ON THE SCENT OF BIAS?

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Following on from my last posting, I tried the 5.00-6.00 pm slice of the BBC News Channel again to see if yesterday - with its 3 Labour MPs and 2 Labour-supporting union leaders - was typical. It looks as if it wasn't. The only political type on today's edition (again hosted by Huw Edwards) was the Conservative defence spokesman, Dr Liam Fox. Like all those Labour folk on yesterday's programme, he wasn't interrupted either. So no signs of bias?
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Well, Liam Fox was invited onto the channel to comment on Gordon Brown's Afghan statement, and the provisional decision to send more of our troops to Afghanistan. His interview lasted less than 2 minutes (1 min 56 secs to be exact). For such an important subject, surely more time should have been provided to hear what the shadow defence secretary thinks about the issue. With a feature on the premiere of (of all things) 'Fantastic Mr Fox' still to come, it was not as if there was a lack of available time!
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Being an inveterate counter of things, I would just compare that miserly interview time with those given to yesterday's (Labour Party) interviewees:
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Harriet Harman - 4 mins 29 secs
Peter Mandelson - 5 mins 32 secs
Bill Etherington - 2 mins 28 secs
Dave Ward - 3 mins 17 secs
Tony Woodley - 3 mins 52 secs (actually interviewed by a business reporter called Dominic).
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Total - 19 mins 38 secs

As a perhaps trivial sideline, I noticed that Huw ended his interview with Liam Fox with a matter-of-fact delivery of the line, "Liam Fox, thank you very much". My ears may not be as sharp as a fox's, but they pricked up at that, as I remembered how effusively he thanked his Labour guests yesterday. The contrast sounded striking. Thankfully, I had not deleted my recordings of yesterday's programme and can transcribe Huw's goodbyes. Though you won't, of course, hear the tone of the comments you will be able to spot the difference in his actual words :
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"Harriet Harman, good to talk to you. Thank you very much."
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"Lord Mandelson, good to talk to you. Thank you very much."
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"Mr Ward, good to talk to you. Thank you very much for joining us."
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(To Bill Etherington:) "It's good of you to join us. Thank you very much."

(He also, incidentally, called Harriet Harman "Harriet".)
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Is Huw Edwards friendlier to Labour folk than to Conservative folk?
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I think Huw (and his 5.00 colleagues and producers) may still need watching. Only a large sample of the channel's programmes (for just this one hour each day) will show if there really is demonstrable bias here - or not. These could still be atypical. We'll see.
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