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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NOW, JUST WHAT DO ALL THESE PEOPLE HAVE IN COMMON?

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Not having time to watch the BBC's 24-hour News Channel much these days, I rarely comment on it, but - as an experiment - I thought I'd dip my toes in the water again today & see what happened between 5.00 and 6.00 when Huw Edwards is its presenter. All I will say is that we had full interviews with Labour's Harriet Harman, Labour's Peter Mandelson and Labour's Bill Etherington MP, as well as an interview with Tony Woodley, leader of the Labour-affiliated UNITE union and one with Dave Ward, deputy leader of the Labour-affiliated Communication Workers' Union. There's something they all have in common, but I just can't put my finger on it...
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Huw didn't interrupt any of them.
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I hope this is not typical. I may have to start covering the 5.00-6.00 pm slot each day if it is!

OUR MAIN STORY IS...

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The big breaking news story between 4.00-5.00 on Monday 12th September 2009 was the arrival of the first of Sir Thomas Legg's letters to MPs. The three main party leaders were handed their letters first. David Cameron came out best, with a request for more information on £200-worth of mortgage payments that he paid back some time ago. Nick Clegg, however, was told to repay £910. By far the worst was Gordon Brown, who Sir Thomas told to pay back £12, 415.10. Ouch! Also in this hour, former Labour home secretary Jacqui Smith had to apologise to parliament over her expense claims. Big news, breaking like a tidal wave.
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So when the BBC News Channel's 5.00 programme with Huw Edwards began I (and surely every viewer) was expecting it to be the lead story. (It certainly was on Sky's 5.00 news programme). No, amazingly it wasn't.
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Surely to the sound of jaws dropping across the country, Huw said "Our main story is that Vanessa George, the nursery worker from Plymouth convicted of sexually abusing children in her care, described her own behaviour as 'vile' and admitted that she knew she was doing wrong."
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Only in some strange parallel universe should this have been considered the main story at 5.00 on Monday 12th September 2009!! In what sense is it even a big story at all?
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On the day when we found that yet more of our national assets are to be sold off (doubtless, like our gold reserves, at a knock-down price), and when a 13-year old suicide bomber killed dozens in Pakistan, and when a sitting Labour prime minister was ordered to pay back over £12,000 of taxpayer's money, and when legions of other MPs are about to find them being shown again to be troughers they are, and when lots of shameless Labour MPs are going around grousing about Sir Thomas Legg, on that very day the BBC New Channel chooses to lead its 5 o'clock broadcast with a convicted paedophile saying she knew she was doing wrong.
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Absolutely staggering!
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Now, the main story at 5.00pm should obviously have been about Gordon Brown, our prime minister. Is it really too cynical to think that the BBC put a (relative) non-story as its main story because it wanted to downplay the importance of a potentially very damaging story for the Labour Party? Is that really too cynical?
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UPDATE

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It looks as if it is too cynical, because ITN's 6.30 News has also just led with the Vanessa George story! Tabloid news values rather than bias seem to have driven this otherwise truly bizarre decision. To the BBC's credit then, it's 6.00 News did lead with the Expenses story!

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MICHAEL CRICK ON 'NEWSNIGHT'

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Not even Michael Crick could make this one look worse for David Cameron than for Gordon Brown, you'd think! In his report, he didn't even try. But being Michael Crick, there was this: "There were a lot of smiling faces. Presumably they'd been cleared. But one senior Conservative, a former leadership contender I saw, looked absolutely furious. He tore up his brown envelope and stomped off into the Commons chamber." A senior Conservative caught out on expenses and getting into a strop about it? What a surprise that Crick saw that!

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Now, though, think again! When Jeremy Paxman chatted to him after the report, the attack on Cameron and the Conservatives came - along with a defence of Labour MPs: "But there is fury, particularly among Labour MPs, who think that Sir Thomas Legg has treated them unfairly by putting a cap on gardening costs and cleaning costs, but not putting any cap on mortgage interest costs. And there are more Conservative MPs who have claimed bigger amounts on mortgage interest, among them David Cameron who's claimed nearly all of his second-home allowance for mortgage interest, and they feel that Labour is being treated unfairly in that regard."

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And on he went in the same vein: "There are senior ministers, I think, who think it's very unfair what Sir Thomas Legg has done in applying this retrospective cap."

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Poor Labour! Wicked Conservatives!

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Absolutely staggering!

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(Note also that it was David Grossman and not Michael Crick who covered the embarrassing story about Jacqui Smith. Surprise, surprise!)

AUGUST'S I.C.s - MARR'S STAND-INS

With Andrew Marr off our screens during August, he had three stand-ins: Huw Edwards, Stephanie Flanders and Sophie Raworth. How did they fare? Were they any less biased that old Marr?
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SOPHIE RAWORTH(pictured above with a pleased-looking Jeremy Bowen)

Sophie's appearance on 9th August contained two relevant interviews:
Andrew Lansley, Conservative - 1.2
Hilary Benn, Labour - 0.3
The Lansley interview was on health and public spending (and, of course, cuts), whereas Benn's was bout the 'food revolution'. The sharp disparity in I.C.s does her no credit.


STEPHANIE FLANDERS

Steph's appearance on 2nd August contained two relevant interviews:
Vince Cable, Lib Dem - 1
Harriet Harman, Labour - 0.7
Please click on the label for the fair Stephanie for my comments on her un-BBC-like interview with St. Vince. The interview with Hattie ranged widely, but was not so strenuous.


HUW EDWARDS

Huw's show was on 16th August and contained three relevant interviews:
Michael Gove, Conservative - 1.1
Bob Ainsworth, Labour - 0.9
Caroline Flint, Labour - 0.3
Hard to judge off just three interviews, but it doesn't surprise me that the Gove interview was the toughest.

HUW'S RED NOT BLUE

Andrew Marr, like Gordon Brown, remains on holiday, and has had a different stand-in each week. Last week it was Sophie Raworth, this week it was Huw Edwards. (I only mention Sophie so that I have an excuse to feature this fine old photo of her in her salad days rather than one of boring old Huw!)

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Though certainly unexciting, old Huw was nowhere near as obviously biased as old Marr. That said, consider the vital statistics for his three politician guests:

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Caroline Flint, Labour - 6 minute 54 seconds, I.C. of 0.3

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Bob Ainsworth, Labour - 12 minutes 26 seconds, I.C. of 0.9

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Michael Gove, Conservative - 7 minutes 51 seconds, I.C. of 1.1

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Sorry for spelling this out but Labour got just under 20 minutes (and 2 interviewees) whereas the Tories got just under 8 minutes (and 1 interviewee) and scored the highest I.C. to boot!!