Tuesday, December 08, 2015

BBC reporting - biased and crass

I'm sure I cannot be alone in thinking that the standard of reportage on the BBC is plumbing new depths of bias and crass insensitivity.

During the recent days, the reporting of Labour Party issues and particularly where they concern Jeremy Corbyn or John McDonnell has brought out the worst in the reporters, and in particular, Emily Maitliss, and Laura Kuenssberg of Newsnight, followed closely by Allegra Stratton.

The floods in Cumberland have brought out new lows in the maner of questioning and reporting.

One poor man on last night's news who had been completely flooded out for the second time was being questioned about his experience.

The reporter was leaning against the door frame in a casual manner, asking 'How do you feel'?

He could see the poor guy he was questioning was distraught, turning away to hide his tears.

The whole episode was so awful and insensitive, had I been the poor victim I would have punched the reporter on the nose and asked him how he felt.

The BBC clearly received a lot of critical calls, because by News at Ten, the piece had been taken down.

Another reporter was asking the occupants of a house who were having to stay upstairs because their ground floor was completely flooded.

'What's it like down there?' he asked.

Again, you could see the obvious distress on the faces of the occupants. I wonder how the reporter would have felt if the answer had been 'soaking wet you fucking idiot'! 

That's the problem, ordinary people are too polite when confronted with a camera and a microphone.

Get a grip BBC and smarten up your act. People's misfortune is not a scoop opportunity for your reptiles!

1 comment:

AbogadoNZ said...

I'm with you Rowan, a great deal of BBC reporting is lazy in the extreme. The reporters are ill-informed and looking for an 'exclusive'. They seem to spend more time interviewing other news media than real on real stories. The start of the 10.00 p.m. news is a particular irritation as it pans through a newsroom large enough to house a big passenger aircraft. The room is full of desks, screens and reporters. It begs the question WTF are they doing? News isn't on screens, you have to go and get stories and talk to real people.

Don't even get me started on political bias. Corbyn gets interviewed quite a lot and almost every time in the lead up comments like 'extreme left wing' or 'old-fashioned socialist' are liberally sprinkled into the reportage. The political editor does it so much she is clearly unaware of it. After all what is so strange about healthcare that is free at the point of delivery, or public transport and utilities being owned for the benefit of consumers as opposed to shareholders. Why are taxes not progressive instead of regressive. Have the reporters forgotten that in your/my living memory the maximum rate of personal tax was 97.5% and that nearly two thirds of revenue was collected from companies. The biggest pay rise I ever had was when my top rate of tax fell from 60% - 40%. I was OK with the 60% rate. It is the present state of affairs that is the anomaly. The notion that energy companies should attend climate change conferences and help set policy while Greenpeace and others were not invited is never questioned. The modern tax code is the result of corporate lobbying not the product of the civil service.

The real trouble is so many people are now debt slaves - reporters at the BBC included - that no one is prepared to speak out and ask the hard questions. The BBC newsroom has become just another corporate media news outlet. How come the stories they put out are much the same as those of other media yet they keep telling us they have more reporters in the field than any other, The implication is the editorial team lack balls, or are acting under political direction of the Treasury benches. Rant over!