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Tim Davie Appointed BBC Director General

(June 2020)

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IS
Inspector Sands
Jon posted:
johnnyboy posted:

Personally, I am no fan of Trump but to compare him and his government to Hitler demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of history to.an egregious degree.

It's these types of hyberbolic, fact-free comparisons that people see through easily which means that Trump will likely win again.

I assume you never saw last weeks RNC, in which virtually every speaker was doing just that, claiming the Democrats are going to enforce a radical form of socialism upon on the United States.

In fact the whole of the RNC was reminiscent of the sort of thing that was happening to the National Socialist Party* in Germany in the 30s. The Republicans announced that they weren't going to have a platform or announce any policies or any policies, the whole convention was about Trump. Its a political party turned into a personality cult which is exactly what happened to the Nazis

Thats just one example, if you look at what's happening over in the US the clues are there. What is that saying about those who ignore the lessons of history?

I wouldn't be surprised if the White House 'goes on fire' in November


*who of course weren't Socialist
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 2 September 2020 9:21am
NL
Ne1L C
“Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it”

George santayana
CM
cmthwtv
Boris Johnson has just said at Prime Minister's Questions that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will lay out plans for reform in the BBC 'soon'.

"My Rt Hon friend the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport will shortly be publishing a road map for the future of the BBC and will address that very point".
Last edited by cmthwtv on 2 September 2020 12:37pm
NL
Ne1L C
I'm not going to try and predict what will be said but I will say that this potentially is history in the making.
UL
UsuallyLurks
AlexS posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
Brekkie posted:
No, although arguably in the case of the last two, and perhaps even all three, their past their sell by dates anyway. That's nothing to do with them being "Left wing" - and of the three I'd only say The Mash Report is, and even then it's people getting confused between being "left wing" and holding the government to account.

Absolutely, and the reason why there's more jokes about the Government is because they're the Government, they're making the decisions and sometimes making the mistakes. Topical comedies do absolutely joke about everyone, but in these times with political animals living in bubbles it's not enough. In the run up to the last election programmes like The News Quiz and HIGNFY were doing at least 5 minutes on what the Tories got up to that week and about the same 5 minutes on what Labour had done.... but you wouldn't have known that if you had just listened to the whinging on social media. According Twitter they were unfairly attacking Corbyn every week and the BBC was anti-Labour.
It's cognitive bias - if the programme isn't expressing someone's opinion then to them it's biased.


The other thing this is about I suspect is a culture wars thing - the idea among some people that representation is left wing. If there's a comedian on that is from a minority then that is 'left wing bias'. If an advert has a mixed race couple or a sitcom or drama has a disabled person in it then again to some that's 'left wing bias'.

HIGNFY isn't the problem. Unlike many of the other topical comedy shows it has a format that leans itself to suit guests from a variety of backgrounds and can therefore attract sufficient numbers of people from across the political spectrum in a way that other programmes often fail (while I would agree that some individual people have felt out of place many non comedians have been amongst the best guests on the programme). Mock the Week is particularly problematic due to the views of it's standing panelist and host being in the same direction which often leads to other panelists heading in that direction even if they are typically unbiased when on other programmes.


IMO, both Ian Hislop and Paul Merton at least lean liberal, as it seems many of the regular guest hosts do so I don't see the difference in that regard between HIGNFY and Mock The Week.

all new Phil posted:
I think The Mash Report is the show that crosses the line for many (given it is predominantly a one-sided rant by Nish Kumar, who makes no attempt to hide which way he leans), but hearing the same old “boooo Donald Trump” stuff across many shows is pretty boring because he’s an easy target, and also because it is assumed that everyone thinks he’s a moron. I think it’s that common thing of Twitter not being representative of the public as a whole, and there’s an assumption that most people are anti-Trump and anti-Tory because most of Twitter is.


Most of the British public do dislike Trump, according to YouGov.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Donald_Trump

Who exactly are these people that believe Twitter is a mirror image of the public mood? Outside of a subset of Labour supporters who were surprised the hashtags they managed to get trending didn't translate into votes, I don't recognise this belief in anyone else.
NL
Ne1L C
What concerns me about HIGFNY is that the complexion of the teams may be fixed. It's possible that each team may have a left and right winger each week. How would the host fare? Would they have to remain neutral?
AN
Andrew Founding member
I’m not sure HIGNFY is the issue, we all know that Ian will give it all barrels to anyone and I don’t think it is biased either way

It’s shows like The Mash Report, where it’s clear what Nish’s politics are, and the smug I’m right you’re wrong way he tells his jokes.

Don’t say that on twitter though, yesterday anyone who doesn’t like Nish Kumar was an extreme right wing brexiteer racist. There apparently couldn’t be any other reason why you’d not like him.
IS
Inspector Sands
Ne1L C posted:
What concerns me about HIGFNY is that the complexion of the teams may be fixed. It's possible that each team may have a left and right winger each week. How would the host fare? Would they have to remain neutral?

That's just not going to happen, it's just noy possible to pigeonhole every potential guest into 'left' or 'right'. Even if they had some way to assertain the political views of every person the wanted to book, its a political spectrum there aren't two 'sides' despite what some want you to think.

If it was fairly divided up into 'left' and 'right' they'd never have a Liberal Democrat on the show.. and that wouldn't be balanced at all.

Remember too that BBC programmes can provide political balance over a series, not in individual episodes
IS
Inspector Sands
Andrew posted:
I’m not sure HIGNFY is the issue, we all know that Ian will give it all barrels to anyone and I don’t think it is biased either way

It’s shows like The Mash Report, where it’s clear what Nish’s politics are, and the smug I’m right you’re wrong way he tells his jokes.

Don’t say that on twitter though, yesterday anyone who doesn’t like Nish Kumar was an extreme right wing brexiteer racist. There apparently couldn’t be any other reason why you’d not like him.

There's another issue of course, assuming that Brexit is a right/left issue, it isn't and never was.

Of course The Mash Report does have a regular contributor who is one of the only overtly 'right wing' and pro-Brexit comedians - Geoff Norcott. He's appeared on The News Quiz too
NL
Ne1L C
Inspector Sands posted:
Ne1L C posted:
What concerns me about HIGFNY is that the complexion of the teams may be fixed. It's possible that each team may have a left and right winger each week. How would the host fare? Would they have to remain neutral?

That's just not going to happen, it's just noy possible to pigeonhole every potential guest into 'left' or 'right'. Even if they had some way to assertain the political views of every person the wanted to book, its a political spectrum there aren't two 'sides' despite what some want you to think.

If it was fairly divided up into 'left' and 'right' they'd never have a Liberal Democrat on the show.. and that wouldn't be balanced at all.

Remember too that BBC programmes can provide political balance over a series, not in individual episodes


That is perfectly true but I wonder if the "new" BBC will have to be especially observant to ensure that the balance is easily applied.
NL
Ne1L C
Inspector Sands posted:
Jon posted:
johnnyboy posted:

Personally, I am no fan of Trump but to compare him and his government to Hitler demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of history to.an egregious degree.

It's these types of hyberbolic, fact-free comparisons that people see through easily which means that Trump will likely win again.

I assume you never saw last weeks RNC, in which virtually every speaker was doing just that, claiming the Democrats are going to enforce a radical form of socialism upon on the United States.

In fact the whole of the RNC was reminiscent of the sort of thing that was happening to the National Socialist Party* in Germany in the 30s. The Republicans announced that they weren't going to have a platform or announce any policies or any policies, the whole convention was about Trump. Its a political party turned into a personality cult which is exactly what happened to the Nazis

Thats just one example, if you look at what's happening over in the US the clues are there. What is that saying about those who ignore the lessons of history?

I wouldn't be surprised if the White House 'goes on fire' in November


*who of course weren't Socialist


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
AS
AlexS
UsuallyLurks posted:
AlexS posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
Absolutely, and the reason why there's more jokes about the Government is because they're the Government, they're making the decisions and sometimes making the mistakes. Topical comedies do absolutely joke about everyone, but in these times with political animals living in bubbles it's not enough. In the run up to the last election programmes like The News Quiz and HIGNFY were doing at least 5 minutes on what the Tories got up to that week and about the same 5 minutes on what Labour had done.... but you wouldn't have known that if you had just listened to the whinging on social media. According Twitter they were unfairly attacking Corbyn every week and the BBC was anti-Labour.
It's cognitive bias - if the programme isn't expressing someone's opinion then to them it's biased.


The other thing this is about I suspect is a culture wars thing - the idea among some people that representation is left wing. If there's a comedian on that is from a minority then that is 'left wing bias'. If an advert has a mixed race couple or a sitcom or drama has a disabled person in it then again to some that's 'left wing bias'.

HIGNFY isn't the problem. Unlike many of the other topical comedy shows it has a format that leans itself to suit guests from a variety of backgrounds and can therefore attract sufficient numbers of people from across the political spectrum in a way that other programmes often fail (while I would agree that some individual people have felt out of place many non comedians have been amongst the best guests on the programme). Mock the Week is particularly problematic due to the views of it's standing panelist and host being in the same direction which often leads to other panelists heading in that direction even if they are typically unbiased when on other programmes.


IMO, both Ian Hislop and Paul Merton at least lean liberal, as it seems many of the regular guest hosts do so I don't see the difference in that regard between HIGNFY and Mock The Week.


The other big difference between HIGNFY and Mock The Week which makes the latter more problematic is the presence of a subjective scoring system based solely upon how funny a singular and consistent person (who displays clear bias) finds the things that the panelists say. While only a minor part of the programme people are going to (possibly subconsciously) focus on jokes that they thing the host will find funny rather than trying to make the audience at home laugh which will inevitably mean that the jokes are largely in line with the views of the host. The concept of Mock the Week with a standing host is fundamentally flawed for an impartial broadcaster as it is just about impossible for anybody to act completely impartially in the role of host and the mere presence of a host who (intentionally or not) favours jokes from a certain viewpoint will always lead to some degree of such jokes being over represented. If the BBC want to retain the format it would be a good idea to introduce a number of different hosts across a series with different perspectives.
Last edited by AlexS on 2 September 2020 7:41pm

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