would I be correct in saying that the BBC, from the corporation's point of view, would say to you as an employee that you are now wrong to express those things even when you are on/off duty from broadcasting?
Does the BBC actually recognise that it is extremely difficult to be perfect in a divided world? I would say that it's very hard these days to have perfect opinions in the UK at the moment when you are living in a democracy that has promoted itself to leave from a democracy that has given them so much trade & prosperity when it was one of the original members of that partnership. When the BBC does it's broadcasting coverage on Brexit as an example; it would be appropriate for them, in broadcasting terms, to give the facts to the public on how Brexit is going to unfold particularly when it's at a critical juncture in going close to a no deal Brexit in January.
So to make it simpler for you. Giving out facts on Brexit is fine when you're on broadcasting duty but not good when off duty from it. You can do the same for giving out facts for Covid-19, Elections, terror attacks, sport when you are broadcasting but off duty is a no-no. To highlight one example George Alagiah has two social media accounts on Twitter, one for promoting the News at Six on BBC One & one other account for promoting his book & his personal opinions for other members of the public to read. What I'm asking in his case is that does he get to keep one & ditch the other if his other account has full of personal opinions on matters that affect him?
Is it the job of a news programme to give me facts or opinions? Therein lies the answer I think.
It’s perfectly possible to perform the duties of being a PSB news journalist without revealing your personal politics. Andrew Neil and Jeremy Paxman spring to mind as examples- people may think they know which way they lean politically but in fact they actually give no clue.
In my view, there are two absolutely essential qualities needed to broadcast a news service, you have to ‘open minded’ and ‘even handed’. By failing to stick to either of these ‘rules’ if you like, you must inevitably reveal a bias. Hence the current difficulties faced by the BBC, C4 and ITV’s breakfast service with getting government spokespeople to appear. Just my opinion of course.
Edited to add. Having your own twitter or whatever account is just an exercise in personal vanity and I include all general members of the public in that.
In my view, there are two absolutely essential qualities needed to broadcast a news service, you have to ‘open minded’ and ‘even handed’. By failing to stick to either of these ‘rules’ if you like, you must inevitably reveal a bias. Hence the current difficulties faced by the BBC, C4 and ITV’s breakfast service with getting government spokespeople to appear. Just my opinion of course.
It's very easy to perceive (and misrepresent) scrutiny - "asking the people in charge difficult questions and not letting them get away with dodging the question" - as bias.
Especially if you're a government that isn't doing a particularly good job, misdirection can be easier than fronting up to difficult but reasonable scrutiny.
Last edited by Steve in Pudsey on 1 November 2020 9:56am
In my view, there are two absolutely essential qualities needed to broadcast a news service, you have to ‘open minded’ and ‘even handed’. By failing to stick to either of these ‘rules’ if you like, you must inevitably reveal a bias. Hence the current difficulties faced by the BBC, C4 and ITV’s breakfast service with getting government spokespeople to appear. Just my opinion of course.
It's very easy to perceive (and misrepresent) scrutiny - "asking the people in charge difficult questions and not letting them get away with dodging the question" - as bias.
Especially if you're a government that isn't doing a particularly good job, misdirection can be easier than fronting up to difficult but reasonable scrutiny.
Which further leads to the question of the difference between being critical of someone’s position and criticism of someone’s position. If you were to cast a glance at Piers Morgan’s twitter feed for example and his comments directed directly towards Boris Johnson then you would be unlikely to conclude that Morgan is likely to conduct a critical interview rather than one which is simply full of criticism. I expect other news organisations to issue social media guidelines in the wake of the BBC’s efforts.
As to your comments that I have highlighted - I agree with you entirely. If an interview is being conducted by someone with no perceived political agenda then it will be accepted for what it is, but if the interviewer has some sort of declared political viewpoint, no matter how subtle, then they are simply kicking their own legs out from beneath themselves. What Robert Peston can get away with, Emily Maitless simply can’t.
I think Twitter has cheapened BBC News somewhat. I get that there is a huge audience there, but I don’t think it should be used as a channel for the delivery of news by the BBC, either directly or indirectly through individual reporters’ tweets. It’s poisonous, and I think it would be better if the BBC focussed on its own app, channels and shows rather than trying to be everywhere.
I don’t know if it’s rose tinted specs but I’m sure Twitter was more fun in the earlier days, now it just seems to be people endlessly sounding off. Complaining about everyone and everything.
I don’t know what Laura gets from Twitter as she just receives endless abuse every time she tweets
There is far too much politics on the Internet in general these days, you can watching an old clip of a comedy show on YouTube and in the comments there will be an argument because someone said that ‘Captain Mainwearing would probably have voted for Brexit’ or something similar.
Does anyone remember the time when the BBC or ITN newsreader's political views were never brought into question?
I watched the 1979 BBC election coverage last weekend, and there was a great part of the breakfast part of the election coverage, where David Dimbleby sat down with Bob McKenzie, David Butler and the great Robin Day, for them all to be asked questions from a panel of members of the public in Derby and pupils of a secondary school.
Robin Day was asked about his balanced and impartial interview approach by a wonderful young pupil at the school, who was not frightened to ask Robin Day how he could be impartial since he stood as a Liberal Party MP candidate, with Robin giving a good reply saying the following:
"Have you heard of something called the rehabilitation of offenders act? Under which, people after a reasonable time are entitled to have their past expunged from the record ... it is fair to say people can have a change of their views, or even if they keep their views, they are still capable of being reasonably impartial, after all the speaker of the House of Commons was a Labour MP for 20 or 30 years, and nobody thinks he is not impartial."
or even if they keep their views, they are still capable of being reasonably impartial
Fundamentally this is what it comes down to. Impartiality is a skill - and one that takes quite a lot of practice to get right. The BBC don't just hire anyone, and saying that their journalists can't perform a basic part of their job is insulting. Just because somebody has opinions in their personal life doesn't mean they have it in their professional life - I doubt many plumbers do much plumbing when they get home, but I don't doubt their ability to use their skills when doing their job. Most people are able to maintain a clear professional/personal divide and I've always assumed that most BBC journalists are people (though clearly a lot of people would rather their wholesale replacement with robots).
I also think that a big part of the problem is that most of the vocal accusations of bias come from people (newspaper columnists and politicians) who have never had to practice the skill of impartiality and so a sort of Dunning-Kruger/psychological projection effect exists whereby they can't comprehend that somebody could actually be impartial. People who don't possess a skill are generally very poor judges of people who do.