Media Bias

[Brian Peacock]

BBC chief dismisses accusations of bias in politics coverage

Director general Tony Hall’s comments follow threat from Boris Johnson to axe licence fee

Tony Hall, the director-general of the BBC, has defended the corporation’s election output against accusations of bias, saying that the national broadcaster had faced criticisms of its output from both leftwing and rightwing commentators in the weeks leading up to voting day.

However, Lord Hall has spoken out in praise of the BBC’s polling coverage, claiming the fact that it received complaints from all sides demonstrated it was unbiased.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Hall said: “Around 27 million people in the UK came to the BBC website to find out about the election results. It was a reminder of the trust people place in the BBC.

Well he would.

What struck me is the idea that criticism from both sides somehow cancel each other out, as if criticism is only a matter of perspective or opinion. Some of the BBC's political editors were caught uncritically repeating stuff the Tories made up. That's a fair, not a partisan, criticism.

[Scot Dutchy]

Gone off the BBC in a big way. Only the two Andrews are worth watching and listening to. That Welsh git is very tory orientated especially over Europe.

[Brian Peacock]

The presenters of the politics shows are just the public face of the editorial team, so it's a bit unfair to single them out for criticism or praise. Nonetheless, the government haven't made anybody available for interview or comment on the Radio4 Today programme since the election - limiting their responses to PR statements about how fabulous they think they are - because they say the presenters are unfair and partisan. Characterising criticism and challenges as bias is a Trumparian tactic and no mistake.

[Seabass]

This is seriously fucking disturbing even by Fox News' standards...

After Iranian missile strikes, Fox personalities push for war against Iran

[Seabass]

SINCE FRIDAY, a loud chorus of voices has appeared in the media to celebrate President Donald Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a move that has sparked renewed tension in the Middle East, a new deployment of U.S. forces, and predictions of increased military spending.

Many of the pundits who appeared on national television or were quoted in major publications to praise the president’s actions have undisclosed ties to the defense industry — the only domestic industry that stands to gain from increased violence.

https://theintercept.com/2020/01/06/ira ... -industry/

Full Disclosure: News Pundits’ Hidden Arms Industry Ties

[Scot Dutchy]

[Seabass]

Geraldo embarrasses Fox & Friends host by pointing out America did actually shoot down an Iranian jetliner

“Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy tried to corner guest Geraldo Rivera by asking him what would have happened if America had shot down a commercial jetliner like the Iranian government appears to have done with a Ukrainian plane that was in its airspace during the time it launched its missile attack against a base in Iraq where American military personnel regularly stayed.

While discussing the downed plane, Doocy asked Rivera, “Can you imagine if the United States of America accidentally shot down a jetliner?”

Rivera, however, didn’t miss a beat and pointed out that the U.S. actually had done that in the 1980s.

“Well, you know Steve, we did in 1988,” he replied. “It was an international, uh — well not a scandal, but a big debate. Our guided-missile frigate Vincennes, in the Gulf there, shot down an Iranian passenger liner. 290 died, including over 60 children. And it was something that took us years to live down.”

Co-host Brian Kilmeade, however, tried to downplay the accidental destruction of the commercial airliner by saying that the United States “paid a lot of money” to compensate the families of the hundreds of people who died.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/gerald ... -jetliner/

video:
https://twitter.com/revrrlewis/status/1 ... 9188256769

[Seabass]

Republicans are burning democracy to the ground, and the media are fixated on the handshake snub.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyl ... story.html

The Sanders-Warren ‘feud’ and Ukraine revelations are nowhere near equal in importance. Try telling the media that.

If you asked a casual news consumer what the big Washington story was over the past few days, there’s a decent chance you would hear about a supposed feud between two Democratic presidential candidates — Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

That, after all, was a media obsession for days: an easy-to-understand, easy-to-argue-about story with compelling audio and video.

Made for TV. Made for punditry. Let’s all plumb the greater meaning of whether the Vermont senator really once told the Massachusetts senator that he didn’t think a woman could be elected president.

And while this is grounded in an important issue (ingrained sexism in American culture and politics), there were matters of greater significance going on.

There was compelling new evidence that President Trump knew everything about the effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and the 2016 election, and to push an American diplomat out of the way.

This was revealed in documents and text messages and in blockbuster interviews, first with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and later with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. It was stunning stuff, particularly in the context of Trump’s impeachment and a Senate trial in which most Republican senators, according to their leadership, already have their minds made up.

“This is . . . like if Watergate burglars gave [an] interview to Walter Cronkite in Jan 1974 and detailed the Nixon criminal enterprise,” tweeted the journalist and author Eric Boehlert about Maddow’s interview with Lev Parnas, the Soviet-born businessman who played a key role in the pressure campaign.

It was a much, much bigger deal than the Warren-Sanders dust-up.

But these developments were presented as roughly equal, or at least in the same general category of emphasis, on TV newscasts and news-talk shows, as if to say, “Here’s a couple of Washington stories about politicians fighting with each other . . . .”

[...]

The news media is all too predictable, doing things the same old way from campaign to campaign, from scandal to scandal.

But we exist now in a different context: With democratic norms on the brink, the public desperately needs us to do much, much better.

[Scot Dutchy]

How can you burn something that never existed?

[Seabass]

Fox News blowhard Mark Levin: "The President gets less due process than the terrorists on 9/11 get."
Republican congressman Doug Collins: nods in agreement.

video: https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1219064783678296064

[JimC]

He's got due process coming out of his arse!

[pErvinalia]

If only we could lock him up in Guantanimo Bay.

[Joe]

Or waterboard him.

[Svartalf]

Just hire him out as a caddy in mar a lago

[L'Emmerdeur]

Yeah, our programming is rife with mendacious shitheels but that's our business model, so carry on.

'Fox News Internal Document Bashes Pro-Trump Fox Regulars for Spreading "Disinformation"'

Fox News’ own research team has warned colleagues not to trust some of the network’s top commentators’ claims about Ukraine.

An internal Fox News research briefing book obtained by The Daily Beast openly questions Fox News contributor John Solomon’s credibility, accusing him of playing an “indispensable role” in a Ukrainian “disinformation campaign.”

The document also accuses frequent Fox News guest Rudy Giuliani of amplifying disinformation, as part of an effort to oust former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and blasts Fox News guests Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova—both ardent Trump boosters—for “spreading disinformation.”

The 162-page document, entitled “Ukraine, Disinformation, & the Trump Administration,” was created by Fox News senior political affairs specialist Bryan S. Murphy, who produces research from what is known as the network’s Brain Room—a newsroom division of researchers who provide information, data, and topic guides for the network’s programming.