UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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The BBC is under constant accusations of political bias on both sides. The fact they have weathered this partisan storm angering both sides in the current political climate is testament to their ability to remain as close to objective as is possible. The current alternative to the BBC is no BBC, and I think that would be a shame.
That said, highlighting instances of questionable judgement, like this, has value. The BBC isn't perfect, and the public should keep leaders and management on its toes.
My problem with the BBC is the reporting is so hyper-conservative that the plot of Mars Attacks would be:
All factually correct but nothing that says that WE'RE UNDER ATTACK BY INVADERS FROM ANOTHER PLANET. I'm not looking for hyperbole, just some context on the story.
Under the Tories the BBC would constantly say "X said the sky is yellow" and leave it at that. It's totally impartial to say "X incorrectly states that the sky is yellow". It's factually wrong and not saying that looks to many like tacit endorsement of the statement. Similarly with Trump, he's taking actions that are unheard of in American history. The BBC will just say what he's doing and not how exceptional it is, making it seem like just another Monday. It validates his actions.
There is a long history of objective journalism refraining from passing judgement. This is the distinction between news journalism and editorials. There is nothing wrong with partisan journalism, but the BBC is by and large not that. When I look over at the hellscape that is U.S. "journalism," I don't see a compelling role model. In fact, I think that is irrefutable evidence that the BBC is correct to remain impartial. Remember: impartiality is subjective. Making judgements - even ones which appear reasonable to you - open the author and publication up to endless accusations of editorialism. If the BBC were to ever switch to U.S.-style journalism, I believe they would be defunded almost immediately.
None of what I wrote was about passing judgement.
I agree that once you do you lose your objective foundation. However saying that something has never happened before, or it's being justified under emergency powers, or that something is a factually incorrect statement is not opinion.
"Incorrectly" is a judgement. It is a judgement that the statement is false. To illustrate the issue, let's use your example: “X incorrectly states that the sky is yellow”. Let's imagine that the BBC writes, "Trump incorrectly states that the sky is yellow." Trump and supporters reply, "but the sky is yellow during certain atmospheric events common in the morning and evening. Here is a picture of a yellow sky." Now the BBC is caught defending a truism which is, in fact, not always true. Supporters of Trump can rightly point out the BBC's inaccuracy, and would likely consider it a form of bias and partisanship. In order for the BBC to avoid this, they would need to append a long legal disclaimer at the bottom of every headline, every article, every video, and every news report, thoroughly detailing the various ways in which the judgement could be interpreted, how and why the BBC came to that judgement, their peer reviewed citations and statistics, the background of the analyst who made the judgement to ensure that they aren't biased, etc. This still wouldn't be enough, because Trump supporters would then ask, "but why didn't you write an article about all those times Kamala Harris lied about Biden's mental acuity? You didn't use the word "lie" even though she clearly lied." They'd be right. Now the BBC has opened themselves up for criticism of instances in which they didn't editorialise.
Judgements, no matter how factually correct, are judgements. They lead to a race to the bottom. I don't see how you could look at American media and argue that that is what the BBC should do.
So there's no objective truth? Only opinion?
If I had an arts degree - which is mostly post-modernist today - I would argue there is no such thing as objective truth. Thankfully I do not, and I do believe that objective truth exists. My point isn't actually about objective truth at all. It's about pragmatism, the role of journalism in society, and specifically about the right strategy for the BBC.