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Post by dappy on Sept 28, 2023 8:20:55 GMT
For a democracy to work as intended, the population need to be given the facts as objectively as possible and it is then for politicians to try to persuade them to interpret those facts favourably towards their political views.
Traditionally facts have been communicated to the population through newspapers and the broadcast media. Newspapers have never been under any obligation towards neutrality and many of them make no effort to communicate fairly instead being effective party political in-house rags for their chosen viewpoint (most but not all on the right "populist" wing of the Tory party/UKIP.). Whether that is a good thing or not is a matter of opinion.
Broadcast media (radio and TV) does have neutrality obligations. Recently GB News and Talk Radio have tested that obligation to the limit. Whether they have crossed the line or not is a matter of opinion but it is clearly a new form of public broadcasting in which the distinction between guests from each angle giving their views moderated by presenters ensuring neutrality has been blurred with presenters now openly expressing their opinions. Is this a good development?
The US experience would suggest not. With the likes of Fox news and others behaving similarly to our newspapers and being effectively an advocate for a political view rather than a disseminator of facts, the US has become ever more polarised to the extent that a break up or other form of civil disturbance does not feel out of the question. Democracy itself may be under threat there. Do we really want to repeat that experience here?
On the other hand, the reality now is that the internet is with us, it cannot be easily controlled and hence if the likes of GB News was forced to present news in a more neutral way, people who felt safer hearing news designed to confirm their political slant rather than as far as is possible objective facts based news can simply get their fix on the internet.
So should GB News be forced to comply with broadcast media neutrality laws or in the age of the internet, are such laws now obsolete?
Sadly I feel that the answer is probably the latter. I think that is a big step backwards that will damage our society and democracy. But unfortunately it feels inevitable.
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Post by Dan Dare on Sept 28, 2023 9:19:07 GMT
A partisan media is usually a symptom of a fragmenting society where the social glue isn't strong enough to withstand the centrifugal forces pulling it apart, not a cause.
The USA is certainly a society undergoing the process of balkanisation, as is of course the UK although it is not being as vocal about it.
It's all to do with demographics.
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Post by andrewbrown on Sept 28, 2023 9:51:46 GMT
It isn't just broadcast media though, we get a lot of our information about politics through social media. And the way that algorithms work is that you get more of the same you like. Then when you get more of it you believe it more. It reinforces the opinion. There are two or three people on this forum who genuinely believe that nearly everyone believes exactly the same as them, shares their values and beliefs, and anyone who doesn’t is a loony. It's quite disturbing.
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Post by Orac on Sept 28, 2023 10:05:51 GMT
If we don't substantially agree on roughly what neutrality looks like, calling for neutrality is just calling for enforcement of your position (your controversial and contended version of neutrality).
I agree with Dan, we are looking at a symptom of balkanisation rather than a cause. It's all rather worrying because agreeing roughly on what neutrality looks like (or similar) is really a prerequisite for democracy.
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Post by The Squeezed Middle on Sept 28, 2023 10:15:30 GMT
For a democracy to work as intended, the population need to be given the facts as objectively as possible and it is then for politicians to try to persuade them to interpret those facts favourably towards their political views. Traditionally facts have been communicated to the population through newspapers and the broadcast media. Newspapers have never been under any obligation towards neutrality and many of them make no effort to communicate fairly instead being effective party political in-house rags for their chosen viewpoint (most but not all on the right "populist" wing of the Tory party/UKIP.). Whether that is a good thing or not is a matter of opinion. Broadcast media (radio and TV) does have neutrality obligations. Recently GB News and Talk Radio have tested that obligation to the limit. Whether they have crossed the line or not is a matter of opinion but it is clearly a new form of public broadcasting in which the distinction between guests from each angle giving their views moderated by presenters ensuring neutrality has been blurred with presenters now openly expressing their opinions. Is this a good development? The US experience would suggest not. With the likes of Fox news and others behaving similarly to our newspapers and being effectively an advocate for a political view rather than a disseminator of facts, the US has become ever more polarised to the extent that a break up or other form of civil disturbance does not feel out of the question. Democracy itself may be under threat there. Do we really want to repeat that experience here? On the other hand, the reality now is that the internet is with us, it cannot be easily controlled and hence if the likes of GB News was forced to present news in a more neutral way, people who felt safer hearing news designed to confirm their political slant rather than as far as is possible objective facts based news can simply get their fix on the internet. So should GB News be forced to comply with broadcast media neutrality laws or in the age of the internet, are such laws now obsolete? Sadly I feel that the answer is probably the latter. I think that is a big step backwards that will damage our society and democracy. But unfortunately it feels inevitable. In your opinion.
And therein lies the rub: Who is to decide what neutrality looks like?
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Post by dappy on Sept 28, 2023 11:22:21 GMT
The reality is that although neutrality is perhaps a desired option, in practice it has to be a matter of reasonableness and judgement. If you want absolute neutrality every single view would have to be recognised in every programme and that would make TV unwatchable. For example every time a travel programme wanted to discuss a round the world trip, absolute neutrality would require s representative of the Flat Earth Society to be dragged in to express his view that that would be impossible as the world is in fact flat. Clearly that would be undesirable. So neutrality has to be a more judgemental concept with an independent body (currently OFGEM) checking broadcasters are at acceptable levels of neutrality.
There is little doubt that the new style of broadcasting pioneered in this country by GB News, with presenters openly expressing their own opinions and a political view being the main focus has pushed the boundaries of when could fairly be considered neutral, indeed some would say has blown the concept out of the water.
The question I asked was should we reassert the concept of neutrality in broadcast media or accept that with the internet (and as others have said social media) that genie is so far out of the bottle, there is little now that can be done.
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Post by buccaneer on Sept 28, 2023 11:53:58 GMT
I do enjoy Dappy's burning hate of GBnews, the fact this News channel is unwoke and gets up the nose of snotty, middle-class, entitled liberals means it's doing something right.
This has got to be Dappy's 4th or 5th thread now on GBnews.
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Post by steppenwolf on Sept 28, 2023 12:30:04 GMT
Broadcast media (radio and TV) does have neutrality obligations. Recently GB News and Talk Radio have tested that obligation to the limit. Whether they have crossed the line or not is a matter of opinion but it is clearly a new form of public broadcasting in which the distinction between guests from each angle giving their views moderated by presenters ensuring neutrality has been blurred with presenters now openly expressing their opinions. Is this a good development? The problem with your argument, dopy, is your assumption that the BBC presenters "ensure neutrality" - and that they even reflect diversity of opinion in their guests. Let's take an example. I doubt if there's a single person employed by the BBC who voted for Brexit - even their cameramen. The recent 3 part series by Laura Keunssberg (State of Chaos) was the most astonishingly biased view of Brexit that I've ever seen. Almost all the interviewees (which seemed to be mainly sacked civil servants) were anti-government. And if all your presenters are Lefties - which they are in the BBC - it's unlikely that it will result in a "balanced" interview. Even if the presenter were determined to give an unbiased view the simple fact is that they will never represent an alternative point of view because they simply don't understand it. The BBC presenters who said (on many occasions) that the UK does a majority of its trade with the EU will never say that the reason for that is because the Customs Union means that trading outside the EU incurs large tariffs. They won't say it because they don't even know it. But a less biased interviewer WOULD know it. So the BBC presenters may not openly express their opinions but we all know exactly what they are. What they're expert at is "bias by omission". They may not get the facts wrong (not often anyway) but they're very good at leaving out crucial facts. But I wonder if you've ever watched GB News or Talk. They're both very careful about letting both sides of the argument have their say, in a way that the BBC are not. The BBC have even, for example, shut down the argument on "Climate Change". What is one of the most important issues of our age is now "settled science" in the BBC's opinion and no one is allowed to challenge it. The BBC have made an editorial decision that anyone who disagrees is an idiot. That's extreme bias. Whereas both GB News and Talk give a platform to both views. And the recent debacle where Farage was de-banked was another example of extreme bias on the part of the BBC. The BBC's business editor (Simon Jack) told everyone that all the "fuss" that Farage made about being de-banked by Coutts was down to him not having sufficient money in his accounts. This was not only a breach of Farage's data privacy, but it also wasn't true. And he got the information from Alison Rose who was also in breach of data privacy rlules - and also wrong - and Mr Jack never checked his source. This was done because Simon Jack absolutely hates Brexit. He has never made a proper apology to Nigel Farage and nor has the BBC. So where's the Ofcom investigation for this. Yet the case of Laurence Fox making juvenile comments about Anna Evans has got the BBC "piling-on" like a nsty scoial media thread. Bring it on I say. Let's investigate all the supposedly neutral BBC people who have made biased comments about govt policy and politics in general. These people are paid for by the tax payer and should be completely clean. |
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Post by Montegriffo on Sept 28, 2023 12:37:53 GMT
If all BBC presenters are lefties how come so many of GBeebies presenters are ex BBC?
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Post by steppenwolf on Sept 28, 2023 12:45:55 GMT
Because "GBeebies" presenters include quite a lot of Lefties. Duh. Jesus. Unlike the BBC they don't have policy of hiring only right wingers - they have different hiring criteria. You obviously don't watch it.
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Post by dappy on Sept 28, 2023 12:49:14 GMT
I could have sworn that the whole point of "The Mind Zone" was that personal insults were frowned upon. Message doesn't seem to have got through to the last two posters sadly.
I think anyone who argues that GB News presents conflicting arguments without bias is being economical with the truth. The question I asked is whether in this internet and social media world, that matters anymore. With great regret I suspect the answer is no.
Steppenwolf rant fell down on factual grounds at a very early stage. For example it is well known that Andrew Neil holds fairly right wing views yet presents regularly on the BBC. I remember in many a Remain meeting, other delegates raging against Laura Kuennsberg's pro-leave bias. I said then and say now she is a good journalist who challenges both sides.
Not really the point of the the thread though. The question is - should we strive to ensure broadcast media is as impartial as possible or accept now that the genie is out of the bottle and that aspiration is now lost?
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Post by steppenwolf on Sept 28, 2023 13:21:37 GMT
I could have sworn that the whole point of "The Mind Zone" was that personal insults were frowned upon. Message doesn't seem to have got through to the last two posters sadly. I think anyone who argues that GB News presents conflicting arguments without bias is being economical with the truth. The question I asked is whether in this internet and social media world, that matters anymore. With great regret I suspect the answer is no. Steppenwolf rant fell down on factual grounds at a very early stage. For example it is well known that Andrew Neil holds fairly right wing views yet presents regularly on the BBC. I remember in many a Remain meeting, other delegates raging against Laura Kuennsberg's pro-leave bias. I said then and say now she is a good journalist who challenges both sides. Not really the point of the the thread though. The question is - should we strive to ensure broadcast media is as impartial as possible or accept now that the genie is out of the bottle and that aspiration is now lost? Like I said you plainly haven't watched GB News or Talk. They both have slots where there are two presenters and it's not unusual for them to have completely opposing views - watch Andree Pierce and Bev Turner for example. On Talk Mike Graham is what you'd call Right wing but Peter Cardwell is certainly not - and many of the black women who present are definitely Left wing. Before you criticise something you really need to watch it. You can't just read the Guardian and watch the BBC and criticise everything else. As for Andrew Neil being Right wing you don't know what you're talking about. He was one of the very few presenters on the BBC who was very careful to keep his personal views secret. I have no idea whether he voted Leave or Remain - but I'd guess remain. And if you think Keunssberg is a good journalist you'e on your own I think. She's useless as a journalist - as is shown by her program on SUnday which has lost over 30 of its viewers and here useless series on BBC which you should watch. She can't even report the history of the Brexit campaign accurately. |
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Post by Dan Dare on Sept 28, 2023 13:24:02 GMT
I note that dappy has corrected his earlier assertion that broadcasters have 'neutrality' obligations when in reality they are regulated for 'impartiality', a very different thing.
In that respect, I haven't watched GB News enough to form an opinion as to their impartiality, and I don't believe that dappy has either.
Perhaps they aren't, but then who really is?
Take the vexed question of migrants arriving in small boats. Many people are very angry that this is allowed to continue and from time to time the BBC will even give voice to them in one of outside broadcast reports. But has anyone ever heard a BBC presenter or correspondent refer to the migrants in anything other than the most sympathetic terms? I certainly haven't, and not singling out the BBC, the same goes for every other mainstream broadcaster. Hardly an impartial stance, in my view.
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Post by dappy on Sept 28, 2023 13:56:52 GMT
It would be very hard to argue GB News are impartial Dan. At the very least they push that inpartiality test to its very limits.
The question I asked was Does it matter?
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Post by The Squeezed Middle on Sept 28, 2023 15:54:51 GMT
The reality is that although neutrality is perhaps a desired option, in practice it has to be a matter of reasonableness and judgement. If you want absolute neutrality every single view would have to be recognised in every programme and that would make TV unwatchable. For example every time a travel programme wanted to discuss a round the world trip, absolute neutrality would require s representative of the Flat Earth Society to be dragged in to express his view that that would be impossible as the world is in fact flat. Clearly that would be undesirable. So neutrality has to be a more judgemental concept with an independent body (currently OFGEM) checking broadcasters are at acceptable levels of neutrality. There is little doubt that the new style of broadcasting pioneered in this country by GB News, with presenters openly expressing their own opinions and a political view being the main focus has pushed the boundaries of when could fairly be considered neutral, indeed some would say has blown the concept out of the water. The question I asked was should we reassert the concept of neutrality in broadcast media or accept that with the internet (and as others have said social media) that genie is so far out of the bottle, there is little now that can be done. I've never watched GB News but I know that they didn't "Pioneer" anything like you're describing since I've been observing the same across the whole MSM for decades.
Indeed, I said many years ago that practically everything that one sees or reads in any of the MSM should be assumed to be nothing more than an opinion piece.
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