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Comment by VBprogrammer | Hacker News Reader

I think one of the issues the BBC suffers from is that in the attempt to be impartial they can sometimes give undue weight to crack-pot ideas.

That said, I often see both sides of a debate complaining about the bias of the BBC. So long as that is the case then we can reasonably assume they are doing a fair job of walking the fine line between both sides.

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I often see both sides of a debate complaining about the bias of the BBC. So long as that is the case then we can reasonably assume they are doing a fair job of walking the fine line between both sides

This is absolutely not true, because unscrupulous parties are careful to complain vociferously (and shamelessly) even about coverage that is heavily skewed in their own favour.

Since the Andrew Gilligan debacle (where the BBC sacked a reporter and apologised profusely over the self-evident truth he had reported: that Tony Blair lied about Iraqi WMD), the BBC has gradually transformed itself from a public broadcaster to a state broadcaster. The only time you hear a reasonable balance of views on an issue these days is where the governing party itself is split on it.

I think the Andrew Gilligan debacle, and the more recent Naga Munchetty issue, are both symptoms of the BBC falling over themselves to appear impartial at the expense of common sense.

> "both sides"

This has been the BBC response to criticism of its news reporting for a long time now.

However there are very few debates which have only two points of view, and the very act of reducing every issue to a "both sides" argument is a real problem for the BBC (well, for me anyway!)

Indeed, the fact that so much of British politics in recent years has be reduced to a binary proposition is probably a red flag.

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