Is the U.K.’s media biased?
Back in 1992, print newspapers in the U.K. had a monopoly on opinionated journalism; broadcasters, as most still do today, all strictly adhered to impartiality rules, and news websites were still years away.
The result? After the 1992 general election, The Sun, then the U.K.s top-selling newspaper, claimed: “It woz the Sun wot won it!” John Major’s Conservative Party achieved an unlikely and narrow 21-seat majority helped by an election day front page from The Sun intended to panic voters away from voting Labour after 13 years of Tory rule.
Today, the printed press is still largely right-wing, but is far, far less influential than it was over 30 years ago. The vast majority of news sources in the U.K. are pretty much “neutral”. But this doesn’t tell the whole story. Unbelievably, 30% of us British use Facebook for our news. Just how stupid have you got to be to use social media, or to put it another way, misinformation, for your news input?? It makes me quite ashamed.
Our next general election will be the first in which the U.K. will have a politically-biased broadcaster in the form of GB News (which leans to the right). But you need to know that its influence is hugely outweighed by the neutrality of BBC News and Sky News. Still more people get their news from the BBC than any other source.
Let me give you some inside information about the much-maligned BBC, for whom I worked for over three decades. Even as a junior reporter, you have to have full knowledge of its “bible”, a volume of “do’s and don’ts” which has a whole section on impartiality and its huge importance in modern journalism. The lengths to which the BBC goes to ensure fairness when reporting on any subject is quite extraordinary.
I will be the first to admit that there are occasions when the organisation gets it wrong. But what it is so good at, is reporting, openly and honestly, all infringements of impartiality rules when it messes up. No other broadcaster would do that. So why does the BBC get a reputation for being biased?
Here’s one example. A Conservative party high-flyer is interviewed; Labour supporters do not like the answers – therefore the BBC is biased against Labour. The next day, a Labour minister is interviewed; the Conservatives hate the answers provided, therefore the BBC is biased against the Conservatives. It’s actually quite pathetic.
In Britain, we are extremely fortunate to have, in the main, a pretty well-balanced mainstream media compared to most of the rest of the world. I would say to those who disagree, be very, very careful what you wish for.
Is Our News Media Biased?
I think all media are biased and that’s OK. You can’t have angels, absolutely unbiased of everything, financially independent, and delivering a variety of opinions on a single news platform.
However, if you take new media, such as bloggers, vloggers, and other influencers, then, yes. These folks are truly independent as they are not traditional media. Yes, they may depend on advertisers and sponsors, but, mostly, they do what they want to do in their respective formats, such as video streaming.
As to Russia, inside the country, all media are currently government-biased. This is the one and only condition for each of them to exist. Those that didn’t comply, like super popular Echo Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) FM station, the #1 in all-Russia ratings among all radio stations at the time of existence, were shut down by Putin by March 2022.
However, even those that now operate from abroad, like Rain TV channel, are also biased. I mean, these are opposition news media. In fact, the picture-perfect situation is when you have plenty of biased media.
With one super condition: they must have different biases. This is what is Western media look like, in general. This is what Russia looked like in the 1990s.
In Russia, you can’t have such a picture until Vladimir Putin passes away. At least, politically, because the first thing he did when he came to power in early 2000s, was to kill opposition TV news media.
Otherwise, they would have told all of us that the king is naked.
Is the American news media biased?
In the US this is a difficult question. The answer is: Who are you talking about? For MSNBC (liberal) or Fox (conservative) this is not even a serious question. On the other hand, The New York Times is a serious news organization that checks every fact and tries their best. Even NYT, the paper of record, ends up having to correct something from time to time. Unlike Fox, they do correct mistakes. Among the major Television Networks, I suppose ABC comes closest to being impartial.
In my humble opinion, this is part of the problem. These real news organizations try so hard to tell both sides of every story they even make Donald’s tariffs sound rational. I think at some point you have to stop trying so damn hard and just call something what it is.
Apparently, a bunch of folks agree. After Trump’s return, main stream liberal outlets went into in a ratings nose-dive but seem to be recovering: AdWeek. On the Internet, surfers are visiting what were smaller, more vocal, edgy websites and podcast. They now rule YouTube.
There is a general belief among most Americans that major news outlets are no longer trustworthy. They are biased and will lie. While I don’t quite believe in that extreme position, the fact that major multinationals now own the major news outlets does open opportunities to toy with the national conversation.
The poster child for this is billionaire Jeff Bezos and his Washington Post. Bezos clearly has no problem at all playing with the Post political positions. Example: When it became clear that the Post editorial page was about to endorse Harris for President, Bezos stopped it, publicly. Moreover, this Oligarch has made it clear that the editorial page will support, or at least remain silent on, even Trump’s most outrageous antics. Why? Because Bezos also owns Blue Origin and the Kuiper internet company. Both are up for fat government contracts and the vaunted Post is small potatoes. To the best of my knowledge the Post news department is still allowed to report the facts. No matter, the damage is done.