In the afternoon or evening of Wednesday 26th
November 2003, U.K. Time (i.e. the next morning in New Zealand), I saw on
BBC World TV an episode of the interview programme "Hardtalk" which
showed the most blatant exhibition of Leftist media bias that I have ever
observed. This Leftist bias is almost always present, of course, but most
journalists try to conceal it most of the time.
This episode was not hosted by Tim (Never Criticise A Feminist) Sebastian,
but by one of his stand-ins. It was an interview with Don McKinnon, Secretary-General
of the Commonwealth.
The interviewer cited the adverse views of two major UK newspapers with
regard to the Commonwealth. The first paper cited was the Daily Mail, which
used strong language about the Commonwealth, including the word "corrupt",
or one of its cognates. The interviewer then said something to the effect
that, of course, many people wrote off the Daily Mail because of its right-wing
views. Then he quoted some likewise negative (but less strongly expressed)
anti-Commonwealth views that had appeared in the Guardian. He did not say
that anyone wrote off the Guardian because of its left-wing views (though
I myself do -- and, in fact, there is a term "Guardian-Reader",
which stands for a fairly predictable set of opinions. This term was in common
use when I was in the UK in the 1980s.)
It is obvious to any critical media-watcher that journalistic culture is
crawling with people who regard right-wingers as biased, and left-wingers
as objective (See: Left-Wing Media Bias ), but
this was the most blatant and overt expression of that culture that I have
ever seen. What makes that bias even more insane in this context is that Don
McKinnon is a former Deputy Leader of the New Zealand National (right-wing)
Party ! Why would he agree with a biased, left-wing BBC journalist, saying
that a right-wing newspaper was biased ? I was until recently a member of
that same party, and I can say without fear of contradiction that National
Party members are well aware of anti-right bias in the media -- as are right-wingers
all over the Western World.
Of course, these biased, Left-Wing journalists are always repeating (as
a smoke-screen) the well-known myths about right-wing media bias, which is
allegedly caused by the ownership of the media concerned, but it is obvious
that most owners have little or no control over the slant that is put on news
and current affairs programmes in the Western World.