BBC dishonestly covering up Johnson gaffe

[Bird on a Fire]

According to that article, use of any military asset (which would include props and flybys) is only permitted if the filmmakers sign a contract to give the Pentagon final say on the script.

So all of it is creative ~control~ even if there's no creative ~input~.

[tom p]

Downton was ITV, wasn't it?

[Bird on a Fire]

Google says you're correct.

[Martin Y]

Certainly historical TV drama invites us to cast a modern eye on that period in our society and draw inferences about our present, but it hardly tends to give the impression of things being "better in the old days" (if that was what BOAF was suspecting, I wasn't sure). Rather the reverse.

Consider the current War of the Worlds: it was, I gather, a somewhat shocking book at the time as it shows the ultra-confident world superpower laid low, but this rewrite goes further in making the leads shockingly modern (to their contemporaries) and thereby letting us identify with them better as they kick against the traces of their hidebound society. It also ladles on the hubris of characters like the government minister to almost absurd levels, if only to give the audience a sense of how far the nation's view of itself had to fall. (also nitpick: Downton and Homeland weren't on the BBC)

[dyqik]

According to that article, use of any military asset (which would include props and flybys) is only permitted if the filmmakers sign a contract to give the Pentagon final say on the script.

So all of it is creative ~control~ even if there's no creative ~input~.

That's why I said "active creative control" in the last case. There's a pretty significant difference of degree between "we want a film about this/that makes this look good" and "we don't object to this film". And the props stuff was intended as a middle case between mostly harmless and pernicious.

[P.J. Denyer]

The BBC is a right-wing propaganda rag now. Maybe it always was, but I didn't notice it before.

It's not so much that they like the Tories, more that they're scared of losing the licence fee. The BBC and the media in general has traditionally been considered left of centre. Certainly when I worked in film and TV then in journalism right wingers were scarce in the media outside of certain newspaper owners and a few randoms like Kenny Everett. The vast majority were lefty liberals.

The senior Political staff have a tendency to friendliness toward the Conservative Party, Laura Kuensburg's predecessor Nick Robinson for example was ex-President of the Oxford University Conservative Association.

[GeenDienst]

I've never bought the "Nick Robinson Tory" line. He's always seemed to me to be hard on whoever is in front of him. I don't buy the current Laura Kuenssberg one, either, even though she seems to be a massive hate figure for Corbyn's faithful now.

Seems whatever is happening is higher up, on an editorial level.

[tom p]

I've never bought the "Nick Robinson Tory" line. He's always seemed to me to be hard on whoever is in front of him. I don't buy the current Laura Kuenssberg one, either, even though she seems to be a massive hate figure for Corbyn's faithful now.

Seems whatever is happening is higher up, on an editorial level.

He was chair of the conservative society at University. That's not a line, it's a fact.
Chair. Of the conservative society. At university. In the early 80s, when thatcher's policies were only hurting & the family silver hadn't yet been flogged off to fund tax cuts and her short-termist boosts hadn't kicked in. That's not just tory, that's dyed-in-the-wool true-believer tory. That's w.nking over pictures of maggie thatcher level tory, that's makes george osborne look like a centrist tory.

[GeenDienst]

I think it's really quite obvious that I was referring to his conduct and demeanour in his present position.

[Gentleman Jim]

Apropos of not a lot
As an 18yo, Laura Kuenssberg was a baby sitter for my sister's two sons

/As you were

[monkey]

I've never bought the "Nick Robinson Tory" line. He's always seemed to me to be hard on whoever is in front of him. I don't buy the current Laura Kuenssberg one, either, even though she seems to be a massive hate figure for Corbyn's faithful now.

Seems whatever is happening is higher up, on an editorial level.

Laura Kuenssberg is the political editor.

[Martin Y]

Anecdote: when I began working for BBC Radio outside broadcasts at the start of the '90s, colleagues who were members of political parties didn't work on general election coverage nor I think party conferences. All about being seen to be scrupulously impartial.

(Or maybe about not wanting to hang around some town hall at 2am waiting for a recount. One of those.)

These were just technical staff and I don't know what rules applied across news and production staff.

[tom p]

I think it's really quite obvious that I was referring to his conduct and demeanour in his present position.

It wasn't, I'm afraid.

[P.J. Denyer]

I've never bought the "Nick Robinson Tory" line. He's always seemed to me to be hard on whoever is in front of him. I don't buy the current Laura Kuenssberg one, either, even though she seems to be a massive hate figure for Corbyn's faithful now.

Seems whatever is happening is higher up, on an editorial level.

Bias doesn't just have to be about obviously fawning over a particular candidate or party, or even about individuals correspondent's actions. When there is a preponderance of a particular view point in a news team it shapes how stories are presented and what stories are presented, this doesn't happen to be deliberate bias, a group of people with a similar background and point of view will see certain things as being significant and not others. It doesn't follow that those things are not significant to other people. Excessive familiarity between highly influential people in the media and politicians is also a problem, it was a problem when it was Tony Blair & Rebecca Brooks and it's a problem now.

Journalists are human beings, they have biases like all of us and that is still true even when they genuinely and sincerely try to overcome those biases.

[GeenDienst]

Journalists are human beings, they have biases like all of us and that is still true even when they genuinely and sincerely try to overcome those biases.

Indeed, and the only conclusive answer to that is to not have journalists. But I haven't seen anything to back up this "what do you expect, Robinson's a TORY" bollocks, cf. all the squawking from some Labour supporters.

I think we're seeing the BBC struggle with their inbuilt pro-establishment bias, which is being exposed more now because there isn't the same comfortable establishment on offer any more. "Never calling the PM a liar" was a safe, comfortable ledge to lodge on for them, in years past. But we've never had a PM who is a full-on Trumpian compulsive liar before, and we've never had such a vacuum in the centre of politics.

[dyqik]

Journalists are human beings, they have biases like all of us and that is still true even when they genuinely and sincerely try to overcome those biases.

Indeed, and the only conclusive answer to that is to not have journalists. But I haven't seen anything to back up this "what do you expect, Robinson's a TORY" bollocks, cf. all the squawking from some Labour supporters.

I think we're seeing the BBC struggle with their inbuilt pro-establishment bias, which is being exposed more now because there isn't the same comfortable establishment on offer any more. "Never calling the PM a liar" was a safe, comfortable ledge to lodge on for them, in years past. But we've never had a PM who is a full-on Trumpian compulsive liar before, and we've never had such a vacuum in the centre of politics.

Pro-establishment bias is pretty much pro-Tory bias. That's what "conservative" means, and what the Tory party has historically represented.

What seems to have happened now is that pro-establishment tendencies have resulted in pro-Tory actions, even while the Tories are in a "blow it all up" mode. A fair chunk of the more biased media have also slowly and carefully made the case over the decades that Labour are anti-establishment, even though they want less major changes than the Tories.

The BBCs framing of stories has very often been pro-Tory recently. Some of that's because of the general coziness of current BBC reporters with the Tories (e.g. I'm sure Robinson knows a fair few from university, etc.) which affects how they see the background, some is because if you treat the output of the broadsheets and tabloids as the political center now, you're giving five or six votes to the right wing of the Tories and a couple to moderate Labour/LibDems, in a way that you weren't in the past.

Boiling frogs, etc.

[cvb]

Journalists are human beings, they have biases like all of us and that is still true even when they genuinely and sincerely try to overcome those biases.

Indeed, and the only conclusive answer to that is to not have journalists. But I haven't seen anything to back up this "what do you expect, Robinson's a TORY" bollocks, cf. all the squawking from some Labour supporters.

I think we're seeing the BBC struggle with their inbuilt pro-establishment bias, which is being exposed more now because there isn't the same comfortable establishment on offer any more. "Never calling the PM a liar" was a safe, comfortable ledge to lodge on for them, in years past. But we've never had a PM who is a full-on Trumpian compulsive liar before, and we've never had such a vacuum in the centre of politics.

I think that is interesting. I think in the past they would have called out direct lies but now in a "post truth" era they can get away with letting their chosen buffoon away with it.

I caught Andrew Neil interviewing some tory tw.t, not one I recognised, and to be fair he did give him a bit of a grilling over the NHS documents. The tory tw.t's defence was laughable. It was along the lines of "Yes it was in the document but that doesn't mean it was going to happen. It had to be on the table but that didn't mean it was going to happen. It's how these things are done."

I just hope the older voter realises that this affects them more and the tory c.nts really do intend to sell the NHS off to their mates.

[P.J. Denyer]

Journalists are human beings, they have biases like all of us and that is still true even when they genuinely and sincerely try to overcome those biases.

Indeed, and the only conclusive answer to that is to not have journalists. But I haven't seen anything to back up this "what do you expect, Robinson's a TORY" bollocks, cf. all the squawking from some Labour supporters.

I think we're seeing the BBC struggle with their inbuilt pro-establishment bias, which is being exposed more now because there isn't the same comfortable establishment on offer any more. "Never calling the PM a liar" was a safe, comfortable ledge to lodge on for them, in years past. But we've never had a PM who is a full-on Trumpian compulsive liar before, and we've never had such a vacuum in the centre of politics.

Or, in a less 'throw out the baby with the bath water' approach you could look at recruiting people from a more diverse range of backgrounds, both social and political, so that depending on how cynical you want to be they can balance out each other's biases/help each other see where they might be biased and correct it.

[GeenDienst]

More diversity can't be anything but good. But doesn't any action to reduce bias add new bias? Maybe part of the answer lies in the BBC proactively reviewing what they do, rather than who they are. But this in itself is susceptible to bias higher up.

[jdc]

I just hope the older voter realises that this affects them more and the tory c.nts really do intend to sell the NHS off to their mates.

I checked at lunchtime. They don't believe it.

[P.J. Denyer]

I just hope the older voter realises that this affects them more and the tory c.nts really do intend to sell the NHS off to their mates.

I checked at lunchtime. They don't believe it.

I think there's a degree of denial, a degree of "I'll be gone before it effects me"(**cough** climate change **cough**), but in recent years I've become more and more convinced that there's a strong element among boomers who go beyond 'I don't need it any more so get rid of it to save money for stuff I want" into full on "I don't need it any more so destroy it so no-one else can have it" territory.

[JQH]

I think there's a degree of denial, a degree of "I'll be gone before it effects me"(**cough** climate change **cough**), but in recent years I've become more and more convinced that there's a strong element among boomers who go beyond 'I don't need it any more so get rid of it to save money for stuff I want" into full on "I don't need it any more so destroy it so no-one else can have it" territory.

Speaking as a boomer, I'm just getting to the stage where I really need the NHS as indeed are many others so we're not likely to want to scrap it. And I've never encountered the "I don't need it any more so destroy it so no-one else can have it" attitude anywhere. You most associate with some very strange people.

[Gentleman Jim]

I think there's a degree of denial, a degree of "I'll be gone before it effects me"(**cough** climate change **cough**), but in recent years I've become more and more convinced that there's a strong element among boomers who go beyond 'I don't need it any more so get rid of it to save money for stuff I want" into full on "I don't need it any more so destroy it so no-one else can have it" territory.

Speaking as a boomer, I'm just getting to the stage where I really need the NHS as indeed are many others so we're not likely to want to scrap it. And I've never encountered the "I don't need it any more so destroy it so no-one else can have it" attitude anywhere. You most associate with some very strange people.

Priti Patel and immigration?
Or is that too controversial?

[cvb]

I think there's a degree of denial, a degree of "I'll be gone before it effects me"(**cough** climate change **cough**), but in recent years I've become more and more convinced that there's a strong element among boomers who go beyond 'I don't need it any more so get rid of it to save money for stuff I want" into full on "I don't need it any more so destroy it so no-one else can have it" territory.

Speaking as a boomer, I'm just getting to the stage where I really need the NHS as indeed are many others so we're not likely to want to scrap it. And I've never encountered the "I don't need it any more so destroy it so no-one else can have it" attitude anywhere. You most associate with some very strange people.

Priti Patel and immigration?
Or is that too controversial?

Fair comment. There is a lot of pulling the drawbridge up after them about.

[tom p]

I think there's a degree of denial, a degree of "I'll be gone before it effects me"(**cough** climate change **cough**), but in recent years I've become more and more convinced that there's a strong element among boomers who go beyond 'I don't need it any more so get rid of it to save money for stuff I want" into full on "I don't need it any more so destroy it so no-one else can have it" territory.

Speaking as a boomer, I'm just getting to the stage where I really need the NHS as indeed are many others so we're not likely to want to scrap it. And I've never encountered the "I don't need it any more so destroy it so no-one else can have it" attitude anywhere. You most associate with some very strange people.

Student grants?
Building enough houses so there are affordable ones for my generation and those younger than me?
Your generation (not you personally) got the freest ride of any in history, and spread tacks and oil behind you so that subsequent generations are f.cked