All I will say is that during the last election I didn't notice any bias either way by the BBC. They allowed the same amount of coverage to all of the parties and they all got the same treatment IMHO.
(Edited by square eyes at 9:38 pm on July 21, 2001)
They would be in serious trouble if there was even one hint of political bias.
My brother who works at our local ILR was doing interviews with local candidates. at 5:05pm on the day of the election he spoke to the Conservative candidate for Nuneaton. at 5:09, the calls flooded in saying that the station was biased. What the failed to notice was at 6:05 he spoke to the Labour candidate and at 7:05 he spoke to the Liberal Democrat candidate. All for EXACTLY the same amount of time.
If you watched Sky you would have realised that they missed quite a lot on News 24 especially.
The BBC said News 24 would be as good during the election as CNN during the Gulf War, they came nowhere close.
For example, the BBC spent over 1 hour covering Tony Blair in a standard meeting.
In the mean time Sky covered Blair for about 20 mins then went on to Hague whilst using the split screen to tell people Blair was still there and keeping the audio on Hague. They then put Blair on Active, ok the BBC couldn't have done that but they didn't even use split screen to tell people Hague was there.
Then after Hague had finished Sky dashed over to the Lib Dems where Kennedy was giving Sky and interview and again they reminded people Blair was speaking.
The Lib Dems got very little coverage on the BBC despite the fact that they are the most media happy of the 3 major parties.
Labour was giving more favour by the BBC during the election. Media bias isn't easy to spot and we are lucky, all of the networks over here are very good at hiding their political agendas but occasionally, like the one above, we get a slip up.
On the graphics front Sky designed special graphics for every party, and ok so this doesn't say that much but the BBC kept the red background for all of their new graphics.
Calm down before you burst something. All I said was that Fox take Sky because they have a deal. It's nothing to do with whose best.
As for the BBC being controlled by goverment, it isn't, and I can assure you it gave Tony Blair just as much of a hard time as William Hague. Did you see Jeremy Paxmans interviews with them both.
I certanly don't think the BBC is perfect. Some of its reporting is so tacky it makes you sick. eg the reporting of the funeral of the girl who drowned recently.
However in the big news stories it usually gets it right.
.
On the graphics front Sky designed special graphics for every party, and ok so this doesn't say that much but the BBC kept the red background for all of their new graphics.
This is plainly incorrect.
The BBC had a netural orange backing to their graphics. When covering party events they superimposed the logo of the relevent party. They also covered the SNP and the welsh.
The 3 partys have media units monitoring every output. At the first hint of bias they be straight on the phone to the DG.
The BBC IS placed under government regulations.
The BSC is a government dept. and regulates the BBC.
I would say that the interviews on Sky were better than the Paxman or Frost interviews on the BBC.
Frost even quoted Adam Boulton during his interview with Hague!
Although the BBC refuse to use Sky's interviews unless they can avoid it, the Ann Widdecombe and cannabis thing for example.
Also, we know the BBC had to buy pictures from Sky News during the election, despite having far more people out there.
Fox do take Sky because they are linked, they wouldn't be able to take them otherwise. But generally Sky are the best when it comes to big breaking stories, they too get it right... whereas News 24 doesn't.
And that is what news channels are all about, breaking news and no sound bites.
I don't generally have a problem with other BBC News services, especially not those on radio, regardless of political sway, I read the broadsheets for god's sake and still enjoy it no matter how much political bias they show.
But News 24 seriously need to get its agenda right. It isn't a constant 6 o'clock news, it shouldn't be.
If it broke news and covered it like Sky did then it would be ok, but it doesn't.
I have seen news broken quicker on News 24, take the Millenium wheel protest as an example, because it is on Asa's site.
I think News 24 did get to this story first and they had live pictures before Sky, who just had a reporter on the phone. And yes the BBC's office was closer to the event which allowed them to get cameras there but Sky do have a Westminster office they could have used.
But despite having the opportunity to get a nice dig at Sky in, having live pictures of it whereas Sky didn't they put the reporter on the other side of the river and just plonked a camera man by the wheel.
Well out of the action and it looked very boring indeed.
During Wimbledon they had a great opportunity to get exclusive pictures from inside Wimbledon because the BBC has the rights to show it, but they didn't.
They broke the story at the same time as Sky flashing up the score, a live shot of the pitch and 30 seconds later they went back to regular programming.
On Sky they broke the news at the same time but had the two presenters looking really excited with Simon McCoy banging his hands on the desk and smiling like crazy and then they went live the Wimbledon for about 10 mins.
The BBC reporters just looked very bored when the news broke and didn't seem to be interested.
I know they had it covered on BBC One but that isn't the point, if they want to be a dedicated news channel in their own right they must cover everything and not tell people to 'Turn to BBC One for full coverage'.
It's just silly doing things like that and I expect the presenters on News 24 would agree with me.
If you're going to use the colour of graphics as an argument for political bias then I think thats very poor.
What should happen then ? When an election is called should all News Channels start broadcasting in black & white. I like to think that the viewers and electorate are a bit cleverer than that and don't think because News 24 has a mainly red set or graphics that they must be supporting the Labour Party.
The BBC IS placed under government regulations.
The BSC is a government dept. and regulates the BBC.
The BBC is govened by a Royal Charter. The BSC does not regulate the BBC. It is totaly under the control of the BBC governers. These of couse are appointed by the goverment. However the majority of the governers, including the recent chairman, were appointed by the previous Conserative administeration.
As for the tennis, anyone with the sligest interest in it would be watching BBC1. There was absolutly no need to cover it as breaking news on any of the news channels.
SN
SkyNews
Isontine,
re: the interviews on election day.
Politicians aren't allowed to campaign during the day of voting itself.
I said the arguement about colour was a bad one, and didn't want to make a big issue about it, you clearly misunderstood.
There was a need to cover the tennis, it was a big event.
I'll give you another example if you want... the Budget.
One of the biggest news events of the year.
Now BBC Two, Parliament and News 24 were covering it.
But instead of fully taking the budget news 24 just said 'BBC Two has live coverage of the budget' and then just talked about the budget instead of covering what was actually happening. They just cannot be a dedicated news channel if that is the attitude they take.
I do not want to skip about over channels all covering different things, I want one channel covering the budget and then giving detail after it.
News 24 failed to do this, Sky met all of my requirements.
The BBC is NOT totally under the control of the governers , why on Earth do you think Chris Smith said he would force the return of the 9 o'clock news if the new 10 o'clock slot wasn't working?!
To quote the government:
' In this regard we have continuing concerns about the commercial activities of the BBC. As a publicly financed broadcaster, the BBC occupies a privileged position in the UK broadcasting landscape. It is in a position to exercise unmatched market power with no exposure to any commercial risk. This alone places it at a significant advantage over smaller, creative, entrepreneurial companies such as Teletext Limited which must remain mindful of commercial risk. However in addition, the BBC's practice of providing its content free of charge effectively removes the opportunity for new commercially financed services. This distortion of the risk/reward relationship is likely to inhibit the development of a vibrant, diverse and dynamic market. Teletext believes that the current commercial activities of the BBC will have the effect of holding back the emergence of exciting new services and the growth of exciting new companies. In this regard we believe the White Paper could go further in setting out
the role of OFCOM in regulating the BBC
.'
(Edited by cheshirec at 11:32 pm on July 21, 2001)