Tim Davie Resigns as Bbc Director General After Accusations of Serious Bias

about 2 months ago

2 replies

Forcing the head of your news organization to resign every time a politician criticizes your reporting, doesn't seem like a great way to build trust in the media.

about 2 months ago

2 replies

The right way to build trust in the media is for the media to actually be trustworthy.

about 2 months ago

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The accusations against the BBC in this case are extremely weak, though. The main thing is the somewhat misleading edit of Trump’s speech in one documentary (which was such a big deal that no-one noticed till a year later), and then some general grumbling about too many positive portrayals of trans people. This latter complaint would be bizarre if it was made with reference to any other group of people. (Imagine if the BBC were accused of showing too many positive portrayals of Irish people and was then required to broadcast programs where people who hate the Irish were also given space to air their views.) Finally there are some complaints about coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is of course impossible for any news organization to cover without enraging someone or other.

johng

about 2 months ago

1 reply

This paints a pretty awful picture of the BBC in other areas: https://archive.is/mBcPq

https://cfmm.org.uk/bbc-on-gaza-israel-one-story-double-stan...

about 2 months ago

1 reply

So does this:

It’s quite a fun game to match every accusation of BBC bias with its exact opposite. That’s not to say that BBC reporting is perfect and that no individual criticisms are valid. But the BBC simply could not report on Israel/Palestine at all without being accused of bias in all directions. Show me the media organization whose reporting on this issue is agreed to be unbiased by all relevant parties.

(Also little ironic to link to a Telegraph article, of all things, while complaining about media bias. On anyone’s analysis, the Telegraph is a vastly more partisan media organization than the BBC.)

johng

about 2 months ago

1 reply

If you read the article they are listing things that the BBC itself concluded and cites specific examples. Ignore who wrote the article or even the article itself and just look at what BBC itself found. Also note it's about BBC Arabic in comparison to regular BBC.

about 2 months ago

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I’m sure the BBC gets lots of stuff wrong in its news coverage, just like any other news organization you could name. But if we’re talking about systemic bias in reporting on the Israel/Palestine conflict, it’s worth noting that “both sides” (much as I hate this expression) frequently claim that the BBC is biased against them. The whole issue is so contentious that it’s highly unlikely that any major news organization will escape criticisms of bias. Again, I wonder if you can name a different major news organization that regularly reports on Israel/Palestine and that nobody considers to have any bias in its reporting.

johng

about 2 months ago

1 reply

I agree with you that they all have bias. However, as the article points out... this is an egregious bias by it's own sister publication. So, it is unique in that it all falls under the same roof and it's being called out by itself.

about 2 months ago

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That’s unique in a good way, no? Would it be better if the BBC were incapable of self critique?

about 2 months ago

I’ll give them +10 points for hiring somebody to measure their own accuracy, and −100 points for ignoring their reports and broadcasting deliberate lies anyway.

about 2 months ago

1 reply

Don’t worry, all the mainstream media will be right wing soon enough, so trust in the media will at least hit ~45%.

Gud

about 2 months ago

2 replies

He is resigning due to BBC Panorama, one of their biggest news shows(if not the biggest) doctoring footage of Trump making it appear he was instigating the occupation on the 6th of January.

This is indefensible and has nothing to do with right or left wing. It is about TRUTH

about 2 months ago

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Thanks for proving my point.

about 2 months ago

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Doctoring footage is indefensible no matter who the footage was of. See also Crowngate.

about 2 months ago

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So is a news organization firing people in response to mob rule. 2 months ago? Sure, 2 months from now after an investigation? Fine. Admittedly doing it to get people to calm down? Not ok.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/letter-testimony-jan-6th-hearings...

about 2 months ago

They would not have had to resign if they could point to any attempt that they had made to fix the many problems detailed in the report.

alsetmusic

about 2 months ago

2 replies

> making it appear he was instigating the occupation

> The inciters gave their fiery provocations, then Trump told his recruits, "We're going to the Capitol, and I'll be right there with you."

I don't know anything about what footage was or wasn't edited, but if you think he didn't instigate, we're not going to agree on much about that day. I didn't just read this right now. I searched for it because I remember seeing him say it.

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/trumps-secret-se...

about 2 months ago

1 reply

You still believe that lie? The riot had already started before he gave his speech. How then could the speech have instigated the riot? The people who were rioting never even heard it. In fact, most of the people there planned in advance to be there. How could Trump incite them when they had been planning to do that for months?

And you also “misquoted” Trump, because what he actually said was “… and we’re going to go down to the capital and cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women…”. The “…and I’ll be right there with you…” was from a completely different part of the two hour speech.

Also, the article you quote repeats quite a few other lies from the testimony at the hearings, such as the tall tale of Trump grabbing the wheel of the car and assaulting a secret service agent. The commission never actually interviewed the driver of that car until after the 2020 election, months after the testimony in question. Why? Because he refutes the entire story. It never happened. Cassidy Hutchinson wasn’t even in the car at the time and her testimony was at best hearsay, if it wasn’t simply a lie.

about 2 months ago

> The riot had already started before he gave his speech

Sort of. It started before the speech finished, but about 50 minutes after it started. Here's the relevant timeline from the Wikipedia article.

>At noon, Trump began an over one-hour speech at the Ellipse, encouraging protesters to march to the U.S. Capitol. At 12:49 p.m., Capitol Police responded to reports of an explosive device, later identified as a pipe bomb. At 12:53 p.m., eighteen minutes before Trump's speech ended, rioters overran police on the west perimeter of restricted Capitol grounds.

sigwinch

about 2 months ago

In particular, Panorama showed Proud Boys marching after Trump’s speech, when they’d actually left before.

The founder of NewsMax says that lawsuit is going nowhere.

But this does get the latest Epstein fallout off the front page. Epstein is a worse story for Trump than Jan 6.

martypitt

about 2 months ago

2 replies

That's not what happened here. The BBC edited footage to make it appear that Trump said something he didn't in the leadup to the Jan-6 riots.

My personal biases are pretty strongly in favour of the BBC, but what they did here was really bad. It's appropriate that heads roll. I wish more orgs would have the same level of accountability.

iso1631

about 2 months ago

The problem here, like the gaza documentaries, is it's produced by outside companies, and the BBC -- like most companies -- sucks at governing outsourced providers.