It seems that all you have to do to be labelled biased these days is to be fair to everyone's point of view, i.e. unbiased.
Reading the Labour blogs, you would have thought any talk of bias would be about the overwhelming right wing bias of the press. But instead of talk of the Sun, Times, Express, Mail, Telegraph, Standard etc. being biased, the majority of criticism I've seen has been aimed at the Guardian, New Statesman and BBC.
Remember this is supposed left of centre blogs criticising the only mainstream media that carries left wing views. I've even seen the term 'liberal bias' used. How did the right succeed in turning 'liberal' into a criticism and link it so inextricably to the word 'bias'. This is a level of success even Orwell would marvel at.
I read some right wing blogs as well, Johnson, Griffiths and Adam Smith Institute. I am lately finding them difficult to distinguish from a lot of Labour blogs, so similar is their criticism of the BBC, Islamists, or anyone that questions the validity of our govt's actions against Muslims. There are thankfully some notable exceptions, who haven't fallen into this trap. I'm not going to mention the blogs who are the worst offenders and the ones who are not. I've already been told off for doing this.
I've said far too much on this subject already (see my archives) and I know I've started to repeat myself, but this all seems very disconcerting, the way the left has been infected. Has the drip drip drip of the daily press propaganda finally took control of our minds. I think it has in a lot of cases. I for one, am not going to roll over and die on this, but voice my dissent as loud as I can. I know there are others who feel the same as me, and I encourage you to fight the good fight as well. Lets not be drowned out here.
I think part of it is down to the fact that people on the left expect the Mail, the Express, the Telegraph and so on to have a right-wing bias. That means that we tend not to read them very much - they're not "ours" and we know they're going to be silly. When the Guardian, the New Statesman and so on start running articles which we profoundly disagree with, we're more likely to see them, we're more likely to be upset about them and we're more likely to call them on them. Being ostensibly "left-wing" publications shouldn't make them immune from criticism from people on the left when we think they're wrong.
ReplyDeleteI did think about this and you are right that criticism of what we feel is wrong should be sacrosanct. But then I thought about it again and realised the left are not criticising these papers for being too right wing, but for being too left wing.
ReplyDeleteWhen did you last hear Boris Johnson or any other right winger criticise the Telegraph for being too right wing?
Do you see my point?
I think we on the left by our very definition have a more open attitude to criticism and this is good in terms of discovering the truth, but it is bad in terms of persuading the public, who like clear cut arguments.
The Left have a limited voice anyway. There are far more important targets, in my humble opinion.
Probably really sad to comment on my own post but hey, I like this Orwell quote;
ReplyDelete"those who claim to be unbiased are the most biased of the lot!"