Over at the Independent, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne argues that the real bias at broadcasters is not against the Conservatives, but the Liberal Democrats. Here’s an excerpt:
The evidence of such bias is compelling and persistent. Broadcasters repeatedly ignore a third view on matters of the day. Even where Labour and Conservative views are nearly identical – such as on crime, Afghanistan or Iraq – news organisations evidently feel they can eliminate the Liberal Democrat viewpoint in the interests of simple, adversarial debate. The idea that there might be more than two points of view in an argument is normal in other European democracies, but not here.
Reporters even refer to “both parties” or “both main parties” as if we were still in the Fifties-style two-party system, which is deeply insulting to voters who do not live in Labour-Conservative battlegrounds. Forty per cent of parliamentary seats have the Liberal Democrats in first or second place.
The real bias of the broadcasters is thus not any deliberate attempt to skew reporting, but an unthinking conspiracy to remove the Liberal Democrat point of view from public debate between elections. It is bias by indifference. But such a bias more effectively undermines our support than anything else. People do not support a party they do not know. …
This is particularly important when so many voters for both Labour and the Conservatives are motivated primarily by dislike of the other. In these circumstances, there could be a particularly large election bounce for the Liberal Democrats. The recent YouGov marginals poll found that 37 per cent of voters would support the Liberal Democrats if they thought we could win.
Britain’s broadcasters should not prejudge the voters, let alone the electoral system. The only fair approach, at a time of heightened political sensitivity, is to apply the rules as they would be applied in the general election.
You can read Chris’s article in full here.
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6 Comments
There is much of merit in this article, tho I would broaden the scope from the libdems to coverage of dissenting points of view on any major story which is outside the “established” consensus of the two bigger parties. however, i can’t help thinking that surely part of the blame is down to the media operation at cowley street. Maybe we need to force our way into the media more often and in more imaginative ways…
How would that be achieved exactly? Journalists will cover what they want to. There is no way even the most competent press office can force its way into a story against the will of the person who is writing it. And journalists for the most part take the Labour v. Tory view because that matches their view of what politics is about. Do not forget also that journalists are for the most part trying to bang their stories out as quickly as possible so sourcing comment from all parties requires a lot of effort.
I am not an expert on press but from what I can tell we will normally only get in when:
a) we have something striking, different and interesting to say;
b) when an article is about such a momentous issue that there is enough column space and journalistic effort devoted to it to include all mainstream points of view;
c) when one of the the other teams’ press offices have been slack in responding to a particular story
d) when the article is about us.
Good points there, DT, we get in also when we a) Embargo a news story, giving time for a press release to reach the right person at the right desk who knows it has not been used already by the time he gets it; b) placed on a quiet day, like a Sunday, when there is space to fill in Mondays papers and not much else happening (holidays, post-Christmas dog-days, also are ripe times), and c) where the person making the news is a known known – which is why Vince and Nick will be sought out.
The Chris Huhne piece simplifies the reason for the vote going down (slightly) in 1987. I was the candidate in Rochford during that election and every other candidate was non-plussed by the polls as we were getting a good response on the doorstep…Owen and Steel as joint leaders was a bit of a novelty but they performed well enough together, there was no split between them on defence or anything else that I can recall (memories dim, it must be the Alz), but the split came before, at the Eastbourne conference, when Simon Hughes, and Archy Kirkwood, led an anti-nuclear weapons resolution that took on the leadership, who then flew off in a helicopter to the ITN studios to defend their stance and why they wouldnt be following the conference line. Other historians might disagree with this, but in a nutshell, thats what it was about…cant blame a non-rise in voting percentage just on this spat.
what a load of bullsh*t,huhne is talking crap again.
The lib dem’s are never off the tv or radio,infact the bbc should put a bed in the studio’s for the lib dem spokes – people,especially vince(gets it wrong most of the time) cable.
I want to know what f*cking special privilege you illiberals want,you only have 60 odd seats and hopefully after the next GE you will be wiped out.(please god).
Somewhat off topic – but everyone knows about Lembit Opik’s Estonian heritage featuring astronomer and meteor guru Ernst Opik, as well as great-uncle Oskar sieg-heiling through WW2 as a senior member of the puppet Estonian govt set up when the Germans arrived.
But Chris Huhne is a bit of a mystery man out of nowhere. Nothing about his parents on wikipedia or any other bio that I’ve seen.
Huhne is a pretty unusual surname in the UK – according to the National Trust names site (which shows the geographical distribution of UK surnames) there were fewer than 100 Huhnes on the 1998 electoral register.
Whence do his forebears spring ?
How do you know when we’re right? When we get utter trash in the comments box. 🙂
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