Measuring BBC bias reporting‏

Not a sheep

I blogged yesterday about the blatant bias in the BBC’s coverage of the Labour and Conservative party conferences. In amongst that article was the following analysis of the BBC news “reaction to” each of the speeches, I think this worth highlighting and expanding upon.

Here are the links to the BBC reaction to the three main party leaders’ speeches for Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Menzies Campbell.
As you can see, the reaction to Gordon Brown comprises 5 Labour MPs, 6 Union Leaders, a representative each from Greenpeace and CND but no opposition MPs and just 3 of those reactions were in any way less than completely positive about the speech. The reaction to David Cameron’s speech comprises 3 Conservative MPs, 3 Labour MPs, representatives of Greenpeace, the Green Party, Greenpeace, the SNP, IPSOS MORI, 2 Conservative bloggers and 1 Lib Dem blogger and 8 of the reactions were negative about the speech. The reaction to Menzies Campbell comprised of 6 entirely positive comments from Liberal Democrats.

Even the lines that introduce the reactions are interestingly constructed:

“Union leaders, ministers and delegates give their reaction to Gordon Brown’s first speech to Labour’s annual conference as prime minister”
Gordon Brown’s speech requires only reactions and they will be almost entirely positive.

“Politicians give their verdict on David Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool”
David Cameron’s speech requires verdicts and the BBC will make sure that the verdicts are balanced.

“Lib Dem delegates give their opinions on Sir Menzies Campbell’s closing speech to their annual conference”
Menzies Campbell’s speech is only of interest to Lib Dems so we will only ask them.

The BBC just do not care any more, the bias is blatant. Either it is directed by the Labour Government or the bias is institutionalised.

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