Is the BBC biased?
After reading the article "A Powerful Corrosive Internal Culture", I was alarmed that there are biases in the BBC, the media vehicle that has a powerful influence on how the public throughout the nations view an incident.
There are quite a few examples showing the bias of BBC in the article, the most significant one being the clip of an interview of Robin Aitken, the journalist with 25 years experience, expressing criticism about the poster comparing President Bush to Hitler which was hung in the BBC newsroom.
(Video clip from 18doughtystreet)
In my own opinion, any broadcasting company, especially for the news and political department should be always objective. As what Aitken had mentioned, nobody in the newsroom objected about the poster. Case in point, people who work at the newsroom already have bias over Bush.
The picture(britainandamerica.com) on the left is the poster comparing Bush to Hitler in the BBC newsroom. Historically, Hitler symbolized a cruel murderer due to the massacre of millions of Jews during WWII. The poster labeled Bush a "killer" and overall, a negative image. The fact is BBC is doing a Bush-attack because of opposing viewpoints on multiple issues. Clinton (former U.S president) was in presidency during the occurrence of the Kosovo bombing, however, BBC did not give a lot of coverage of the incident due to the fact that they liked Clinton. In contrast, BBC presented the war in Iraq quite differently; BBC attacked Bush by emphasizing all the wars were started off by Bush. The two events by Clinton and Bush are basically the same thing - illegal. BBC chose to hold a different role in these events, which obviously showed prejudice.
This is directly related to the 9/11 incident. In this case, I strongly agree with Aitken's point of BBC being too sympathetic over the Americans because I was influenced by the news of BBC - having too much sympathy on the Americans. When I watched the news report of BBC, I felt that it was all the terrorists' fault and thought they were incredibly unreasonable. I did not know that I had such bias until my mum told me a different viewpoint; the terrorists were forced to take an extreme action to fight for freedom. At that time I realized I was influenced by the hidden message in the BBC news report! I accepted BBC's viewpoint over the incident and neglected the existence of other viewpoints, which suggested that many of the public did so as well. BBC was not being objective enough to be a public media.
Here is one of the video clip of BBC reporting the 9/11 incident with bias in my opinion:
(www.youtube.com)
In the above news report, BBC emphasized its all the Iraq's and the terrorists' fault for bombing the World Trade Centre. It made many interviews and put all the responsibility to Iraq, neglect the fact that Iraq was forced to take such extreme action because it was suffering in a place without freedom. The Iraq also sacrificed a lot of people to fight against the United State for freedom. BBC did not stay objective in reporting the 9/11 but putting too much sympethy on the Americans in this case.
In my own opinion, the reason that BBC could mold the public view was because the government gave the news station too much power, what I mean is that BBC dominates almost the whole media market in England. A good way to weaken its influence is to "demassified" the mass production. Take an example in Hong Kong for instance, there are two powerful TV channels and two cable companies for the public to watch, also a few radio stations. The Hong Kong government provides a good control of them and balances the power among the vehicles, so that none of them could have a too much influence on public views. Even though one may have bias over an incident, the other media could impart different view points, which ensures that the public would not be influenced by a certain bias. The newly online TV, online radio, and the internet enables people to discuss any events on blogs and forums, in this case any people can give their different view points. More generations like teenagers are willing to discuss news online, which also paved the way for the declination of the monopoly media power of BBC over the nations.
For more opinions on discussing about the biases of BBC, please visit "britainandamerica.com", there is a lot of others' opinions towards this incident.
After reading the article "A Powerful Corrosive Internal Culture", I was alarmed that there are biases in the BBC, the media vehicle that has a powerful influence on how the public throughout the nations view an incident.
There are quite a few examples showing the bias of BBC in the article, the most significant one being the clip of an interview of Robin Aitken, the journalist with 25 years experience, expressing criticism about the poster comparing President Bush to Hitler which was hung in the BBC newsroom.
(Video clip from 18doughtystreet)
In my own opinion, any broadcasting company, especially for the news and political department should be always objective. As what Aitken had mentioned, nobody in the newsroom objected about the poster. Case in point, people who work at the newsroom already have bias over Bush.
The picture(britainandamerica.com) on the left is the poster comparing Bush to Hitler in the BBC newsroom. Historically, Hitler symbolized a cruel murderer due to the massacre of millions of Jews during WWII. The poster labeled Bush a "killer" and overall, a negative image. The fact is BBC is doing a Bush-attack because of opposing viewpoints on multiple issues. Clinton (former U.S president) was in presidency during the occurrence of the Kosovo bombing, however, BBC did not give a lot of coverage of the incident due to the fact that they liked Clinton. In contrast, BBC presented the war in Iraq quite differently; BBC attacked Bush by emphasizing all the wars were started off by Bush. The two events by Clinton and Bush are basically the same thing - illegal. BBC chose to hold a different role in these events, which obviously showed prejudice.
This is directly related to the 9/11 incident. In this case, I strongly agree with Aitken's point of BBC being too sympathetic over the Americans because I was influenced by the news of BBC - having too much sympathy on the Americans. When I watched the news report of BBC, I felt that it was all the terrorists' fault and thought they were incredibly unreasonable. I did not know that I had such bias until my mum told me a different viewpoint; the terrorists were forced to take an extreme action to fight for freedom. At that time I realized I was influenced by the hidden message in the BBC news report! I accepted BBC's viewpoint over the incident and neglected the existence of other viewpoints, which suggested that many of the public did so as well. BBC was not being objective enough to be a public media.
Here is one of the video clip of BBC reporting the 9/11 incident with bias in my opinion:
(www.youtube.com)
In the above news report, BBC emphasized its all the Iraq's and the terrorists' fault for bombing the World Trade Centre. It made many interviews and put all the responsibility to Iraq, neglect the fact that Iraq was forced to take such extreme action because it was suffering in a place without freedom. The Iraq also sacrificed a lot of people to fight against the United State for freedom. BBC did not stay objective in reporting the 9/11 but putting too much sympethy on the Americans in this case.
In my own opinion, the reason that BBC could mold the public view was because the government gave the news station too much power, what I mean is that BBC dominates almost the whole media market in England. A good way to weaken its influence is to "demassified" the mass production. Take an example in Hong Kong for instance, there are two powerful TV channels and two cable companies for the public to watch, also a few radio stations. The Hong Kong government provides a good control of them and balances the power among the vehicles, so that none of them could have a too much influence on public views. Even though one may have bias over an incident, the other media could impart different view points, which ensures that the public would not be influenced by a certain bias. The newly online TV, online radio, and the internet enables people to discuss any events on blogs and forums, in this case any people can give their different view points. More generations like teenagers are willing to discuss news online, which also paved the way for the declination of the monopoly media power of BBC over the nations.
For more opinions on discussing about the biases of BBC, please visit "britainandamerica.com", there is a lot of others' opinions towards this incident.
posted by KKdance at
10:55 AM
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