Monday 18 June 2007

Turning a blind eye

A report came out today saying that the BBC was guilty of not being sufficiently impartial for a public broadcaster. I can't say I'd noticed a bias particularly, although that's not surprising given that (a) I'm a bit of a lefty and (b) I'm not that media savvy.

Makes sense that a broadcaster funded with public money should be impartial on political issues etc. Wouldn't want it to be coerced into favouring a particular political position. But there was one part of the report I wasn't so sure about. There was a lot of criticism of the way the Make Poverty History movement was presented. I realise that, according to this enquiry, this did break/bend their rules that say charitites shouldn't be endorsed, but I can't help but wonder if it's that bad a thing that it happened. Surely impartiality can't be that damaged by the highlighting of the fact that a significant proportion of the world lives in obscene poverty.

That's my view anyway. I'd be genuinely interested in hearing from anyone who disagrees and thinks that the right call was made on this particular aspect - I fear I might be being too blinkered on this one, so I'd appreciate alternative perspectives. But I do suspect that I shall remain committed to favouring turning a blind eye to the odd bit of journalistic rule-breaking rather than missing the opportunity to try to get an important message across so powerfully.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It strikes me that supporting MPH fits entirely with the VoD character. It would have been wrong to ignore it. If there is bias it is in having a rather liberal woman vicar - but then that is the whole point of the series.

SC

John said...

There is sometimes quite a bit of bias.

Try seeing the way that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is presented, given that both sides have legitimate arguments (except the Palestinians should blatantly be going for strategic non-violent resistance rather than infighting). BBC is almost always pro-Palestinian.

I don't have a problem with the MPH example though.

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