Sky News bias?
Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2011 9:59 am
Just watching the lunchtime news on Sky. Do the media, who are required to be totally impartial and non-subjective, have the right to call Unite Agains Fascism 'anti fascist campaigners' just because they call themselves that, and to call the English Defence League 'the far right' just because the editor at the Sky News desk decides they should be called that?
Ken Livingstone, when he was the Mayor of London, wanted to sanction the building of Europe's biggest mosque in London. There was opposition to this, and the proposal was dropped. I am personally glad it was dropped. If they were going to go ahead with it I may have protested, so would many other ordinary people - would the TV media have right to call me 'far right' and 'fascist' for doing so? I think not. They probably would though.
Not only would I have found the charge offensive but it would also have been inaccurate. Aswell as that, like I say, the TV media does not have a right to use such subjective terminology under their licence of impartiality.
My understanding of the English Defence League is there are a handful of skinhead Nazi-saluting thugs and a large contingent of ordinary people who don't subscribe to any of that. They seem to make up the vast majority of the organsiation. I saw the leader of the EDL on Newsnight this week (interestingly both his parents are Irish) and he said they are trying to stop the Islamification of Britian.
If I started an anti-Labour Party group and called it Unite Against Communism that would be something I am chosing to do and a term I have decided to use, therefore for Sky News to say 'anti communist protesters confronted the Labour Party today' would be them saying the Labour Party are communists, something they as a TV broadcaster are not permitted to do. If they also called the Labour Party 'the hard left' that would be them being subjective aswell.
I can't beleive the way the news media have described the UAF and the EDL. What do people think about all this?
Ken Livingstone, when he was the Mayor of London, wanted to sanction the building of Europe's biggest mosque in London. There was opposition to this, and the proposal was dropped. I am personally glad it was dropped. If they were going to go ahead with it I may have protested, so would many other ordinary people - would the TV media have right to call me 'far right' and 'fascist' for doing so? I think not. They probably would though.
Not only would I have found the charge offensive but it would also have been inaccurate. Aswell as that, like I say, the TV media does not have a right to use such subjective terminology under their licence of impartiality.
My understanding of the English Defence League is there are a handful of skinhead Nazi-saluting thugs and a large contingent of ordinary people who don't subscribe to any of that. They seem to make up the vast majority of the organsiation. I saw the leader of the EDL on Newsnight this week (interestingly both his parents are Irish) and he said they are trying to stop the Islamification of Britian.
If I started an anti-Labour Party group and called it Unite Against Communism that would be something I am chosing to do and a term I have decided to use, therefore for Sky News to say 'anti communist protesters confronted the Labour Party today' would be them saying the Labour Party are communists, something they as a TV broadcaster are not permitted to do. If they also called the Labour Party 'the hard left' that would be them being subjective aswell.
I can't beleive the way the news media have described the UAF and the EDL. What do people think about all this?