Yes, the BBC is biased

It’s not often that John Humphrys conducts a genuinely illuminating interview, but he did so this morning (1’10” in) with Neil Kinnock and Michael Gove – albeit perhaps inadvertently.

The revealing thing here is the self-congratulatory matiness. Three old boys are having a laugh together, even including a rape “gag”*. It’s like a bad golf club. This reminds us that the political class – some of the Labour party (thankfully less than in the recent past), the Tories and top journalists are, essentially, all on the same side.

This smugness hid the fact that there are genuine problems with the BBC’s interviewing; in fairness, Gove hinted at one when he said there as too much focus on the Westminster soap opera and too little on policy.

To see a couple of these problems, contrast that interview with Monday’s exchange between Justin Webb and Angela Rayner (1’52 in).

I counted nine interruptions in six minutes. If we compare that to the chumminess of Humphrys with Kinnock and Gove, and to Webb’s own failure to challenge Lord Lawson’s falsehoods on climate change, a picture emerges – that BBC presenters are deferential to insiders such as old white men but more hostile to outsiders: how dare a working class woman like Ms Rayner have the temerity to enter politics?

Yes, the BBC has admitted that Webb’s interview with Lawson breached its own guidelines. But is it really a coincidence that such an insufficiently rigorous interview should have been conducted with a posh old right-winger rather than with (say) someone working class, or black or a woman? (Note in this context the Today programme's consistent deference towards “business leaders”.)

Secondly, note the perspective from which Webb is challenging Ms Rayner. It’s from the “government as housekeeper” view. To his credit, Webb didn’t sink so low as to ask “where’s the money coming from?” but the presumption that Labour might spend too much on education is there.

This left another set of questions unasked. We might ask Ms Rayner: How can it be fair that some young people get two or three times as much spent on their schooling as others? Why is Labour so slow to narrow that gap? (State spending per secondary school pupil is £6300 per year, whereas day fees at Justin Webb’s old school are £15570 pa.) Or: Given that the government can borrow at a real rate of minus 1.5% pa, any education spending with a non-negative real return has a positive NPV, so why isn’t Labour planning to spend even more? Is it failing to take up positive investment opportunities? Or could it be that its spending won’t in fact be so productive?

That such questions went unasked in favour of a perspective that is (to say the least) questionable demonstrates that the BBC does have a bias – a bias against radical questions. This corroborates Tom Mills’ point, that “the BBC will aim to fairly and accurately reflect the balance of opinion amongst elites.” Or as Cardiff University researchers put it (pdf):

The paradigm of impartiality-as-balance means that only a narrow range of views and voices are heard on the most contentious and important issues.

This, though, is not just unbalanced, but also a way of excluding and alienating outsiders – not just women (that rape “gag”) but also the working class, minorities and, we might add, the economically literate.

* Right after that comment, Gove said that “you can make a fool of yourself” in radio interviews. He wasn’t wrong.

Comments

[Anna]

And did you hear the interview of Shona Robison by Hayley Miller on Radio Scotland's morning news programme near the start of this week? It was disgraceful: Ms Miller's sneering tone and constant interruptions made it a very difficult listen.
Other politicians are allowed to talk uninterrupted and are treated with respect.

[Ralph Musgrave]

Like the the "economically literate" are regarded as outsiders by the elite according to Chris. As an illustration, Positive Money has been trying for years to get it into the thick heads of MPs that the vast majority of money in circulation is created / printed by private banks, not government or the Bank of England. A large majority of those Westminster based dim-wits still don't understand the point. God help anyone trying to get a more complicated point into their heads.

[D]

@Ralph

I think most people can get this point; what's more difficult is it's relevance. Could you enlighten me?

[gastro george]

Montague's quote in the middle of the "banter" is interesting:

"I think you've got something else to say there Michael"

This implies that the exchange was rehearsed, and therefore passed by the producer.

[Nanikore]

"This, though, is not just unbalanced, but also a way of excluding and alienating outsiders – not just women (that rape “gag”) but also the working class, minorities and, we might add, the economically literate."

I you class the economic literate as those who understand and use the standard Sticky Price Rational Expectations Optimisation Model, I think you would find they do very nicely out of the current system.

[Bill Posters]

The problem here is the BBC must above all entertain.

See Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) Neil Postman.

The internet has made things worse we now live in the age of trivia.

Expecting BBC journalists to operate to different standard than the rest of the media is unrealistic. An individual jurno must keep at least half an eye on the next step up the ladder which may be at ITV or SKY or a column in the Mail or Times. With economics correspondents its worse, from the BBC to JPMorgan or Bloomberg.

The particular episode of the Today program mentioned by the blogger was a special with a live audience the need to crack jokes all the more pressing.

This episode highlights the Labour party is operationally not ruthless enough. IMV Gove on the back benches is more trouble to May than in the cabinet. A coordinated effort by Labour to say now Gove is entangled in the Weinstein scandal he must resign could have worked.

A missed chance.

[Blissex]

«Expecting BBC journalists to operate to different standard than the rest of the media is unrealistic.»

Well, technically there is a pretty big difference: the BBC is funded by the licence fees, not by the generosity of their publishers.

I must admire though the Conservatives for turning that to their advantage: IIRC some of them have been arguing that since the BBC is funded by license payer, and license payers in a majority elected a Conservative government, the BBC must democratically deliver what a majority of its license payers want them do deliver, instead of being biased against the opinions of a majority of its licence payers. Or else they should be deprived of the license. The BBC seems to have understood the message very clearly.

[mike berry]

It is not just a question of the BBC being funded by the license fee.

The BBC is under statutory duty to main impartiality and its own guidelines state that it seeks to'reflect all significant strands of opinion by exploring the range and conflict of views'

Does it do this?

We have carried out many studies including the one highlighted above and the findings consistently show that there are major imbalances in the range of sources and consequently the range of opinion that audiences are exposed to.

[Engels]

What were the falsehoods on Climate change? Genuinely interested to know. Surely the differences are on policy rather than on climate change? Does Marxism conflate the 2 in an unusually stupid way, even for a branch of political science that has consistently been wrong for 150 years?

[Guano]

"Today" is edited by Sarah Sands.

Sarah Sands is a friend of Boris Johnson.

Sarah Sands got the job of editing the Evening Standard after Boris Johnson put a word on for her.

Sarah Sands appointment as editor of "Today" "was seen as an attempt to redress any perceived liberal bias."
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/28/radio-4-todays-editor-sarah-sands-interview