Guest Barista Heather
"Your mum and I don’t watch CNN, it is too biased towards the US perspective, we prefer the BBC" my dad states when I ask him which news channel he likes to watch. I laugh thinking the BBC is somewhat biased too but his statement gets me thinking, is not all media biased in some way?
Many of my Jewish friends believe CNN is biased against Israel and is sympathetic to the Palestinians, many of my Arab friends and friends from Dubai have said it is biased towards Israel and its supporters… I don’t think you can talk about Israel without being accused of being biased but isn’t a biased view what we have come to expect?
Some would argue there can never be truly impartial media. Every story that is written by a journalist must state some facts, but any impressions given or spin will be biased to that person’s point of view. It is arguably impossible to give an unbiased opinion, or it wouldn’t be an opinion!
I guess the most we can expect is our media is not censored by the government (like it is in many countries, including Dubai) that it is not funded purely from big business (as Fox news and other media in America are purported to be) or funded by a political party.
The UK papers are undoubtedly all biased… However I think what makes the UK closer to a democracy than many other countries are the papers are openly biased and there are lots of different biases to choose from! Want a left-wing perspective, read The Guardian, or The Big Issue. Want a right-wing perspective, read the Financial Times. They are openly biased and don’t pretend to be anything else. You know what standpoint the journalists take from the start. Where other papers differ is they are not open about their true perspectives and where they come from and purport to be neutral.
Surely everyone has a standpoint – whether it is left or right, pro or anti Israel, or focusing on the belief systems of that particular group of readers (for example the: Jewish Chronicle in London or the North Shore Times in Auckland/NZ).
I tend to think people will believe something is non-biased if they agree with the statements that particular media is making. And as long as we have many different forms of media, with lots of different perspectives, this could be the closest to the real-picture as we can ever expect to get.
Kia ora Heather!
Yeah, the blatancy in which media in the UK discuss their political leanings is quite refreshing – and makes it easier for readers to critique the ‘news’ as it’s presented to them. I heard a debate between two newspaper editors a week or so ago and they were both quite comfortable in declaring their relative spots on the politcal spectrum. Unfortunately however, this kind of forum requires effort on the part of the reader to conduct that critique – which I would suggest those at the extremes are incapable of doing due to their predilections. For them, political-leaning ‘news’ just serves to entrench them further.
However there’s a huge plus-side for those who have the inclination (and time) to read a little more widely and openly. Being exposed to varying points of view regarding the same events opens a reader up to a wider learning of not only the events themselves, but of the philosophical differences of the writers – and therefore society. Having the broad range of media (and bias) as you point out gives us insight into people that think differently from ourselves – which is one of the best results of free press. Understanding what makes each other tick adds a layer of richness on top of the facts themselves.
The NZ Herald’s bias has changed a bit. When it was owned by rich locals, it took the type of view you’d expect of rich locals. Now it’s owned by Australians who couldn’t care less about editorial policy, so it’s left up to the journalists. So, it has quite a range within the one paper. The editorials are fairly conservative, but individual columns may vary. They tend to "brand" everything with the journalists’ faces so you know what to read/avoid if you want your existing biases confirmed.
Speaking of media, bias, and opinions – has everyone seen the kick-off between the Beebs and the Scientologists following Monday nights Panorama show?
Panorama
I don’t know if the Scientologists have bitten off more than they can chew this time in labelling the BBC as an organisation that is engaging in acts of terrorism.
It will be fascinating to see what more (if anything) becomes of this. The fact also that YouTube is being used as "the ring" for this battle is of perhaps just as great significance.
Cheers Tom, good heads up. I had seen the YouTube clips, but hadn’t yet checked the full doco – it’s good to see the whole thing in context. I must say that, although the tactics taken by the Scientologists were mental, I think the BBC reporter could have been more objective. It’s hard to tell how much the experience coloured the editing, but it did seem to start from a predefined platform. Gotta be hard not to though…
Another interesting point is the comparitive standards by which a group can be called a religion in the US vs the UK. Would be interesting to find out more on that…