For the first seven days of July 2009, the BBC airwaves have continued to be dominated by the Labour government:
Labour, 4o interviewees, 63.7% of airtime
Conservatives, 15 interviewees, 24% of airtime
Lib Dems, 6 interviewees, 5.9% of airtime
SNP, 2 interviewees, 3% of airtime
Green, 3 interviewees, 2.7% of airtime
Plaid Cymru, 1 interviewee, 0.9% of airtime
UKIP, 0 interviewees, 0.0% of airtime
BNP, 0 interviewees, 0.0% of airtime
Would you think this was a vibrant multi-party democracy?
Labour, 4o interviewees, 63.7% of airtime
Conservatives, 15 interviewees, 24% of airtime
Lib Dems, 6 interviewees, 5.9% of airtime
SNP, 2 interviewees, 3% of airtime
Green, 3 interviewees, 2.7% of airtime
Plaid Cymru, 1 interviewee, 0.9% of airtime
UKIP, 0 interviewees, 0.0% of airtime
BNP, 0 interviewees, 0.0% of airtime
Would you think this was a vibrant multi-party democracy?
Didn't UKIP do very well in the EU elections? Yet that dosen't justify their appearence on the BBC.
ReplyDeleteI expect when you analyse the Tory interviews you may find that it was when they came up with an inititive on some topic that the BBC just have to debunk. It also lets the BBC push the lie that they are balanced - Labour being the party of government would natuarlly get the greater air time.(They would say)
Again it would be interesting to know what topics the Conservatives were invited on to "discuss".
John,
ReplyDeleteAnd they certainly did better than the Greens.
You're right. I should start recording the topics of interview too.
The list of June's Interruption Coefficients contained 25 interviews with 0 interruptions.
Among these were serious political interviews with Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper and David Miliband.
Among this list, though, were 3 Conservatives. "Aha", Beeboids might say,"that shows we're being balanced after all!" (Yeah, 3 out of 25!)
If I'd recorded the topics too, it would have shown that the interview with Michael Mates concentrated on his personal experiences as a member of a public inquiry & the one with Sir George Young, held just after the elections for Speaker, was just as personal (as opposed to policy-based), asking him about his experiences and his feelings. Only the Jeremy Hunt interview was of the same, political kind as the Labour ones.
That would further put cats among the BBC pigeons.
Oh, and the Interruption Coefficients for the first 7 days of July (which I'm going to start typing onto the blog soon!) show that among the top 15 toughest interviews 8 were of Conservatives, but only 3 of Labour. (The Nationalist parties took 3 hits too).
ReplyDelete