is the news fundamentally conservative?

Leo

Well-known member
probably not the right thread for this but...

B9ld1e9CcAAMQeh.png
 

Woebot

Well-known member
you can't be completely out of the loop.

yes i do agree with this. while i have 100% abandoned my online news habit - no more clicking on the guardian/telegraph(yes...)/bbc/new york times - i now do the news via the radio 4 morning news. it has many analog qualities which in this instance is a good thing.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
so wtf is with the bbc constantly promoting ukip?

something to talk about. like everyone else they are obsessed with immigration. a non-topic because as every study ever conducted has proved it's a good thing.
 

comelately

Wild Horses
I don't think it's deniable that immigration is beneficial by standard aggregated measurements. Evidence about wage pressures on low pay jobs is definitely more mixed and open to interpretation.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't think it's deniable that immigration is beneficial by standard aggregated measurements. Evidence about wage pressures on low pay jobs is definitely more mixed and open to interpretation.

Yes, the effects of immigration are obviously not 100% beneficial to 100% of people already living here (including many who are themselves recent immigrants). Specifically, I think the evidence quite firmly supports the argument that immigration is connected to wage depression for those in low-skill/low-wage jobs.

But at the same time, a massively disproportionate amount of coverage is given to a still fairly small group of loud extremists even by the 'impartial' BBC, I don't think that's even quibbleable.
 

comelately

Wild Horses
I don't watch enough BBC to really know. You look at bookie's odds for any EU referendum and they all have it as a close call; whilst this is not an identical topic to immigration, the idea that this is a fringe issue looks suspect to me. I don't think people handwaving and calling it a non-issue is helpful.
 

vimothy

yurp
I don't think that the evidence for immigration is uniformly favourable, or even favourable in general, or even favourable in general simply in economic terms. The best you can say, if you are an ardent open-borders, neoliberal type, is that the evidence is mixed, so that a positive economic effect overall cannot be ruled out.

As for the BBC and UKIP, if "constant promotion" is taken to mean "coverage", then the reason is probably that the party has widespread support among the populace, which is a story in itself, married to the content of the party's beliefs, which are bound to cause a modicum of hysteria among liberal BBC-types.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's,a discussion which is several times too complicated, nuanced, multi-faceted and delicate for Dissensus
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't watch enough BBC to really know. You look at bookie's odds for any EU referendum and they all have it as a close call; whilst this is not an identical topic to immigration, the idea that this is a fringe issue looks suspect to me. I don't think people handwaving and calling it a non-issue is helpful.

A big part of the problem is that there is a good deal to criticise the EU for from a left-wing perspective, but the British left (such as it is) is seemingly incapable of offering anything other than unqualified support for it. Thus criticising the EU, on whatever criterion, has become the sole prerogative of the right.*

I didn't mean to imply UKIP was a "non-issue", just that they do get an awful lot of coverage in comparison to how many councillors and MPs they actually have. And their party membership was recently overtaken by the Greens, wasn't it?

*Who else read this last year: interview with Alan Sked, who founded UKIP as a liberal (!), centrist (!!!) party to protest the anti-democratic tendencies of the EU.
 
Last edited:

vimothy

yurp
"This week’s YouGov results for the Sunday Times are here. Topline voting intention figures are CON 32%, LAB 35%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 15%, GRN 7%." (YouGuv / Sunday Times, 15th February, 2015.)

That would suggest that UKIP is the third most popular party in the UK, with over twice the support of Lib Dems (and this is not exactly a new finding). So it would be a little weird if the BBC didn't cover them.
 
Top