Reminds me of the Beltway press and the way they covered Bush-Gore in 2000. Everything gets equal time whether it's true or not.
Simon Wren-Lewis wrote about this the other day, and Tom Brown asked Frances Coppolla who also felt the British tabloids had awful coverage.
Others' feel the same:
"in being impartial between truth and lies, the BBC was complicit in a conspiracy to defraud the public. Its more intelligent correspondents are aware of this. Here’s assistant political editor Norman Smith (7’52” in):
"There is an instinctive bias within the BBC towards impartiality to the exclusion sometimes of making judgment calls that we can and should make. We are very very cautious about saying something is factually wrong and I think as an organization we could be more muscular about it. I’ll give you an example, which is one that cropped up, and there was a lot of debate within the BBC about it, was when the Brexit campaign suggested that Turkey was poised to join the EU, and that there was nothing we could do about it. Now that is factually wrong, but when we initially covered the story, I think we said along the lines of ‘Remain had said that is wrong’ – in other words, we attributed the assessment to the Remain side, when we could, of our own, say ‘No, that is factually wrong.’ But, because as an organisation, more than any other organisation, there is a massive pressure and premium on fairness, on balance, on impartiality, I suspect we, we hold back from making those sort of calls, and I do think that, potentially, is a disservice to the listener and viewer."
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2016/06/the-bbc-problem.html
Meanwhile, David Cameron-the leading culprit for this mess-is set to speak at 10:30. What will be worth watching is whether he continues to say he wont enact Article 50 and leave that for the next PM.
Then the question becomes: who will the next PM be? Will it be a Brexiter like Boris Johnson-let's hope not. Or someone from the Remain camp? That might actually make the markets feel a little better?
At least they know it won't be run by a cowboy like Johnson?
Simon Wren-Lewis wrote about this the other day, and Tom Brown asked Frances Coppolla who also felt the British tabloids had awful coverage.
Others' feel the same:
"in being impartial between truth and lies, the BBC was complicit in a conspiracy to defraud the public. Its more intelligent correspondents are aware of this. Here’s assistant political editor Norman Smith (7’52” in):
"There is an instinctive bias within the BBC towards impartiality to the exclusion sometimes of making judgment calls that we can and should make. We are very very cautious about saying something is factually wrong and I think as an organization we could be more muscular about it. I’ll give you an example, which is one that cropped up, and there was a lot of debate within the BBC about it, was when the Brexit campaign suggested that Turkey was poised to join the EU, and that there was nothing we could do about it. Now that is factually wrong, but when we initially covered the story, I think we said along the lines of ‘Remain had said that is wrong’ – in other words, we attributed the assessment to the Remain side, when we could, of our own, say ‘No, that is factually wrong.’ But, because as an organisation, more than any other organisation, there is a massive pressure and premium on fairness, on balance, on impartiality, I suspect we, we hold back from making those sort of calls, and I do think that, potentially, is a disservice to the listener and viewer."
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2016/06/the-bbc-problem.html
Meanwhile, David Cameron-the leading culprit for this mess-is set to speak at 10:30. What will be worth watching is whether he continues to say he wont enact Article 50 and leave that for the next PM.
Then the question becomes: who will the next PM be? Will it be a Brexiter like Boris Johnson-let's hope not. Or someone from the Remain camp? That might actually make the markets feel a little better?
At least they know it won't be run by a cowboy like Johnson?
"BBC Guilty of Impartiality Between Truth and Lies"
ReplyDeleteMike, that's a great way to put that! Well done.
Oh, I see, it wasn't you, but it's good nonetheless.
Delete