According to Timothy Garton Ash, the BBC coverage of the EU referendum is too impartial. Setting aside for the moment any arguments about the BBC’s bias towards the state, let’s look at the killer quote:
It’s more like what the American media analyst Brooke Gladstone slyly calls “fairness bias”. You give equal airtime to unequal arguments, without daring to say that, on this or that point, one side has more evidence, or a significantly larger body of expert opinion, than the other.
This is precisely the argument used by the charlatans to silence any dissent expressed towards the cult of AGW. The sheer arrogance that says “we are right, so your views not only don’t count, they should not be heard.” Or, to précis; “the science is settled.”
Says it all, really.
“Too impartial”?
I’ve seen no evidence of that, They’re heavily biased against Brexit
Recently discovered that, despite having left UK nearly 14 years ago, I can register to vote. Will most definitely be doing so and letting others know who I am confident will vote for Brexit.
I have already done so. And having come from Scotland, I get to vote there…
You can sign up online and sort all the paperwork via email.
To be fair to the Beeb, while they have a steady drip drip of Remain inspired scare stories, they are just reporting what the Remain politicians are saying. And the items are often low down on the website (couldn’t say how prominent they are on the TV news, I never watch it). Their Fact Check thing on the website has been pretty fair as well, each thing I’ve read hasn’t shown any great bias – they’ve put each sides arguments fairly and most often concluded ‘It depends’.
Personally I expected a far more one eyed stance. I think the reason they are not is that they have realised that many on the Left are pro-Brexit now, possibly even the leader of the Labour party in private, so being good Leftists, they’ve decided not to leave too many hostages to fortune, and play it straighter than if the Brexit camp only contained Tories and Kippers. If they thought that was the case they wouldn’t even have a veneer of impartiality.
‘Too’ impartial. The problem is these idiots do not understand the English language. It is a binary: one is either impartial or partial; like in pregnancy where there is no state of being ‘too’ pregnant.
Impartial means making no decision, nor being influenced by bias about whether an argument is ‘equal’ or ‘unequal’ – one would have to be partial to make such a decision.
I suspect the BBC are keeping their powder dry until closer to the actual referendum. Running scare stories at this stage is almost self-defeating as they can be debunked and the bias becomes evident, but in the week or so before the referendum an apocalyptic scare might well persuade doubters. Most of the action in the Scottish referendum came in the last few days.
I have found the scare stories to be rather bizarre. They all seem to be on the same kind of theme, without EU membership we won’t be able to do X, when in every case there is no reason whatsoever why we can’t do X from outside the EU. Countries that aren’t in the EU do X all the time, plus we also do X with non EU countries all the time too.
Despite having never been a member of the EU, Switzerland has, distressingly, failed to become a dystopian shithole.
This must rile the Remain contingent something fierce. How can they wave their hands vaguely and spout such complete woo as, “If we leave the EU, we won’t be able to do X, Y, or Z!” when Switzerland is quietly, peacefully, and with no trace of malice aforethought, proving them so utterly wrong?
No Sean, most dystopian shitholes involve some kind of massive unaccountable bureaucracy don’t they? Either that or the government is based on the ideas of a seventh century charlatan.