Sunday 9 July 2017

Recommended reading


There's another fine piece from Kathy Gyngell at TCW, drawing together several recent examples of BBC bias.

She highlights a particularly striking example of 'Project Fear' in action - claims that Brexit threatens our fundamental safety from accidental radiation and access to cancer treatment, plus that "Brexit will put at risk a trillion pound nuclear research market" - and shows how the BBC rolled with the story over a few days, bending it into an anti-Brexit narrative.

Mark Mardell was in the thick of it, naturally.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting to see Mardell under scrutiny somewhere other than here or B-BBC. But I would also remind Gyngell that Paxman is wrong about Beeboids being 'parastatal' because they work at the BBC. He has cause and effect backwards. I have seen him make similar remarks before, but have never seen him say he knew employees who came in with a small-c conservative, limited government worldview, but shifted to Left-wing Statist tool after a couple years inside. Maybe one could point to Nick Robinson as having gone native, but he can be a Cameron or even May-type of Tory and be center-left on the issue of the State. He's certainly a hardcore Remainiac, as are both the current and former Conservative Prime Ministers.

    It's a mindset which self-selects when hiring, and is then strengthened by groupthink. It's the groupthink - the feeling that nobody could possibly have a different position that's valid because they don't know anybody who does except their plumber or uncle or father-in-law nobody likes - which leads them to do and say these things.

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    Replies
    1. The World This Weekend is mainly a Mark Mardell vehicle but it's noticeable that when Shaun Ley takes over the tide of bias appears to ebb. (That's a bit of a tribute to Shaun Ley). As a blogger about BBC bias I feel disappointed when MM isn't on. He provides such rich pickings! Yes, TCW and News-watch are definitely on his case.

      The BBC's recruitment process, from everything we both know about it, inevitably tends to draw in people from a highly restricted pool and Groupthink follows on naturally. So I agree with you that Paxo is putting the cart before the horse. That said, how powerful the 'going native' impulse is though is hard to fathom and I'd bet it's pretty powerful at the BBC for the minority of small-c conservatives who get through.

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