Re: Lib Dem Defections

On Thu, 26 Jan 2006, usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Matthew Huntbach wrote 

I suggest that you are the one with the bias, who cannot see bias in
reporting when that bias happens to favour your point of view.


I can see all sorts of reporting that doesn't accord with my views. I
can see all sorts of reporting that is biased. What I don't see is a
consistent, overwhelming right-wing bias: I see some right-wing biased
reporting and I see some left-wing biased reporting.


So you think on the whole the British press is balanced? When you
put together the Star, the Sun, the Mirror, the Express, the Mail,
the Telegraph, the Times, the Guardian and the Independent, you
get an overall view in which the Labour Party gets as much support
as the Conservatives, and left-wing views get as much sympathetic
coverage as right-wing views?

I'm not asking for the news to be reported in a way that favours my point
of view, I'm asking it to be reported in a way that is neutral.


A post-modernist would argue that a neutral position is impossible! Not
fully embracing post-modernism, I would agree with you that we should
have news reporting that tries to be objective. However, much of what
is in the press is explicitly comment and I've no problem with comment
being biased if we get a range of comment from all different political
shades. On the whole, I think the British media does manage all that.
At least, it's much better than the US media!

It seems to me the comment in the British press is overwhelmingly biased to the right. Only two low circulation newspapers (Guardian and
Independent) have some bias to the left, though they do seem more
willing to run comment which balances their overall position more
readily than the right-biased newspapers.

I have seen some US newspapers where I can recognise a liberal bias.
It may be that I agree with it, but I can see it probably is abias
compared to the view of the average American.

The word "moderniser" is not a neutral word. It is a praise-word.
To use it is to suggest that those it is applied to are praiseworthy,
while those it is not applied to are defective. Therefore truly neutral
news would not apply this term to either side.


I agree that the word "moderniser" is not a neutral word. However, it
is the word that is used about the Orange Book group outside of the
press -- it is not a press invention.


The Orange Book people used it of themselves, the press did not have
to take it up. I suggest they did so because it fitted in with their
own viewpoint.

Lots of people may think the Orange Book people are the "bright future"
of the party and Hughes will lose it support, but are they so many that
this can be reported, as it has been, as "news" rather than "opinion"?


I've not seen -- and you've not supplied -- examples where it has been
reported as news rather than opinion. I have seen it reported as
opinion. I have seen editorials and comment pieces lauding the Orange
Book people (Laws mainly), but I've seen others praising other LibDem
politicians/policies.


In the British press, comment and newss are not entirely separate.
In any case, a newspaper with bias-free news and comment overwhelmingly
to one viewpoint is not overall bias free, is it? It seems to me,
as an example, the Telegraph is a reasonable example of a paper which
plays the news fairly straighty, but has a definite bias in comment,
while the Mail's bias is reflected in both the way it comments and
how it chooses to report the news.

Perhaps you could give me some examples of editorials and comment
pieces which praise LibDem politicians who are generally seen as
being to the left of the party. I can't recall a single piece.
Just as a I can't recall a single piece from the press anywhere
in the 1980s which recognised the strength of the Liberal Party
against the SDP and which put forward with support the arguments
of those members of the Liberal Party who were suspicious of the
SDP and wished to reduce its influence in the alliance years and
in the merger negotiations.

You're happy because the press is in accord with your bias, and you lack
the true sense of liberalism which would enable you to see that it is bias even though it's a bias you like. 

The press is not in accord with my biases. The press has underrated
Chris Huhne, for whom I'm thinking of voting. The press obviously
grossly underestimates the party as a whole.


Ah, so finally you DO recognise there is a bias in the British press.
In the case of Chris Huhne, I think it's fair enough that the press
would report a newly arrived MP as an unlikely candidate for the
leadership. I don't think one can say there's been a general
pro-Huhne movement within the Liberal Democrats which the press
has ignored.

Can you report even one article which balances the bias I've pointed out
with a contrasting bias whcih fits in more with my opinion?


I gave you two examples -- The Times talking about defections to Labour
and the News of the World destorying Oaten -- but you ignored the first
and dismissed the second. You say any paper would report a scandal
involving a male CSW, but subsequent newspaper calls for Oaten to
resign as an MP go beyond reporting the scandal.


The Oaten case, as I suggested, was always going to be news regardless
of the bias of the paper reporting it. In the same way, I'm not going
to raise the case of the press out-ing Simon Hughes as evidence of a
bias against the left of the LibDems.

I haven't seen the Times article you refer to, so I don't know what its
slant might be. I think you would need to say more about it to be
at all convincing that it was an article which expressed sympathy for
those on the left of the Liberal Democrats. If its slant was
"Liberal Democrat members think the Liberal Democrat party has become
loony left, so they're moving to Labour", it would be evidence in my
favour, not yours, wouldn't it?

Matthew Huntbach
.