Amazon Secure ATP TV Rights

bogbrush wrote:
Why not just do what normal people do, and treat everyone fairly on their merits and ignore background? I would only ever hire on merit.

Yeah, I agree with you on this, I don't like positive discrimination at all.
But be realistic, the percentage of jobs at the BBC that are the percentage of positive discrimination is very small. Show me evidence otherwise.

bogbrush wrote:My dislike of the BBC is primarily rooted in its funding system. All the other crap it goes in for (like Murdochs examples, which you haven't refuted) are a by product of that.

Yes, and I think you let your dislike of the funding system cloud your judgement of how it is purely as a news source. It's more balanced and unbiased than every single prominent news outlet in the country.
As for HM's examples, I did address all of them, many of them I refuted, but some I didn't refute as I thought HM had a point. I don't think BBC is perfect, and it does have a socially liberal bias, possibly connected to the demographic of staff who work there (on average younger and university educated are more socially liberal).

bogbrush wrote:
PS You know what Alan's snackbar is don't you?

Of course I do, don't you? It's what religious people shout for after their fast is over and they're hungry.

DECIMA wrote:OK I have addressed this point twice before but we had many posts so your perhaps missed it.
Politics has become very polarised and partisan these days. People have put themselves into different camps with certain ideology. When left wingers see Salon, they don't see bias, they see the truth as it is. When right wingers see Breitbart, they see a news outlet finally saying the truth. The fact both these sides are obviously biased is no longer a protection against its influence, if not anything it means the propaganda has more potency as people see them as 'pure'.

I saw your comments but did not address them as I do not see this is particularly relevant, even assuming you are correct.

DECIMA wrote:A lot of that may have to do with the demographic of the staff working at BBC news. [...]

Possibly so.  I am not saying they necessarily do it all on purpose.  It may well be they genuinely believe what they say.  But that does not make difference from user's perspective.  It still ends up being propaganda.  As you say, it is most visible on various "social" issues where they have liberal slant.  But that bias is quite strong I would say (cannot comment on TV news but certainly on their website).  Diversity is not the only topic.  Pick pretty much any "social" issue, think of what the more liberal position would be and just about certainly their coverage will be slanted that way.  In some cases they will give some room to both sides, but lean the liberal way, in other cases their viewpoints will be 100% liberal.  But both cases are bad.  In some way showing milder bias can be even worse, because it can be easier to mistake their coverage for even-handed.

DECIMA wrote:Historically the UK was almost completely white, as you pointed out earlier in this thread when annoyed at the cartoon. So should we ban all black and brown people from playing any roles of anyone in a film or play set historically in the UK?
That's beyond the pale, and the fact you'd even use this shows your hysteria of BBC is clouding judgement.

When something presents itself as factual, I don't think it is beyond the pale to stick to facts.

Context is everything. Something like Hamilton doesn't bother me at all because the multi-racial cast is part of the artistic statement. It does not present itself as an accurate representation of the founding fathers.

But this desire to adjust the appearance of history I find very odd.

Do you think the BBC would ever cast a white person as, say, one of Genghis Khan's or Saladin's or Sitting Bull's or Shaka Zulu's generals? It would be ridiculous. It's no less ridiculous to cast a black actor in the role of an 11th century Norman Earl.

DECIMA wrote:So should we ban all black and brown people from playing any roles of anyone in a film or play set historically in the UK?
That's beyond the pale

I doubt anyone is suggesting black actors should be "banned" from any roles but the question of whether the actors' ethnicity should mirror the ethnicity of the characters is reasonable.  Some will think it important they match, some will think it irrelevant, and some may be in-between.  But it is not beyond the pale to take the view that they should in fact match.  If you think it is, then I can see why you would not view BBC coverage as biased: they are not biased, they just do not present the views that are beyond the pale .

summerblues wrote:
I doubt anyone is suggesting black actors should be "banned" from any roles but the question of whether the actors' ethnicity should mirror the ethnicity of the characters is reasonable.  Some will think it important they match, some will think it irrelevant, and some may be in-between.  

To be fair, I don't think in theory it is beyond the pale at all.
But looking at it practically, if you were to ban actors playing a historical character of different ethnicity, it would basically bar all black people from acting in any historical UK play/film, as the demographics were totally white back then.
That I think is not ideal, of course others are free to disagree. I get it, I have my biases too. But then HM did take an extra step and call the BBC 'wretched' and use this as an example. I don't think the viewpoint that in practice banning black actors from historical shows about the UK is unideal is wretched or malicious intent.

HM Murdoch wrote:
Do you think the BBC would ever cast a white person as, say, one of Genghis Khan's or Saladin's or Sitting Bull's or Shaka Zulu's generals? It would be ridiculous. It's no less ridiculous to cast a black actor in the role of an 11th century Norman Earl.

What I said to SB ^^
Also it's just a black actor playing a white guy, no one is saying that that character itself was black at the time, honestly you're getting offended over this and if it was the other way round right wingers would be very quick to use the term 'snowflake'.

I'm not offended by it, I just think it is ridiculous.

I'm more irritated by things such as three Hamas terrorists stabbing an Israeli policewoman to death before being shot dead themselves being given the BBC headline "Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing".

I'm more irritated by the BBC describing an athlete as "Muslim" when he is denied a visa to the US by Trump's travel ban but described as "Indian" when he is later arrested for sexually assaulting a 12 year old girl.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-38824358
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-39138083

"Asian" kills me - all the Chinese people who apparently go around blowing everyone up. How awful!

Interesting piece here from Taleb. A very, very smart guy known more for his insight into global investing systems (Black Swan) but here directing his intellect to our subject;

https://medium.com/incerto/something-is-broken-in-the-uk-intellectual-sphere-7efc9a1f154a

HM Murdoch wrote:I'm not offended by it, I just think it is ridiculous.

OK, but you didn't address my rebuttal on the overall implications.

I'm more irritated by things such as three Hamas terrorists stabbing an Israeli policewoman to death before being shot dead themselves being given the BBC headline "Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing".

I am aware there are many people who accuse the BBC of being pro-Israel, including George Galloway and his large fanbase.
I'm sure there are allegations on the other side too, but this conflict is so heated whatever any news source do they will be considered bias by the other side. Have you taken into account your biases?

HM Murdoch wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-38824358
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-39138083

This looks worse than it actually is. Trump declared that he's going to ban all Muslims from the US, then won power. So if a Muslim is denied entry to the US, questions may be raised as to whether a rogue immigration official is acting out of line based on Trump's pledge rather than the specifics of the executive order- and his religion is absolutely relevant to the article in this context. In the second article his religion is not relevant, he was simply an athlete part of India's squad who had been arrested.


I have never said the BBC is perfect, and as I've said form the start they do have a socially liberal bias. But I also think your complaints are completely out of proportion.
I'm not training to become a lawyer for the BBC so next post on this issue will be my last one, but just be aware that from any other news source it would be a lot easier to access segments which are biased, and the extent of bias would be greater. You have to dig to find these examples at the BBC, for Daily Mail I could just look at the front page on any day. Frequency matters, extent matters.

And once again it needs to be repeated that those outlets are openly partisan. The BBC claims neutrality, The Mail etc. do not.

You're comparing apples with pears.

OK this will be my last post on BBC unless I start getting some of the license fee cash.

summerblues wrote:
I saw your comments but did not address them as I do not see this is particularly relevant, even assuming you are correct.

Not relevant? OK, but that's a rather odd thing to say. Will explain why as my second point.

Firstly though, you've said you don't watch BBC news, but I do watch BBC news and for some entertainment do watch the US new channels rarely. I can assure you that the quality and level of bias between BBC and US TV news is not even close. Genuinely not comparable.
BBC, I'll admit has socially liberal bias, and I tried to explore potential reasons for that, but certainly I think if I was editor I'd do a better job at impartiality. But they still do on most segments get both sides of the story on to speak.

Now onto my second point, (this also addresses the point Bogbrush just made) if we agree the BBC is more balanced than any other mainstream news organisation in the country (my opinion), another rebutal could be the BBC claims to be unbiased and impartial which means that even if the extent and frequency of bias is less than other news sources, the effect of the bias is more potent.
I already explained why even if there is obvious bias it could actually make the propaganda more potent. Case in point is how left wingers think BBC is too right wing, right wingers think it is too left wing. Objectively I think right wingers have a more valid complain in terms of social debates- but it shows how people are beginning to only trust sources which reinforce their own bias anyway. So 'pure' Breitbart and Salon is more effective as propoganda than you'd think.

Thirdly, I challenge anyone to do a comparison of the BBC and any other prominent news outlet, objectively measure the frequency of bias, extent of bias, and how much importance that biased segment or article has been given (front page, leading the hourly news, or buried somewhere few will find?)- and compare BBC to others.

Forget about bias for a minute, read the Taleb link and see how dangerous the BBC is as part of intellectual degeneration in Britain. 

When non-facts become facts, we're in dangerous territory. When it's done by the State broadcaster for political reasons it becomes sinister.

bogbrush wrote:Forget about bias for a minute, read the Taleb link and see how dangerous the BBC is as part of intellectual degeneration in Britain. 

When non-facts become facts, we're in dangerous territory. When it's done by the State broadcaster for political reasons it becomes sinister.

Agreed with that article, and I did say to HM that the cartoon was wrong at was inaccurate. But there's plenty of things we lie to our children about- and I don't see that cartoon as sinister, remember 50 years ago people were faced with 'no blacks allowed in' signs on shops and widespread racism with blacks treated as sub-human- now that is sinister. A black person in a cartoon of UK 1000 years ago is inaccurate but frankly not sinister. You are being overdramatic, just like how left wingers take something that may be wrong but then exaggerate the effect, you are doing so with things that you find sensitive, just a different type of snowflake.

Anyway, want to move this discussion away from the BBC, so here's something that is sinister. I've been called a right winger, and left winger, but the culture about political correctness and free speech in universities is very worrying:
This is vice president of national union of students...

bogbrush wrote:"Asian" kills me - all the Chinese people who apparently go around blowing everyone up. How awful!

Interesting piece here from Taleb. A very, very smart guy known more for his insight into global investing systems (Black Swan) but here directing his intellect to our subject;

https://medium.com/incerto/something-is-broken-in-the-uk-intellectual-sphere-7efc9a1f154a

Good article. I agree wholeheartedly.

Our national culture is abandoning data and evidence for anecdote and feeling.

Let's put it this way.  Can you imagine if a black historical figure like Muhammad Ali was cast with a white actor?  Hm?  The uproar from the left... and all the other twats. Even if you cast any black person with a white actor, they'd be up in arms.  They are looking to be offended. Theya re looking to cause offence. They are looking for trouble. And the BBC is a just a blatantly leftist propaganda machine... paid for by taxes.

"Asian" is just a PC way of not offending Muslims or Islam.