Jim Naughtie's crimes against impartiality are nothing new really. The BBC political correspondent Jo Coburn is, of course, also a co-presenter on The Daily Politics & she's been proving again that, when the cat's away (i.e. Andrew Neil) and she's in charge, she likes to play at pouncing on Conservatives. Her crimes against impartiality (as an interviewer) are becoming ever clearer as she becomes more prominent on the show.
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Yesterday saw Stephen Timm for Labour, Grant Shapps for the Conservatives and Danny Alexander for the Lib Dems gathering to discuss the election campaign. Here are the interruption coefficients scored for each by Jo Coburn:
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Stephen Timms - 0.9
Grant Shapps - 2.5
Danny Alexander - 1.5
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This is not new as far as Jo is concerned. There was this classic instance from October:
http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2009/10/justine-faces-two-pronged-attack.html
There the Conservative Justine Greening scored 2.8 against 0.9 for Labour's Geoffrey Robinson.
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Back to yesterday & a comparison between Jo's interruptions against Mr Timms and Mr Shapps (ignoring the Lib Dem!):
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Here's how long it took for the interruptions to come during each answer given:
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The interruptions against Timms:
I1: after 7 seconds
I2: after 23 seconds
I3: after 5 seconds
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The interruptions against Shapps:
I1: after 2 seconds
I2: after 17 seconds
I3: after 3 seconds
I4: after 8 seconds
I5: after 2 seconds
I6: after 8 seconds
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Jo's manner was noticably more assertive (with a particularly mocking grin at one stage) against Grant Shapps and she was far more excitable when interviewing him. (It's probably left-wing blood lust). She also asked Mr Shapps a higher proportion of specific questions (about Tory plans to cut the deficit) as opposed to general questions, of which Mr Timms got three (two of them about how a long election campaign could tire the public). We could be seeing much more of this now that Anita Anand has gone on maternity leave.
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CODA
*For trivia collectors, the same edition of the programme saw BBC political correspondent Ben 'Son of Tony' Wright discussing the election campaign and using the word 'Tories' three times and the word 'Conservatives' not even once.
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Also there was a report on the 'leader debates' by young Adam Fleming, which featured as its only talking heads Ric Bailey, chief political advisor of the BBC (and executive editor of Question Time, so should that really be Ric Bailey - for fans of my colour-coordination?), and David (formerly Dave) Hill, former Labour spin doctor (who reminds me a little of the uptight spin doctor Steve Fleming (played wonderfully by David Haig) in The Thick Of It.) Again, no non-Labour politicos were featured in this report.
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Elements of the BBC are ramping up the anti-Conservative line, have you seen the new 5Live line-up?
ReplyDeleteIncredible!!!!! The Daily Politics show is so right wing it is barely believable that the beeb lets them get away with it. The "cat" as you refer to him does not even offer the pretence of impartiality. Neill is a very good journalist and interviewer but he is also outrageously pro tory.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I will say you are spot on with your admiration for David Haig as Steve Fleming. Almost as funny as blinky Ben!
Tories have always been very amusing when it comes to the BBC. They are so used to getting their own way and being supported by so much of the media they think that impartiality means that thing or person is opposed to them. But they need not worry about the BBC because ever since 2010 the whole corporation has been 100% Tory poodle
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