Whoever wins in November, their administration needs to be neutered. If this really was a case of choosing the lesser evil, the next priority must be to defeat whichever evil wins. We certainly shouldn’t wait for good to emerge from the victory of a lesser evil – the clue is in the name.
Of course not everyone does see a Clinton victory as the triumph of a lesser evil. Some see potential for social progress through the election of a corporate war hawk, in the pay of Wall Street. Their belief isn’t shaken by a lifetime of political cynicism and opportunism, self-enriching political corruption, campaign fraud that cheated a true progressive of the candidacy. They see no injustice or danger in the Presidency being served-up as a reward for foul play, to a politician whom everything she "touches she kind of screws up with hubris." Indeed, many can see no further than her being a woman.
Case closed in fact – she’s a woman, so this must be progress. Oh, and Trump is orange, and a sexist, and awful. Well, assuming Trump loses, there isn’t long left to play that particular card. In a few weeks, hopefully, Trump will be consigned to political history. Logically then, no sooner than Clinton’s candidacy is assured it too will be terminated. The media’s self-imposed embargoes and immunities will be lifted. With Trump safely out of the picture, every commentator who worked to protect us from the ‘greater evil’ will be at liberty to round upon the DNC, grab it by the collar and scream, “WTF was that all about?!?! ” A Hoover-sized dam of political sewage will finally breach, flushing Debbie Wasserman Schultz, John Podesta, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan, Donna Brazile and all, down into the valley of infamy; a whirling vortex of suits, stilettoes and painted nails, each drowning the other in a desperate scramble to save their own skins.
Clinton herself should be impeached before she even takes the oath. Hmmmm, let’s see……
Tuesday 25 October 2016
Thursday 6 October 2016
The Dreams and Realities of Non-Corporate News
In a perfect world, wealth and power would have no influence over news content. Material and political privilege would not extend to the ownership of reality itself, or entitle the privileged classes to dictate which views of reality were suitable for public consumption.
It is this principle that has led some political progressives to see hope in the prospect of independent digital news, as an alternative to corporate-owned mainstream news. The plan is simple enough: The low cost and universal reach of the internet could be a means for ordinary citizens to speak as loudly, and cast their views as broadly, as Rupert Murdoch. No printing equipment to hire, no print-workers to pay, no distribution chain to maintain – just a monthly direct debit to a broadband provider.
While great strides have been made in this direction, the great day of levelling seems as distant as ever. Corporate news, skeleton-staffed and increasingly unhinged, still manages to capture the largest share of the audience. ‘News’ is still something defined by the mega-rich, and continues to serve their selfish, misanthropic outlook. I’d like to take a look at why this might be. Is progress slow because of teething, or are the delays more deeply rooted? To do so I won’t be making any particular distinction between different kinds of digital media. While tweeting a journalist and running a YouTube news channel are qualitatively different, they lie on a continuum; the former can rapidly morph into the latter in a way that ‘Letters to the Editor’ never could. And of course the whole range of technology is common in its newness. None of this was possible two decades ago.
The first point may seem obvious, but perhaps not so to all: ‘There are more financial costs to news production than publication costs.’ While digital media has had a wonderful levelling effect upon the material costs of publication and distribution, it hasn’t done anything to make journalism cheaper (other than in the pejorative sense – it’s worked wonders there). Both worthy and cynical journalism remain costly. It takes time and money to investigate lies and corruption, as it does to go through a celebrity’s bins.
This leads-on directly to one of the default old-school criticisms: ‘Indi-news is not journalism’. While there is something to this, it’s easy to overstate. If a ‘journalist’ is a hack in a fedora with a ‘PRESS’ card in the hatband, then no, this is not journalism, not usually anyway. Likewise, if ‘journalism’ is talking to camera outside No.10 while dismissively thumbing over your shoulder towards a political elite that you are in fact a part of – then again, no, this is not journalism.
Then again, how much mainstream copy really is of that kind? And even when it is, how often are such methods necessary or useful, rather than a credibility-enhancing pose? In truth, most mainstream political writing is editorial or op-editorial. You don’t need a fedora to dissect a speech or read and criticise the writing of other commentators. In the sphere of analysis and criticism, thoughtful bloggers and vloggers are in every way a match for their mainstream equivalents. Indeed, without an editor breathing down their neck, and that editor having Rupert Murdoch or British Petroleum breathing down their neck, the blogger is in a far freer position to honestly criticise.
That liberty of course includes the freedom to talk crap, leading to another partial truth: ‘Indi media is full of nutcases and conspiracy theorists.’ Perfectly true. For every Humanist Report there are several Infowars. It takes critical acumen to pick the gems from the slag heap. I can understand the apprehension, of course, as we never had this problem with mainstream media. You don’t need critical faculties to read The Sun, or The Guardian. You can relax and take it all at face value.
Seriously though, for the mainstream to accuse bloggers of conspiracy is pot/kettle in the extreme. We are currently in the tenth month of a blanket conspiracy of silence about the failings and deceit of the Clinton machine. Indeed the media is currently serving as active co-conspirator in peddling the evidence-free ‘Russian hackers’ conspiracy-theory, the DNC’s attempt to smoke-screen the content of the leaks. When it suits, the mainstream media exercises all the journalistic integrity and thoroughness of Breitbart.
Another old-school default is ‘Amateur writing is not worth reading’, followed closely by, ‘Good writing will find a publisher.’ Again, there is something to this. The era of costly mass publication (c. 1440 – c. 1990) did have the positive effect of filtering out truly bad writing, at least in some senses. People with nothing worthwhile to say, who couldn’t string a sentence together, simply didn’t get published. This remains true of the mainstream today. While in terms of content much of what gets published is dross, we cannot deny that it is competently written and above all marketable dross – otherwise no viable publishing house would touch it.
Conversely, social media is teeming with cretinous thoughts, incoherently phrased and embarrassingly spelt. But let’s not chuck the babies out with the bathwater. Bad quality is not the only reason some copy gets no further than the internet. Fine writing may be ignored because publishers fear it would only appeal to a small minority – not enough to justify a print run, or an advertiser’s revenue. And of course with political writing it might just be that publishers disagree with the angle, and don’t want to be part of promoting it. Commercial publishing is a business, a capitalist enterprise. So there are limits on how much anti-capitalist writing such businesses will want to commission, for example.
The belief that good writing is that which sells is very much a mind-set of our time. It feeds on the belief that creative worth is best evidenced by popularity, itself evidenced by sales. But popularity is only one measure of creative worth. And surely there is something patently absurd in the idea that capitalists and their free-markets are the best judge of progressive writing. We need to shake this nonsense.
A more serious criticism is: ‘With so many people writing and broadcasting, it’s impossible to find the worthwhile stuff.’ Much as the prohibitive cost of old-school publishing had some positive effect on the quality of writing, it also placed a limit on the amount of different texts that could be published. Now that quantity is limitless. Most citizens of the developed world have the power to publish, and most of them seem to want to exercise it. Social media is a cacophony of word and image, much of it banal, much of it shameful. You can understand why many readers take one horrified look and run screaming back into the BBC’s maternal arms.
Worse still ‘Political commentary does not attract large audiences.’ Indeed it seems safe to say that most times a consumer absorbs political writing it is not what they went there for, because: ‘Mainstream newspapers and websites have the finances to create unrelated eye-catching copy to hook readers.’ It’s only once they are safely flipping about on the deck that the political writers move-in to brain them: The Sun might snare with a sex scandal or football ‘analysis’ then side-load the political thoughts of Trevor Kavanagh. The Mail might snare with celebrity disfigurement photos then side-load Richard Littlejohn. The Guardian might (somehow) snare an audience with an exclusive interview with JK Rowling or Adele, then take the opportunity to side-load Jonathan Freedland.
This bait and switch strategy is not open to the amateur writer. Without financial backing the only lure is the writing itself – a tall order. It is telling to note that The Young Turks, the largest and most polished indi-news outlet, one that actually can afford to employ traditional journalists, also employs many of the same mass-media tricks to secure its audience. Sad to say, if TYT isn’t talking politics it is talking about sex, or celebrities, or un-PC Tweets, the usual frivolous commercial hooks.
In the face of all this it’s no surprise that many independent political writers suffer from 'Father McKenzie Syndrome' – the creeping suspicion that one is squandering one’s free time composing sermons that no one will hear.
But this is no time for faint hearts. In fact the moral duty is greater than ever, as, ‘In the hands of the corporate media, social media is far worse than useless.’ Indeed, left unchallenged, social media has handed corporate media a doozy. A sizeable fraction of commercial copy is now either directly sourced from, or supplemented by, social media. Judging by its content it is tempting to picture the Huffington Post news-room as consisting solely of the Comic Shop Guy, sitting sucking endless Mc Shakes, while his other hand trawls Twitter and YouTube for ‘stories’. It is this novel form of investigative journalism that allows each new day to bring: “Woman shouts something racist in shopping mall” (#468) and of course, “Man objects to LGBT toilet door signage” (#752). Woodward and Bernstein must feel humbled.
Social media provides an endless rogues-gallery of appalling behaviour, waiting to be turned into horrified moralising copy. And of course it’s not restricted to sneering at the great unwashed; our unhappy band of celebrity narcissists are also keen to contribute. Why pay for an interview when you can just quote their self-incriminating tweets?
As well as providing cheap copy, social media is also a useful tool in creating political propaganda. Smear campaigns (very fashionable at present) have been given a new lease of life by Twitter. The most tenuous connections can be pieced together. Headlines like Corbyn Sexism Shame can be constructed on the basis of a three year old tweet found in the archive of an unknown who once ‘shared a platform’ with ‘Hamas supporter’ Seamus Milne, or some such.
Likewise, social media also supplies a free and limitless supply of vox-pops – a long-trusted tool of the corporate propagandist. Traditionally, journalists collected a range of comments from the general public, selected whichever ones suited their argument, and then published them in the guise of ‘public opinion’. Now technology allows this ancient craft to be practised on a much grander scale. However unrepresentative an opinion, one can always find someone on Twitter who espouses it, thus licencing its presentation as ‘public opinion’. All from the comfort of a swivel chair.
Perhaps it was always unrealistic to imagine that indi-news could usurp the power of corporate news. Material wealth will always have an undue influence on the account of reality that is presented to the masses. But truth and compassion are also powerful - and highly attractive. These costless, priceless, powers are at the disposal of the independent writer to an extent most corporate writers can only dream of (or only fool themselves that they already exercise). Perhaps indi-news is more realistically viewed as a means of marginalising what once was a corporate monopoly. The extent of that marginalisation isn’t set in stone, it’s in our hands. Those who care need to seize the new media and turn it against the corporate media, rather than let it become just another club they use to beat us.
While great strides have been made in this direction, the great day of levelling seems as distant as ever. Corporate news, skeleton-staffed and increasingly unhinged, still manages to capture the largest share of the audience. ‘News’ is still something defined by the mega-rich, and continues to serve their selfish, misanthropic outlook. I’d like to take a look at why this might be. Is progress slow because of teething, or are the delays more deeply rooted? To do so I won’t be making any particular distinction between different kinds of digital media. While tweeting a journalist and running a YouTube news channel are qualitatively different, they lie on a continuum; the former can rapidly morph into the latter in a way that ‘Letters to the Editor’ never could. And of course the whole range of technology is common in its newness. None of this was possible two decades ago.
The first point may seem obvious, but perhaps not so to all: ‘There are more financial costs to news production than publication costs.’ While digital media has had a wonderful levelling effect upon the material costs of publication and distribution, it hasn’t done anything to make journalism cheaper (other than in the pejorative sense – it’s worked wonders there). Both worthy and cynical journalism remain costly. It takes time and money to investigate lies and corruption, as it does to go through a celebrity’s bins.
This leads-on directly to one of the default old-school criticisms: ‘Indi-news is not journalism’. While there is something to this, it’s easy to overstate. If a ‘journalist’ is a hack in a fedora with a ‘PRESS’ card in the hatband, then no, this is not journalism, not usually anyway. Likewise, if ‘journalism’ is talking to camera outside No.10 while dismissively thumbing over your shoulder towards a political elite that you are in fact a part of – then again, no, this is not journalism.
Then again, how much mainstream copy really is of that kind? And even when it is, how often are such methods necessary or useful, rather than a credibility-enhancing pose? In truth, most mainstream political writing is editorial or op-editorial. You don’t need a fedora to dissect a speech or read and criticise the writing of other commentators. In the sphere of analysis and criticism, thoughtful bloggers and vloggers are in every way a match for their mainstream equivalents. Indeed, without an editor breathing down their neck, and that editor having Rupert Murdoch or British Petroleum breathing down their neck, the blogger is in a far freer position to honestly criticise.
That liberty of course includes the freedom to talk crap, leading to another partial truth: ‘Indi media is full of nutcases and conspiracy theorists.’ Perfectly true. For every Humanist Report there are several Infowars. It takes critical acumen to pick the gems from the slag heap. I can understand the apprehension, of course, as we never had this problem with mainstream media. You don’t need critical faculties to read The Sun, or The Guardian. You can relax and take it all at face value.
Seriously though, for the mainstream to accuse bloggers of conspiracy is pot/kettle in the extreme. We are currently in the tenth month of a blanket conspiracy of silence about the failings and deceit of the Clinton machine. Indeed the media is currently serving as active co-conspirator in peddling the evidence-free ‘Russian hackers’ conspiracy-theory, the DNC’s attempt to smoke-screen the content of the leaks. When it suits, the mainstream media exercises all the journalistic integrity and thoroughness of Breitbart.
Another old-school default is ‘Amateur writing is not worth reading’, followed closely by, ‘Good writing will find a publisher.’ Again, there is something to this. The era of costly mass publication (c. 1440 – c. 1990) did have the positive effect of filtering out truly bad writing, at least in some senses. People with nothing worthwhile to say, who couldn’t string a sentence together, simply didn’t get published. This remains true of the mainstream today. While in terms of content much of what gets published is dross, we cannot deny that it is competently written and above all marketable dross – otherwise no viable publishing house would touch it.
Conversely, social media is teeming with cretinous thoughts, incoherently phrased and embarrassingly spelt. But let’s not chuck the babies out with the bathwater. Bad quality is not the only reason some copy gets no further than the internet. Fine writing may be ignored because publishers fear it would only appeal to a small minority – not enough to justify a print run, or an advertiser’s revenue. And of course with political writing it might just be that publishers disagree with the angle, and don’t want to be part of promoting it. Commercial publishing is a business, a capitalist enterprise. So there are limits on how much anti-capitalist writing such businesses will want to commission, for example.
The belief that good writing is that which sells is very much a mind-set of our time. It feeds on the belief that creative worth is best evidenced by popularity, itself evidenced by sales. But popularity is only one measure of creative worth. And surely there is something patently absurd in the idea that capitalists and their free-markets are the best judge of progressive writing. We need to shake this nonsense.
A more serious criticism is: ‘With so many people writing and broadcasting, it’s impossible to find the worthwhile stuff.’ Much as the prohibitive cost of old-school publishing had some positive effect on the quality of writing, it also placed a limit on the amount of different texts that could be published. Now that quantity is limitless. Most citizens of the developed world have the power to publish, and most of them seem to want to exercise it. Social media is a cacophony of word and image, much of it banal, much of it shameful. You can understand why many readers take one horrified look and run screaming back into the BBC’s maternal arms.
Worse still ‘Political commentary does not attract large audiences.’ Indeed it seems safe to say that most times a consumer absorbs political writing it is not what they went there for, because: ‘Mainstream newspapers and websites have the finances to create unrelated eye-catching copy to hook readers.’ It’s only once they are safely flipping about on the deck that the political writers move-in to brain them: The Sun might snare with a sex scandal or football ‘analysis’ then side-load the political thoughts of Trevor Kavanagh. The Mail might snare with celebrity disfigurement photos then side-load Richard Littlejohn. The Guardian might (somehow) snare an audience with an exclusive interview with JK Rowling or Adele, then take the opportunity to side-load Jonathan Freedland.
This bait and switch strategy is not open to the amateur writer. Without financial backing the only lure is the writing itself – a tall order. It is telling to note that The Young Turks, the largest and most polished indi-news outlet, one that actually can afford to employ traditional journalists, also employs many of the same mass-media tricks to secure its audience. Sad to say, if TYT isn’t talking politics it is talking about sex, or celebrities, or un-PC Tweets, the usual frivolous commercial hooks.
In the face of all this it’s no surprise that many independent political writers suffer from 'Father McKenzie Syndrome' – the creeping suspicion that one is squandering one’s free time composing sermons that no one will hear.
But this is no time for faint hearts. In fact the moral duty is greater than ever, as, ‘In the hands of the corporate media, social media is far worse than useless.’ Indeed, left unchallenged, social media has handed corporate media a doozy. A sizeable fraction of commercial copy is now either directly sourced from, or supplemented by, social media. Judging by its content it is tempting to picture the Huffington Post news-room as consisting solely of the Comic Shop Guy, sitting sucking endless Mc Shakes, while his other hand trawls Twitter and YouTube for ‘stories’. It is this novel form of investigative journalism that allows each new day to bring: “Woman shouts something racist in shopping mall” (#468) and of course, “Man objects to LGBT toilet door signage” (#752). Woodward and Bernstein must feel humbled.
Social media provides an endless rogues-gallery of appalling behaviour, waiting to be turned into horrified moralising copy. And of course it’s not restricted to sneering at the great unwashed; our unhappy band of celebrity narcissists are also keen to contribute. Why pay for an interview when you can just quote their self-incriminating tweets?
As well as providing cheap copy, social media is also a useful tool in creating political propaganda. Smear campaigns (very fashionable at present) have been given a new lease of life by Twitter. The most tenuous connections can be pieced together. Headlines like Corbyn Sexism Shame can be constructed on the basis of a three year old tweet found in the archive of an unknown who once ‘shared a platform’ with ‘Hamas supporter’ Seamus Milne, or some such.
Likewise, social media also supplies a free and limitless supply of vox-pops – a long-trusted tool of the corporate propagandist. Traditionally, journalists collected a range of comments from the general public, selected whichever ones suited their argument, and then published them in the guise of ‘public opinion’. Now technology allows this ancient craft to be practised on a much grander scale. However unrepresentative an opinion, one can always find someone on Twitter who espouses it, thus licencing its presentation as ‘public opinion’. All from the comfort of a swivel chair.
Perhaps it was always unrealistic to imagine that indi-news could usurp the power of corporate news. Material wealth will always have an undue influence on the account of reality that is presented to the masses. But truth and compassion are also powerful - and highly attractive. These costless, priceless, powers are at the disposal of the independent writer to an extent most corporate writers can only dream of (or only fool themselves that they already exercise). Perhaps indi-news is more realistically viewed as a means of marginalising what once was a corporate monopoly. The extent of that marginalisation isn’t set in stone, it’s in our hands. Those who care need to seize the new media and turn it against the corporate media, rather than let it become just another club they use to beat us.
Friday 29 July 2016
Vote Mussolini to Block Hitler
With Gramsci finally officially out of the race, a huge media push is underway to ensure that his supporters transfer allegiance to Mussolini.
This is no mean feat. Mussolini has treated Gramsci and his supporters disgracefully. Leaks finally prove what was suspected all along – the party has been secretly supporting Mussolini from day one. Additionally there is widespread evidence of vote rigging, leading to an ongoing legal challenge. Meanwhile Mussolini continues in her usual arrogant manner, appointing a running mate about as progressive as herself. While her fear of losing the nomination did force her to co-opt many of her rival’s policies, her past performance offers little assurance that she will stick to these few promises.
Now, however, all of this must be put aside. Everyone must get-in-line and vote for Mussolini, because Mussolini is our only means of defeating Hitler. In itself this has long been an odd strategy. In polls, Mussolini is frequently neck and neck with Hitler while Gramsci beats Hitler by double figures. Perhaps if all those media-radicals imploring people to vote for Mussolini had put a little more effort into supporting Gramsci over the past nine months we might have had a solid and safe opponent to put up against Hitler. But perhaps they aren’t as radical as they like to pretend.
Instead we are ordered to become complicit; mouth the lies; mount the podium and declare that (despite decades of contrary noises emanating from her mouth) Mussolini is a political progressive; a gay-friendly feminist; a defender of the poor who wants to get big money out of politics and protect Main Street from Wall Street. Is that vomit-inducing act of self-betrayal not enough on its own for mainstream media radicals to understand why some Gramsci-Girls are refusing to play ball?
Very few of them will vote for Hitler of course, but some are swapping to the alternative candidates. Oddly enough Ayn Rand has seen a spike in support since Gramsci dropped out. More hopeful for political progressives is the expected entry of FDR into the race. She’s wonderfully intelligent and charismatic and her political agenda is, if anything, to the left of Gramsci.
Of course any such talk will be condemned as reckless, naïve. Remember: A vote for FDR is one less vote for Mussolini, so therefore a vote for Hitler. If you want to avoid fascism you must vote for Mussolini – it’s a no-brainer.
This is no mean feat. Mussolini has treated Gramsci and his supporters disgracefully. Leaks finally prove what was suspected all along – the party has been secretly supporting Mussolini from day one. Additionally there is widespread evidence of vote rigging, leading to an ongoing legal challenge. Meanwhile Mussolini continues in her usual arrogant manner, appointing a running mate about as progressive as herself. While her fear of losing the nomination did force her to co-opt many of her rival’s policies, her past performance offers little assurance that she will stick to these few promises.
Now, however, all of this must be put aside. Everyone must get-in-line and vote for Mussolini, because Mussolini is our only means of defeating Hitler. In itself this has long been an odd strategy. In polls, Mussolini is frequently neck and neck with Hitler while Gramsci beats Hitler by double figures. Perhaps if all those media-radicals imploring people to vote for Mussolini had put a little more effort into supporting Gramsci over the past nine months we might have had a solid and safe opponent to put up against Hitler. But perhaps they aren’t as radical as they like to pretend.
Instead we are ordered to become complicit; mouth the lies; mount the podium and declare that (despite decades of contrary noises emanating from her mouth) Mussolini is a political progressive; a gay-friendly feminist; a defender of the poor who wants to get big money out of politics and protect Main Street from Wall Street. Is that vomit-inducing act of self-betrayal not enough on its own for mainstream media radicals to understand why some Gramsci-Girls are refusing to play ball?
Very few of them will vote for Hitler of course, but some are swapping to the alternative candidates. Oddly enough Ayn Rand has seen a spike in support since Gramsci dropped out. More hopeful for political progressives is the expected entry of FDR into the race. She’s wonderfully intelligent and charismatic and her political agenda is, if anything, to the left of Gramsci.
Of course any such talk will be condemned as reckless, naïve. Remember: A vote for FDR is one less vote for Mussolini, so therefore a vote for Hitler. If you want to avoid fascism you must vote for Mussolini – it’s a no-brainer.
Monday 25 July 2016
A Call-Out to Britain’s Young Turks
If only one happy fact emerges from the 2016 US election it will be that the corporate media almost lost – almost lost its ability to determine the outcome. Come 2020 no chance, bye-bye, propaganda monopoly kaput – the indi-media will prevail. This radical shift is something progressives the world over should be heeding, celebrating, and working to consolidate. If this sounds like an exaggeration please read on.
It is a fitting mark of the inadequacy of the UK mainstream media that most British citizens have no clue as to the unpopularity of Hillary Clinton. Since the election cycle began, the accepted Manichean narrative is that November will be a contest between Trump (boo!) and Clinton (hooray!) with Clinton the likely winner – and the world heaving a huge sigh of relief. And if by any chance Trump does win, a time-worn explanation is to hand. A Trump victory will be due to the stupidity of Americans – gun-toting, flag-waving Americans – an enduring stereotype that chimes comfortingly in the minds of thumb-sucking flag-waving Britons, many hiding a secret and envious crush on the US.
The problem with this narrative however is that it is baseless. If Hillary loses in November it will not be because the American citizenry is stupid, it will be because they are repelled by her conduct. Her approval ratings started out dire and have proceeded to get worse. She has the lowest approval ratings of any candidate ever put forward by the Democrats. She has the second-lowest approval ratings of any person to run for President - second to….guess who? That is the Democratic Party’s strategy for defeating the most unpopular Presidential candidate of all time: Fielding the second most unpopular candidate.
While we’re at it, here are some more interesting facts that you would never glean from the voluminous scribing of Anthony Zurcher or James Naughtie:
1. Bernie Sanders came from nowhere to almost win the Democratic nomination. It was a blistering reversal of original polls and predictions. He might well have won it if some of the following factors were better known, or had not been at play:
It is a fitting mark of the inadequacy of the UK mainstream media that most British citizens have no clue as to the unpopularity of Hillary Clinton. Since the election cycle began, the accepted Manichean narrative is that November will be a contest between Trump (boo!) and Clinton (hooray!) with Clinton the likely winner – and the world heaving a huge sigh of relief. And if by any chance Trump does win, a time-worn explanation is to hand. A Trump victory will be due to the stupidity of Americans – gun-toting, flag-waving Americans – an enduring stereotype that chimes comfortingly in the minds of thumb-sucking flag-waving Britons, many hiding a secret and envious crush on the US.
The problem with this narrative however is that it is baseless. If Hillary loses in November it will not be because the American citizenry is stupid, it will be because they are repelled by her conduct. Her approval ratings started out dire and have proceeded to get worse. She has the lowest approval ratings of any candidate ever put forward by the Democrats. She has the second-lowest approval ratings of any person to run for President - second to….guess who? That is the Democratic Party’s strategy for defeating the most unpopular Presidential candidate of all time: Fielding the second most unpopular candidate.
While we’re at it, here are some more interesting facts that you would never glean from the voluminous scribing of Anthony Zurcher or James Naughtie:
1. Bernie Sanders came from nowhere to almost win the Democratic nomination. It was a blistering reversal of original polls and predictions. He might well have won it if some of the following factors were better known, or had not been at play:
2. Hillary’s electoral lead over Bernie was never as strong as the media fudged it to be. From day one they added the predicted votes of Superdelagates to the running total. This made her modest lead look unassailable from day one, and presumably dampened hope and dissuaded many from bothering to get involved.
3. Hillary didn’t win. She didn’t even muster enough votes to reach the required 2,383 delegates. At this week’s convention she will have to rely on support from the party grandees to nudge her over the line.
4. Many of Hillary’s multiple ‘decisive’ victories, such as the one in in New York, were all but a foregone conclusion. In NY you had to put your name down by the previous October to be allowed to vote. So anyone who ‘felt the Bern’ after October 2015 had already missed the chance to vote for him in April 2016. And who’d heard of Bernie in October 2015?
5. The Democratic National Committee is banned from taking sides in the nomination contest but as any sentient observer could tell, and the Guccifer 2.0 leak confirms, the DNC has in fact been campaigning for Hillary from the start. The DNC has neither denied nor confirmed the content of this leak. How might that bias have effected Bernie’s chances?
6. If the goal is to defeat Trump, Bernie is far and away the safest bet. Nationally he canes Trump by double figures. As I write, Hillary is scraping a perilous 2.7% lead over Trump. In May she actually fell behind Trump in national polls. Come November?
7. Clinton’s campaign was bankrolled by Wall Street and every other dubious business interest you may despair to mention. The average donation to Bernie’s campaign was $27 – small donations from a mass of everyday people. Whose interests are likely to be served by each of these candidates upon them winning?
8. During the campaign Hillary was the subject of an FBI criminal investigation. That fact alone would have forced any other candidate to withdraw.
9. The email scandal is not over. If it doesn’t bring her down before the election it is very likely to do so soon after.
10. November will not be a two horse race – very likely there will be four contenders.
11. Bernie supporters are not, as the DNC was banking, ‘falling-in-line’ behind Hillary now that Bernie has endorsed her. They are swapping in large numbers to the two independent candidates.
Now, how on Earth might an ‘umble Limey like me have acquired all this startling information, information which seems to have eluded the cream of British journalism? It certainly wasn’t from watching mainstream US news like MSNBC or CNN (both organizations sank vast amounts into Hillary’s campaign, and are now waiting for their payback). All the above information has in fact come from independent media – YouTube channels, for want of a better term.
Bernie is a great inspiration, a once-in-generation progressive, loved by millions, but he would be the first to admit his success has depended on alternative media – alternative voices challenging those multinational voices backing Clinton. If you’re not already familiar, why not try The Young Turks, The Humanist Report, The Sane Progressive, Socially Unacceptable, Jimmy Dore, Tim Black, HA Goodman. (While in the process of posting, I notice that there have been significant developments concerning point 5, above, so where possible I have linked pieces relevant to that ongoing scandal.)
As you can see, these are hugely varied formats, born of very different production values. Some resemble the BBC’s Newsnight, only with more swearing; others look more like a Skype call from your Auntie in Vermont – only with more swearing. Some are ostensibly comedy but with a sharp political edge; others are simple video diaries by sincere, politically driven college students. Nevertheless, it is no exaggeration to say that these and other plucky young men and women came close to getting a Democratic Socialist on the Democratic ticket, and perhaps into the White House. Even without that crowning miracle their achievement has been astounding.
In the next post I’ll take a closer look at the methods they have employed, and what we might learn from them. Here though I’d like to close by launching an appeal. I’d like to boot this American football high into the ashen British skies, and challenge like-minded British political progressives to run and catch it (careful not to bump heads).
Politically, we live in dire times. We have just inherited the most right-wing government this side of the First World War. It is currently working to sever our connection with the EU and leave itself free to apply its Thatcherite fundamentalism undisturbed. As we teeter on the edge of an environmental precipice we find ourselves governed by a cabal of climate change deniers. This week alone £200 billion that could have been spent on finding intelligent solutions to this impending catastrophe has instead been pledged to the creation of weapons of mass destruction. And more than half of our sagacious opposition party voted with the government, to push this madness through parliament.
Meanwhile, BBC news has ditched any semblance of impartiality – it is absolutely off the leash; a rabid attack dog that sleeps at the feet of the government. Any opposition to the Thatcher-Blair consensus is savaged, its proponents slandered, demonised, variously accused of cowardice, bullying, idealism, naivety, cynicism, sexism, anti-Semitism, you name it. If a Blairite says it, the BBC runs with it.
We need a counter-narrative. We need to hold the mirror up to the Gorgon. We need to unpick the lies and shame those telling them – using the same media. Like Steve Austin’s handlers, we have the technology. For the first time in a century of broadcasting the individual now has the exact same global reach as CNN or the BBC (quite a thought!). As Britons we are, apparently, unusually tech-savvy, and we certainly have a longer, deeper tradition of left-wing politics. We must tap these excellent resources, take inspiration from America’s digital revolutionaries, and create our own spectrum of alternative voices.
Thursday 26 May 2016
Recalibrating the BBC’s scales – Part III
“They want to be able to say that they did not commandeer us, but they know they can trust us not to be really impartial."
John Reith, first Director General of the BBC
To cut to the quick, the force that shapes BBC-brand impartiality is political power. Rather than such abstract immeasurables as balance, or moderation, or public opinion, the BBC calibrates its news output to suit the political outlook of those who hold power over it – those supplying the carrots and wielding the sticks.
This shouldn’t surprise us too much. It’s the same with every news organisation. No opinion that truly goes against the grain of Rupert Murdoch’s politics will prevail on Fox or Sky. While op-eds are essential to creating an illusion of balance, they can’t be given so much weight that they buck the overall editorial agenda. Any journalist or editor found consistently off-message will soon find themselves looking for an alternative employer. Rupert himself has admitted as much. While the power set-up at the BBC is obviously more complicated, the controlling effect on content is just as thorough. The BBC can no more bite the hands feeding it than a News International editor can bite Rupert’s hand.
So who does hold power over the BBC? Obviously a key player is the incumbent government. If the BBC hopes to have its broadcasting licence renewed and its licence-fee protected (rather than its assets sold-off and its content molested) it has good reason not to upset the government of the day. Likewise it can’t afford to upset the opposition – they may be its best ally during conflicts with the government. And of course today’s opposition may be tomorrow’s incumbent. If the BBC doesn’t want to sow the seeds of future ‘restructuring’ it has good reason to keep both parties on-side.
Another important player is the rest of the mass media. The BBC’s existence is deeply resented by the corporate sector and its critics are well placed. Its chief crime, oddly, is the high-quality of its output – embarrassing proof of the superiority of public broadcasting. Many powerful people would love to see it broken-up and sold-off, so the whole sector can descend to the same level of commercial dross. One of the sharpest weapons in this ongoing war on the BBC is its mythical left-wing bias. Any attempt by a BBC editor to redress ‘balance’ as understood by News International or DMG Media would be swiftly dealt with (despairing newspaper editorials, floor of the House, ‘and all at the licence payers expense!’ etc.)
At this point, alert readers may be experiencing Déjà Vu. It would appear that the forces that hold power over the BBC coincide perfectly with the sources the BBC would be happy to admit it relies upon to gauge public opinion (as discussed in Part Two.) We can now see a more plausible reason why the BBC relies upon the opinions of Parliament and the corporate media to achieve political balance. Not because those bodies reflect public opinion, but because it feels answerable to them, and is wary of displeasing them. They have the ability to make life very difficult for the corporation – and they have a long track record of doing just that.
You can account for most anomalies in BBC balance if you keep these two external influences in mind. For example, why is the BBC so deferential towards the President of the United States? Obama’s recent visit was treated like the second coming. As when any epoch-making event occurs (like Westerners dying in a bomb attack or the birth of a royal baby) BBC news homepage switched to ‘mega-consequence’ format. Fonts became huge; images stretched to dominate the whole screen, softly scrolling through key moments of glorious day; between bouts of fainting, flutter-eyed teenaged onlookers were given the chance to voice their honeyed adoration, ‘Hail to the Chief!’
I can't think of another world leader who would be accorded such reverence. I’m sure the BBC could source teenagers who find Angela Merkel wonderful and inspirational, and would be delighted to describe their feelings. But such comments would not be an appropriate backdrop for the visit of a mere German leader.
While many Britons do have special affection for the US, the same cannot be said for its Commander in Chief. Nixon? Ford? Carter? Reagan? Bush Sn? Clinton? Bush Jr?(!!) Do these names make British hearts swell? They certainly conjure strong emotions – but uniform admiration? In orchestrating such sycophancy the BBC is actually kow-towing to the British political establishment, which itself feels an obligation to kow-tow the President of the US. The BBC is helping the British establishment top-up the hearts-and-minds element of the ‘special relationship’.
While many Britons do have special affection for the US, the same cannot be said for its Commander in Chief. Nixon? Ford? Carter? Reagan? Bush Sn? Clinton? Bush Jr?(!!) Do these names make British hearts swell? They certainly conjure strong emotions – but uniform admiration? In orchestrating such sycophancy the BBC is actually kow-towing to the British political establishment, which itself feels an obligation to kow-tow the President of the US. The BBC is helping the British establishment top-up the hearts-and-minds element of the ‘special relationship’.
And if that sounds paranoid, well just imagine the reaction if the BBC presented things differently? Can you imagine the hell that would rain down on the BBC if it refused to join-in with the presidential foot kissing? Bye-bye licence – hello Sky. One amusing consequence of the (far from-amusing) prospect of a Trump presidency would be the sight of David Cameron (or his successor) bowing before the Clown in Chief. The BBC would then be in a dreadful knot; desperately trying to keep in step with the government, while also trying to maintain the illusion that it is representing British public opinion (and we know what British people think of Trump – a genuine case of uniform opinion.)
Of course there’s one politician the BBC currently encourages its journalists to vilify, without reserve. Only the most distracted viewer would fail to notice that BBC news detests Jeremy Corbyn, and will miss no opportunity to damage his leadership. At first one might wonder how this fits with the BBC’s need to keep both government and opposition sweet, but in fact it’s an exception that proves the rule. The answer is that BBC news does not see Corbyn as the leader of the opposition. They feel no reason to fear him because they don’t see him as a future leader of the country. They see him as a mere pretender, wasting time until his true Blairite successor deposes him.
This treatment of Corbyn reveals a significant flaw in the BBC’s means of self-calibrating – the problem of employee inertia. As noted in Part One, rather than force neutral journalists to conform to a political agenda, instead the BBC employs journalists who already hold the required opinions; those who defer to existing power structures as naturally as they breathe. However this raises problems when the political landscape itself changes. When the opinions of the population drift, the mind-set of BBC journalists can be left high and dry. Over the past 30 years, to qualify as a ‘safe pairs of hands’ at BBC news required possession of an ingrained sense of political balance ranging from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair. Obviously this is a rather narrow span of the full political spectrum, and I’m not even sure of the left-right orientation. Nevertheless, the BBC has now staffed its newsrooms with journalists and editors whose political beliefs reside somewhere along that political Planck length.
No wonder they didn’t know what to make of Corbyn. Currently, BBC news does not employ a single journalist who wouldn’t wince incredulously at talk of rail nationalisation or the cancellation of Trident – regardless of how popular these policies are becoming with the public. So how do they deal with a leader who proposes such things? They attack him. They join hands with the Tories and the Blairites and the Murdoch press and Guardian ‘liberals’ to smear him and discredit him. And all at the licence-payers expense.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to work. It’s not what we pay for. If Laura Kuenssberg and Andrew Neil find Jeremy Corbyn’s politics unacceptable it is they who need to be removed from their posts – not Corbyn.
So what do we do? Well it depends who you are. Powerful people like Corbyn and his allies should be kicking up a stink. At present they prefer to pretend it isn’t happening. Presumably their own PR people tell them it’s a non-starter – they’ll just be accused of ‘whining’. But if a Tory shill can stand up in the Commons and paint Kuenssberg as a victim of misogyny then surely it is possible for a Corbynite to stand-up and document examples of her prejudice? And the more her supporters squeal (on both sides of the house, shamefully) the better. This needs to become a live topic. Media bias needs to be pulled out of the closet, and public understanding of the subject finally begin to mature.
As for the rest of us, we should exercise the little power we have. We need to question, complain and criticise – much as those stoics at Medialens have long urged us to. With the BBC we have an unusually strong hand. As viewers, listeners and licence payers we are supposed to be the ones in the driving seat. So the least we can do is take the BBC to task over its most flagrant violations.
Contacting the BBC and its journalists can seem like an uncomfortable and thankless task. The immediate reward is to be ignored or patronised, or receive a robotically generated and logically circular reply, detailing the corporation’s commitment to impartiality. Nevertheless such efforts count. A mass of small voices is a powerful thing, an essential counterbalance to the handful of powerful voices that have bullied the BBC into its current predicament.
And when the robotic reply does arrive, we don’t have to leave it there. Once we recognise unbiased journalism to be a myth, and political balance to be just another form of political judgement, we have no reason to be shut-down by claims of impartiality. We should ask, politely, for clarification: What methods does the BBC employ to maintain its impartiality? How do its journalists and editors know when political balance has been achieved? When it claims to represent public opinion, what sources does it use to gauge public opinion? These are impossible questions to answer without revealing a very different image of the BBC to the one it tries to project. Indeed, your correspondent may well have never considered such contradictions. If you can get a bite at that point perhaps a revealing dialogue can begin.
Wednesday 13 April 2016
Recalibrating the BBC’s scales – Part II
Given its legal obligation to remain impartial, a key feature of the BBC brand of impartiality is its effort to appear impartial. Its starting point, wisely enough, is an appeal to common-sense. Whenever possible, the BBC plays upon the audience’s understanding of even-handedness. To see this let’s return for a moment to domestic politics. One well-established political conception is that of a left and a right wing. Politics is visualised as a horizontal line, stretching from extreme left to extreme right, with all conceivable political viewpoints scattered at one point or another along the spectrum, for example:
For better or worse, this model is deeply ingrained in the public psyche. As such it is regularly referenced by BBC journalists in their reports. Interestingly, we can also see that it holds superficial similarity with the seesaw model suggested in Part One – seesaws of course, also have left-right dimensions. When the BBC ‘balances’ the opinions of chancellor with those of shadow chancellor the implication, at least in part, is that left is being balanced by right. Indeed we might imagine a fulcrum has been positioned, dead centre of the political spectrum:
But a moment’s thought tells us that this can’t possibly be the set-up. If it was, then there would be a bias towards extremism. Small amounts of far-right and far-left views would have the leverage to shift larger amounts of more mainstream views:
If anything, this looks like an inversion of the true system of weighting. And indeed if we invert the order of extremes on either side of the fulcrum, so that both extremes meet in the middle, we get something more familiar:
Weighted this way, extremist views exert very little influence, while the opinions of the centre-ground dominate. Now it will take a great deal of extreme opinion to shift a small amount of moderate opinion (where exactly the views of self-proclaimed centrists, like the Lib Dems, fit in this scheme is not clear – perhaps light sprinklings at both ends?)
Superficially at least, this does resemble ‘balance’ as practised at BBC news. It would indeed require a huge surge in support for, say, the BNP, before the opinions of that party came to be treated as a valid counterweight within a balanced news story. Alternatively, if the BNP was to make a modest policy shift towards the political left, say by dropping all the race hatred and concentrating solely on cultural hatred, this would cause it to slide further out along the limb, and exert greater leverage that way. Or alternatively again, if the whole corpus of national public opinion moved leftwards or rightwards, then presumably the BBC would be obliged to shift the fulcrum itself in the relevant direction, so the whole spectrum pivoted at a different point.
The credibility of this model rests upon two assumptions about impartiality. Firstly, that impartial reporting requires giving greatest weight to popularly held viewpoints. Secondly, that politically moderate opinions deserve greater weight than extreme opinions. Both these assumptions have common-sense appeal. ‘Popular’ chimes with democratic, which obviously rings of balance, and broad representation. Likewise, moderate is preferable to extreme. Extremism rings of terrorism, Stalinism, Nazism – dogmatism rather than impartiality. So this model of weighting appears to simultaneously embrace democracy and reject bigotry. Surely a sound basis for impartiality?
Well don’t dig too deep. Firstly regarding giving prominence to popular opinion. As suggested in part one, truth itself is not democratic. The beliefs of the majority can be, and frequently are, mistaken. There is nothing impartial or balanced in giving voice to false opinions about the world, even if they are widely held. But even putting that aside, even if we accept the chequered virtues of popular opinion, what is it? How is it gauged? Is it a matter of studying opinion polls and social media?; running vox-pops in shopping malls?; employing Mass Observation-style stenographers to eavesdrop at bus stops?
Cheaper and more common-sense-credible than any of that, I can think of two reference sources the BBC would freely admit it uses to gauge the political beliefs of the general public: The composition of the House of Commons and the output of the rest of the mass media. With a hop and a skip it’s all easy to conflate: We the public vote for the MPs, therefore the composition of parliament is a reflection of our political opinion. So by balancing opinions around the various opinions heard in the House, the BBC is only one remove from balancing stories around the political opinion of the citizenry. Likewise, we the public buy newspapers. Each newspaper has a political stance. So by balancing news stories around the outlook of popular newspapers the BBC is again giving voice to public opinion.
We can now see why the views of the chancellor must be balanced primarily by those of the shadow chancellor. While other citizens might hold radically different opinions on how best to run the economy, such views do not merit the same coverage because they are less popular – as evidenced by the composition of parliament and the editorial stances of the leading newspapers. No sleight of hand involved.
Moving now to the second common-sense key to impartiality – favouring political moderation. Whatever truth and virtue there might be in this, it throws up a serious question: How does the BBC determine what constitutes moderation? ‘Extreme’ is a value-laden term, meaning different things to different people. Both David Cameron and I would call ourselves political moderates. Nevertheless I consider him to be a right-wing extremist, much as he, if he knew of me, would surely consider me an extremist of the left.
So, absent a definition of extremism that we can all agree on, how does the BBC arrive at its definition? Well forgive the repetition, but common-sense moderation also seems to be derived from public opinion, itself derived from the same sources as before – the composition of the House of Commons and the output of the rest of the mass-media. Consequently, any viewpoint put forward regularly and soberly in both parliament and the Daily Mail will be deemed politically moderate by dint of that fact, and the BBC may be obliged to move the news fulcrum in that direction to balance it.
Again this does seem to tally with BBC news as practised. While on the face of it might seem extremist to advocate capital punishment or the criminalisation of homosexuality or the invasion of countries posing no threat to us, there have been times when such views were treated as moderate and reasonable. Indeed to oppose them was to render oneself extremist, and not a suitable source for balanced comment.
If this all sounds like evidence-free speculation, well, during the writing of this article the BBC offered-up a wonderful example. To help contrast the politics of the contestants in the US Democratic primaries Anthony Zurcher supplied a set of left-right spectra, comparing their stances in key policy areas. Foreign policy was particularly revealing:
As we can see, by the BBC’s measure a political moderate is someone who favours aerial bombardment, destabilisation of perceived enemy states and the continuation of US exceptionalism. An extremist on the other hand is one who questions those strategies.
At which point one might reasonably wonder how close this reading of ‘moderation’ comes to the British public’s understanding of the term – the very group the BBC is claiming to serve and represent. Indeed, upon closer inspection, incongruities such as these abound in BBC news reporting. Studying the patterns of those contradictions reveals much about the actual rather than the common-sense assumptions that underpin BBC impartiality. That will be the subject of the final part.
For better or worse, this model is deeply ingrained in the public psyche. As such it is regularly referenced by BBC journalists in their reports. Interestingly, we can also see that it holds superficial similarity with the seesaw model suggested in Part One – seesaws of course, also have left-right dimensions. When the BBC ‘balances’ the opinions of chancellor with those of shadow chancellor the implication, at least in part, is that left is being balanced by right. Indeed we might imagine a fulcrum has been positioned, dead centre of the political spectrum:
But a moment’s thought tells us that this can’t possibly be the set-up. If it was, then there would be a bias towards extremism. Small amounts of far-right and far-left views would have the leverage to shift larger amounts of more mainstream views:
If anything, this looks like an inversion of the true system of weighting. And indeed if we invert the order of extremes on either side of the fulcrum, so that both extremes meet in the middle, we get something more familiar:
Weighted this way, extremist views exert very little influence, while the opinions of the centre-ground dominate. Now it will take a great deal of extreme opinion to shift a small amount of moderate opinion (where exactly the views of self-proclaimed centrists, like the Lib Dems, fit in this scheme is not clear – perhaps light sprinklings at both ends?)
Superficially at least, this does resemble ‘balance’ as practised at BBC news. It would indeed require a huge surge in support for, say, the BNP, before the opinions of that party came to be treated as a valid counterweight within a balanced news story. Alternatively, if the BNP was to make a modest policy shift towards the political left, say by dropping all the race hatred and concentrating solely on cultural hatred, this would cause it to slide further out along the limb, and exert greater leverage that way. Or alternatively again, if the whole corpus of national public opinion moved leftwards or rightwards, then presumably the BBC would be obliged to shift the fulcrum itself in the relevant direction, so the whole spectrum pivoted at a different point.
The credibility of this model rests upon two assumptions about impartiality. Firstly, that impartial reporting requires giving greatest weight to popularly held viewpoints. Secondly, that politically moderate opinions deserve greater weight than extreme opinions. Both these assumptions have common-sense appeal. ‘Popular’ chimes with democratic, which obviously rings of balance, and broad representation. Likewise, moderate is preferable to extreme. Extremism rings of terrorism, Stalinism, Nazism – dogmatism rather than impartiality. So this model of weighting appears to simultaneously embrace democracy and reject bigotry. Surely a sound basis for impartiality?
Well don’t dig too deep. Firstly regarding giving prominence to popular opinion. As suggested in part one, truth itself is not democratic. The beliefs of the majority can be, and frequently are, mistaken. There is nothing impartial or balanced in giving voice to false opinions about the world, even if they are widely held. But even putting that aside, even if we accept the chequered virtues of popular opinion, what is it? How is it gauged? Is it a matter of studying opinion polls and social media?; running vox-pops in shopping malls?; employing Mass Observation-style stenographers to eavesdrop at bus stops?
Cheaper and more common-sense-credible than any of that, I can think of two reference sources the BBC would freely admit it uses to gauge the political beliefs of the general public: The composition of the House of Commons and the output of the rest of the mass media. With a hop and a skip it’s all easy to conflate: We the public vote for the MPs, therefore the composition of parliament is a reflection of our political opinion. So by balancing opinions around the various opinions heard in the House, the BBC is only one remove from balancing stories around the political opinion of the citizenry. Likewise, we the public buy newspapers. Each newspaper has a political stance. So by balancing news stories around the outlook of popular newspapers the BBC is again giving voice to public opinion.
We can now see why the views of the chancellor must be balanced primarily by those of the shadow chancellor. While other citizens might hold radically different opinions on how best to run the economy, such views do not merit the same coverage because they are less popular – as evidenced by the composition of parliament and the editorial stances of the leading newspapers. No sleight of hand involved.
Moving now to the second common-sense key to impartiality – favouring political moderation. Whatever truth and virtue there might be in this, it throws up a serious question: How does the BBC determine what constitutes moderation? ‘Extreme’ is a value-laden term, meaning different things to different people. Both David Cameron and I would call ourselves political moderates. Nevertheless I consider him to be a right-wing extremist, much as he, if he knew of me, would surely consider me an extremist of the left.
So, absent a definition of extremism that we can all agree on, how does the BBC arrive at its definition? Well forgive the repetition, but common-sense moderation also seems to be derived from public opinion, itself derived from the same sources as before – the composition of the House of Commons and the output of the rest of the mass-media. Consequently, any viewpoint put forward regularly and soberly in both parliament and the Daily Mail will be deemed politically moderate by dint of that fact, and the BBC may be obliged to move the news fulcrum in that direction to balance it.
Again this does seem to tally with BBC news as practised. While on the face of it might seem extremist to advocate capital punishment or the criminalisation of homosexuality or the invasion of countries posing no threat to us, there have been times when such views were treated as moderate and reasonable. Indeed to oppose them was to render oneself extremist, and not a suitable source for balanced comment.
If this all sounds like evidence-free speculation, well, during the writing of this article the BBC offered-up a wonderful example. To help contrast the politics of the contestants in the US Democratic primaries Anthony Zurcher supplied a set of left-right spectra, comparing their stances in key policy areas. Foreign policy was particularly revealing:
As we can see, by the BBC’s measure a political moderate is someone who favours aerial bombardment, destabilisation of perceived enemy states and the continuation of US exceptionalism. An extremist on the other hand is one who questions those strategies.
At which point one might reasonably wonder how close this reading of ‘moderation’ comes to the British public’s understanding of the term – the very group the BBC is claiming to serve and represent. Indeed, upon closer inspection, incongruities such as these abound in BBC news reporting. Studying the patterns of those contradictions reveals much about the actual rather than the common-sense assumptions that underpin BBC impartiality. That will be the subject of the final part.
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