Is the BBC biased politically? Yes, of course, it is. Is it intentional? That is difficult to say.
All our media is biased, and sometimes significantly so. Look at the press. There are good reasons for most of it being called the 'Tory Press'. It backs the Tory party: The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, The Express, The Times, all blasting away, telling us how dreadful a Corbyn government would be.
Corbyn's sin is to be too left-wing, which means he wants to bring about a fundamental change in the balance of power and privilege in British society. He wants to tackle the very inequalities of opportunity that run through our society in education, in work and in social justice. To achieve that he must challenge the elite. This means he lies outside the box of 'neutrality', and being 'neutral' means being anti-Corbyn.
Corbyn challenges the yardsticks by which success is determined. Success, for Corbyn, would be to tackle poverty and inequality. Success for the media would be more economic growth and fostering the wealthy privileged elite that they believe underscore it.
Blair and New Labour were acceptable because they fitted into the 'neutrality' box. For all its successes, and there were many, New Labour wasn't about redistribution of wealth; it was about creating more of it. Yes, new labour invested massively in social infrastructure, and child poverty and pensioner poverty fell, but they didn't appear to challenge the fabric of our social order. Corbyn does.
So, what then about the BBC? Isn't that supposed to be neutral? Neutral, there lies the problem. There isn't a neutral position, which in itself is not also biased.
One of the problems with the BBC is that it reflects our society, and our culture is biased. Our society is organised on inequality. The 'neutral' position is very much biased in favour of keeping the established order of things.
A fundamental assumption of this order is that wealth is good, and the accumulation of wealth is even better. Our economy is based on the idea of growth, and Growth is considered 'good'. And that is one of the critical examples of bias.
Even when it comes to poverty, there is a bias in the outlook. This has two common threads: that at least some of the poverty is the responsibility of the poor themselves. The other is that somehow, 'growth' will make the difference. Redistribution of wealth is not in the order of things. So, taxation is 'bad', or at best a necessary evil.
Politicians are 'challenged' on their tax plans, and generally, increasing taxes is regarded as wrong. That is part of the systemic bias.
So, media outlets like the BBC, for all their efforts, find themselves using pejoratives in their assessments and questions.
Then there are the presumed impossibles, like taxing the rich. They are the untouchables. They hold the aces because they are the 'wealth creators'.
No, they are not the wealth creators. They are the wealth accumulators, and that is not the same thing.
The wealth creators are the workers on poverty wages. Poverty wages are regarded as 'good' because they make 'goods' cheap.
But poverty wages are inadequate - profoundly so as they push hard-working wealth creators into poverty and on benefits, and this is a reason why the welfare bill is so high. Better to pay a decent wage, so that people can benefit from the fruits of their labour. But our system is predicated on low wages. That is part of the biased view.
The Tories branded the poor as skivers. Those on benefits were considered to be 'cheating' the system. This view has been accepted as part of the order of things and contributes to the bias.
The BBC does not always get this wrong. Often they show themselves capable of breaking out of the box. But to a large extent, those in the media grew up and were educated in the culture we have, and that culture is full of biased views. This view, then, is reflected in the outlook of media presenters.
If you are a party that challenges the system, as Labour does, then you will feel the icy wind of this media bias.
All our media is biased, and sometimes significantly so. Look at the press. There are good reasons for most of it being called the 'Tory Press'. It backs the Tory party: The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, The Express, The Times, all blasting away, telling us how dreadful a Corbyn government would be.
Corbyn's sin is to be too left-wing, which means he wants to bring about a fundamental change in the balance of power and privilege in British society. He wants to tackle the very inequalities of opportunity that run through our society in education, in work and in social justice. To achieve that he must challenge the elite. This means he lies outside the box of 'neutrality', and being 'neutral' means being anti-Corbyn.
Corbyn challenges the yardsticks by which success is determined. Success, for Corbyn, would be to tackle poverty and inequality. Success for the media would be more economic growth and fostering the wealthy privileged elite that they believe underscore it.
Blair and New Labour were acceptable because they fitted into the 'neutrality' box. For all its successes, and there were many, New Labour wasn't about redistribution of wealth; it was about creating more of it. Yes, new labour invested massively in social infrastructure, and child poverty and pensioner poverty fell, but they didn't appear to challenge the fabric of our social order. Corbyn does.
So, what then about the BBC? Isn't that supposed to be neutral? Neutral, there lies the problem. There isn't a neutral position, which in itself is not also biased.
One of the problems with the BBC is that it reflects our society, and our culture is biased. Our society is organised on inequality. The 'neutral' position is very much biased in favour of keeping the established order of things.
A fundamental assumption of this order is that wealth is good, and the accumulation of wealth is even better. Our economy is based on the idea of growth, and Growth is considered 'good'. And that is one of the critical examples of bias.
Even when it comes to poverty, there is a bias in the outlook. This has two common threads: that at least some of the poverty is the responsibility of the poor themselves. The other is that somehow, 'growth' will make the difference. Redistribution of wealth is not in the order of things. So, taxation is 'bad', or at best a necessary evil.
Politicians are 'challenged' on their tax plans, and generally, increasing taxes is regarded as wrong. That is part of the systemic bias.
So, media outlets like the BBC, for all their efforts, find themselves using pejoratives in their assessments and questions.
Then there are the presumed impossibles, like taxing the rich. They are the untouchables. They hold the aces because they are the 'wealth creators'.
No, they are not the wealth creators. They are the wealth accumulators, and that is not the same thing.
The wealth creators are the workers on poverty wages. Poverty wages are regarded as 'good' because they make 'goods' cheap.
But poverty wages are inadequate - profoundly so as they push hard-working wealth creators into poverty and on benefits, and this is a reason why the welfare bill is so high. Better to pay a decent wage, so that people can benefit from the fruits of their labour. But our system is predicated on low wages. That is part of the biased view.
The Tories branded the poor as skivers. Those on benefits were considered to be 'cheating' the system. This view has been accepted as part of the order of things and contributes to the bias.
The BBC does not always get this wrong. Often they show themselves capable of breaking out of the box. But to a large extent, those in the media grew up and were educated in the culture we have, and that culture is full of biased views. This view, then, is reflected in the outlook of media presenters.
If you are a party that challenges the system, as Labour does, then you will feel the icy wind of this media bias.
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