Tim Davie resigns as BBC director general after accusations of serious bias(www.theguardian.com)

7 pointsby ndsipa_pomu13 hours ago2 comments

techblueberry13 hours ago
Forcing the head of your news organization to resign every time a politician criticizes your reporting, doesn't seem like a great way to build trust in the media.
- martypitt2 hours ago
  That's not what happened here. The BBC edited footage to make it appear that Trump said something he didn't in the leadup to the Jan-6 riots.
  My personal biases are pretty strongly in favour of the BBC, but what they did here was really bad. It's appropriate that heads roll. I wish more orgs would have the same level of accountability.
- db48x12 hours ago
  The right way to build trust in the media is for the media to actually be trustworthy.
  - techblueberry10 hours ago
    Don’t worry, all the mainstream media will be right wing soon enough, so trust in the media will at least hit ~45%.
  - foldr12 hours ago
    The accusations against the BBC in this case are extremely weak, though. The main thing is the somewhat misleading edit of Trump’s speech in one documentary (which was such a big deal that no-one noticed till a year later), and then some general grumbling about too many positive portrayals of trans people. This latter complaint would be bizarre if it was made with reference to any other group of people. (Imagine if the BBC were accused of showing too many positive portrayals of Irish people and was then required to broadcast programs where people who hate the Irish were also given space to air their views.) Finally there are some complaints about coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is of course impossible for any news organization to cover without enraging someone or other.
    johng12 hours ago
    This paints a pretty awful picture of the BBC in other areas: https://archive.is/mBcPq
    foldr11 hours ago
    So does this:
    https://cfmm.org.uk/bbc-on-gaza-israel-one-story-double-stan...
    It’s quite a fun game to match every accusation of BBC bias with its exact opposite. That’s not to say that BBC reporting is perfect and that no individual criticisms are valid. But the BBC simply could not report on Israel/Palestine at all without being accused of bias in all directions. Show me the media organization whose reporting on this issue is agreed to be unbiased by all relevant parties.
    (Also little ironic to link to a Telegraph article, of all things, while complaining about media bias. On anyone’s analysis, the Telegraph is a vastly more partisan media organization than the BBC.)
    johng11 hours ago
    If you read the article they are listing things that the BBC itself concluded and cites specific examples. Ignore who wrote the article or even the article itself and just look at what BBC itself found. Also note it's about BBC Arabic in comparison to regular BBC.
    foldr11 hours ago
    I’m sure the BBC gets lots of stuff wrong in its news coverage, just like any other news organization you could name. But if we’re talking about systemic bias in reporting on the Israel/Palestine conflict, it’s worth noting that “both sides” (much as I hate this expression) frequently claim that the BBC is biased against them. The whole issue is so contentious that it’s highly unlikely that any major news organization will escape criticisms of bias. Again, I wonder if you can name a different major news organization that regularly reports on Israel/Palestine and that nobody considers to have any bias in its reporting.
    johng10 hours ago
    I agree with you that they all have bias. However, as the article points out... this is an egregious bias by it's own sister publication. So, it is unique in that it all falls under the same roof and it's being called out by itself.
    foldr2 hours ago
    That’s unique in a good way, no? Would it be better if the BBC were incapable of self critique?
ndsipa_pomu13 hours ago
Also, live coverage by the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cd9kqz1yyxkt