Tuesday 9 June 2009

# War 040 - BBC 2 Newsnight.

At the end of Newsnight on most nights they review the front pages of the national papers. Over many years I've clocked this and noticed that despite their low circulation the Guardian and Independent usually get mentioned more often than the far more popular Daily Mail. Last night the Mail was mentioned but no picture shown.
Again a small but significant show of bias by the BBC especially when repeated over many years.

Sunday 7 June 2009

# War 039 - Andrew Marr Show today.

Did anyone see how the ace Spin Doctor Peter Mandleson ended up interviewing Andrew Marr.

What a pathetic attempt by Marr to try and trip Mandleson up over recent stories on Gordon Brown.

Mandleson didn't want to talk about any 'tittle tattle' only policies.

So if Marr had any sense or indeed was not such a left wing luvvy he should have moved on from the 'gossip' and attacked Brown's policies like selling our gold at half price etc etc.

Brown has been a liability as Chancellor and now PM but you will NEVER hear the bias BBC attack him on his record.

Saturday 6 June 2009

#War 038 - 'Biased BBC Blog'

Taken from the Blog 'Biased BBC' a great way to monitor bias:-

There is an absolutely crystal clear way to monitor political bias and I suggest we do it. It's a very simple, objective measure which could be called the "Interruption Coefficient". You obtain the IC by dividing the number of interruptions by the length of time of the interview. The higher the IC, the more the Interviewer is challenging the Interviewee. It is therefore a measure of bias. Imagine Andrew Marr interviews Gordon Brown on Sunday Morning and the interview lasts, say six minutes. How many times does Marr interrupt him while he is speaking? Let's say four times. That is an Interruption Coefficient of 0.7.Now let's say George Osborne appears on the Today Programme the following Tuesday and has a five minute slot. Do you imagine the BBC interviewed would interrupt him less than ten times? Nor do I. This is an IC of 2.The IC is objective proof that Osborne was given less chance to articulate his views than Brown. Now there is a small element of subjectivity in this - as in exactly what constitutes an interruption. And different combinations of interviewers and interviewees would produce slightly different scores. But maintaining regular scores of IC's over time, on this sit,e would soon show what was attributable to individuals and what was attributable to a persistent bias.

Friday 5 June 2009

# War 037 - Boris Johnston.

Copied from the Blog 'Not a Sheep'.

So what do you see happening in that piece of video? I see Boris Johnson wading through knee high water when the riverbed gives way and he sinks up to his waist before being helped to his feet by the lady accompanying him. The BBC describe the event thus
"The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has fallen into a river while launching a drive to urge Londoners to volunteer.While helping to clear up the River Pool in Lewisham, south-east London, he tripped and fell in, getting wet up to around his chest, then stumbled away.Mr Johnson was helped to his feet by volunteers who he was helping remove litter and plants from the river. He thanked them as they helped him up. "And the headline they choose - "Boris Johnson stumbles into river"Now are the BBC lazy, incompetent, biased or all three? How many volunteers helped him to his feet? I saw one so that would be "by a volunteer" not "by volunteers". Their copy says that he "tripped and fell in" then "stumbled away" but the headline says "stumbles into river", why the disparity? Could there be some political bias in the choice of words? What do you think