Ex-BBC editor reveals biases on political programmes | Rob Burley interview
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- Опубліковано 17 лют 2024
- Rob Burley is a journalist and former head of political programming at the BBC. He swung by JOE Towers on the release of his new book Why Is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me?: Searching for the Truth on Political TV.
During the conversation Oli and Rob discuss political communications, the changing nature of the media's relationship with politicians and how the changing dynamic has destroyed any transparency in the political sphere.
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On a Panorama programme Thatcher was being interviewed and was bleating on about some striking workers not understanding that salaries could only be increased if their productivity increased. As quick as a flash the interviewer said something along the lines of: "Then please explain to the viewers how MPs including yourself increased their productivity to warrant the 12% pay increase you've just awarded yourselves". Thatcher visibly looked shocked and made some pathetic reply as the interviewer pressed for a precise explanation of how productivity had been increased. Sadly I don't know the name of the interviewer but I did notice as a regular Panorama viewer that this interviewer never again appeared on the programme.
That’s a really brilliant line of questioning isn’t it. I think, in a nutshell, it shows everything we need to know about the Tory mindset. It perfectly captures the most surface-level obvious truth about them, one rule for us another for them. We have to justify our pay by performing, and earn what we deserve. They shouldn’t have to justify their actions to anyone, and take what they think they deserve, and their main role will always be consolidating power and resources in their favour. Conservatism is about conserving the status quo, the status quo is more for the rich less for the poor, so conservatism attracts the greediest bastards in the world, who have the finances to buy power. Sick, depraved system.
@@user-hu1yi8ox9zI think your missing the point. So it's okay for politicians to get a rise regardless but the workers are in a different situation?
@@user-hu1yi8ox9z No, this is a completely disingenuous misrepresentation of workers and production. Presenting workers productivity as the only, or even the only major impact on overall production is disingenuous. Lack of corporate investment, excessive bonus and dividend payments (privatised water companies), have had a far larger role in the lack of rise in production. The situation today is also nothing like the situation in the 70s and 80s, so suggesting the same response is appropriate suggests cluelessness, or an active agenda to enrich the most wealthy at the expense of those at the bottom. Recently workers wages have been a negligible impact on inflation. Inflation has come from, egregiously excessive corporate profits (such as the fossil fuels industry), senior corporate pay rises etc. Refusing to pay workers a fair wage due to fears of inflation, while actively resisting pressure to reduce corporate profits (Sunak and his refusal to implement an effective windfall tax) and being silent about egregious corporate management pay rises (Sunak again) is not acting against inflation, it is nakedly allowing inflation, often for reasons of self enrichment.
@@user-hu1yi8ox9zNo, what increases inflation is corporates taking billions in bumper profits. End of
@@user-hu1yi8ox9zMark Carney is a borderline dunce. Ask me how I know?
Bias at the BBC? No shit. I stopped watching sometime during the 2010-2015 Government when the BBC did not offer a single report on the impact of austerity. Propaganda takes many forms and it can also include not reporting on things
BBC are TORIES...end of.
Mostly that form in fact.
Also referred to as dynamic silence.
And yet this fool being interviewed thinks the BBC is centre left in its biases. Makes me so angry to see how out of touch/blind/untruthful these people are.
@@rainbowevil it is NOT right wing at all in any sense of of any cultural aspect, you fail to grasp the current political leanings of the modern age.
I was a government press officer and that is precisely what the Special Advisers got us to get our ministers to do and the key messages are designed to steer clear of the issue at hand.
Yeah, sure you were🙄
@@Ant-dx8ytI know you should never take anything on the internet at face value but sometimes not everyone is a liar
Also this would just be a weird thing to lie about.
When you were a government press officer, what happened to your professionalism as a journalist? The integrity upon which journlism was meant to stand for. To criticise the world and bring to light the unjust and corrupt for the sake of the people. You were part of the problem with your mindset. Jumping through hoops and leaving your spine at home.
@@CanigetanawwwwyyyyeeeahA press officer isn't a journalist.
Whatever competence is in a politician, Jeremy Hunt isn’t it! Unless competence in politics is just not looking like a clown.
And yet somehow he’s the 2nd most powerful man in the country.
A very dangerous clown
Quite amazing to argue that if Jeremy Hunt had been PM in the pandemic we would have dealt with it better, then immediately discuss the terrible state of the NHS, which Jeremy Hunt was in charge of for 6 years and cut to the bone.
Absolutely!
This guy is sort of the epitome of 90s liberal centrist pointlessness. Manages to miss the forest for the trees so grandiosely and continuously that it's almost impressive...
Jeremy Hunt is a slimy know- nothing politician. He is best described by the Faux Pas made by Andrew Naughtie on the BBC Today programme.
He is proficient only at lining his pockets and those of his cronies with corrupt money.
@@Muzikman127my gosh, I was just writing "the lumberjack can't see the forest for the pile of felled trees in the way" to underline my response, when I read you already wrote it! "Where have the cute forest creatures gone, daddy??" she asks. Looking up from his spreadsheet, he stares anxiously out of the window. He doesn't know.
if only he had thought of another witty remark maybe Johnson would never have made it!@@Muzikman127
Why is this man calling Michael Gove "Govey". For fucks sake it's just a big group of old mates isn't it.
They all went to the same small handful of private schools, and of course Oxbridge. The UK’s meritocracy is dead.
They allowed meritocracy to survive because it created the illusion of social mobility, which increased productivity. The new breed of Tory, starting with Thatcher, realised that you don’t need to provide for the people or keep the country running properly, you just need to turn the people against themselves, and that distraction alone will keep prying eyes away from the flourishing private sector and international corruption scheme. So long as London can provide the illusion of prosperity, the government can continue selling property to developers, selling resources to investors, and cleaning the money of the criminals of the world.
Gove was a journalist, like Peter Mandalson, so yes it is.
Is saying Boris a sign of being old mates? I call him Boris and I hate the shit. People have nicknames, calling them by it doesn't mean you like the person.
@@slightlyconfused876 no. Boris is his name. Although not official, it's still the name he goes by. If Rob Burley was to call him "Michael" that would be one thing. But calling him "Govey" is obviously a different level of familiarity. It's inappropriate. The man is a government minister and this is supposed to be a journalist/member of the media. He's talking about him like he's in his 5 a side team.
Re: the Diane Abbott maths fail. That is a far bigger error than not knowing the cost of a pint of milk, Burley is right that those are quite different, and that one matters while the other doesn't really.
More salient was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Phillip Hammond, making a similarly bad mathematical error when talking about government policy. Yet unlike Diane Abbott's mistake, nobody remembers this and it isn’ta lasting stain on his reputation. It's far more significant that the man nominally in charge of the nation's budget fucked up the maths than a shadow cabinet member doing similar.
Would have been interesting to hear Burley comment on this and see if he tried to justify it.
This reminds me of the good old days of political programming - watching on a Sunday long form interviews - being confused as a child but being happy that people were being held to account.
He singles out Rishi as a politician who wouldn't go on in for a long-form interview with a strong interviewer, but frankly I don't know if any politicians these days would do that
Yet he sat down for about an hour with Piers Morgan. Maybe it's just that he knows he'd never get a fair hearing on the BBC?
They can’t because any mistake they make,, slip of the tongue etc. will be plastered all over the internet. The ideologically captured press on either side will start a feeding frenzy & they will be cancelled & career destroyed. They are all terrified & although I wish there was more courage in politics these days & standing up for principals they truly believe in instead of just trying not to fuck up & lose their job’s, I’m not sure I blame them. Society as a whole has become a unforgiving & cruel beast with mob mentality.
@@vields2352 Yeah true this happens to all sorts of pundits not just politicians
The worst interview I've watched on this channel. If you're scrolling through the comments prior to watching: Don't bother, buy yourself a copy of _Manufacturing Consent_ instead.
Exactly. (I watched it. Unfortunately)
Dylan Moran is looking a bit rough.
Thank you. All I was seeing was who let him out of the bookshop.
Nick Robinson used to be a Tory🙄 He gives the Tories a hard time when he interviews them🤣 ( no he doesn't. His attitude has only shifted recently when it became clear that Labour will win the GE)
Yeah, he was really neutral when he was spreading lies about Jeremy Corbyn
I remember during Brexit we had "Nick's Election Takeaways", where he managed to pluck off the street a room full of people who previously voted labour "but ah can't now" because of Brexit. If you look at the vote numbers for the previous election, and the one after, it was statistically soeaking practically impossible to have put that room together by pure luck..
Exactly. He's a disgrace
BBC is *packed* with Tories now.
GB 'News' presenters seem to get a lot of air-time on BBC QT. Byline Times pointed out how comparatively few left-leaning journalists have been invited on to the programme in the recent past. Money? Oligarchs? Contacts? Tipping the cap to the Government and its client media?
BBC bias? Who presents Question Time? Ms Rightwing herself.
Exactly! The days of the BBC having a centre left bias are long since gone. I think he is just looking nostalgically through rose coloured spectacles...
Not to mention the think tank representatives that get invited on.
Right wing lol
Fiona Bruce is a Tory toadie
How can any ‘long form’ interview on incompetent politicians based on an ‘entertaining’ book ignore the Liz Truss period? Inconceivable!
I think the book concentrated on incompetence not delusion and mental illness…
13.55 Did Diane Abbott really "get all she deserved for that"? Given that later the same month of her gaff, Philip Hammond (chancellor at the time) was £20bn off the mark on his estimate of the cost of HS2 - but wasn't subject to the same level of press attention or scrutiny?
Did she "deserve" the racial abuse she "got for that"?
Absolutely! Given the events of the past week I wanted to come back and make a similar point. Laura Trott who is the actual treasury has made several awful mistakes and clearly doesn't understand basic economics, yet the young white lady has had minuscule amount of scrutiny, hmmm I wonder why. The dismissive manner and lack of empathy from Burley says it all.
So the BBC is centre left and as an example look at "Nick Robinson" who "used to be a Tory"
Torys are socially Liberal and economically Liberal. Pro immigration/ 1.2 million in one year
Says how right wing he is, if everyday joe says its right if not far right
Why did BBC have farage on a RECORD number of times? At certain points in the last 10 years QT was literally the farage show!!! 🤷🏻♀️
Wow, they had a single person on who disagreed with shitlib globalists, outrageous! You miss out the fact that almost every appearance he made was a 4 on 1
They bought him on to try and humiliate him and make him look like a bigoted, unelectable racist that you shouldn't listen to.
you mean farage being outnumbers by 5 or 6 left leaning narrators? you lot are so ignorant or incredibly thick. What you cannot accept is the left are in charge of institutions even the conservative party and you still want to be the underdog. You point out 1 presenter on the panel vs the other 5 or 6 left leaning candidates literally proves this
There really is as much lefty bitterness here as there is left stupidity - and there's a lot of that! Farage got a lot of coverage because he was the pivotal political figure of his time and he's an entertainer. He was the most important UK political figure this century and knew how to tell an anecdote and floorwipe dopey intellectuals. It really isn't difficult - I've even met Labour politicians who can understand this.
The real mystery about Farage and his exposure on BBC is why wasn't he on more? Of course you're gonna reply with a lot of dopey objections to what I've said - starting with 'he was not successful because he was never an MP'. Sometimes I can predict the future. I look forward to your well-researched objections.
Because he represented majority opinion and is the most influential single politician in Britain?
In the context of the ongoing situation in Gaza, it would have been interesting, given the title, if you had asked some hard questions around differences in language around Palestinian & Israeli lives and other questions regarding proportionality of coverage in line with events on the ground. It would be interesting to have someone interrogated on the stats on language usage assembled.
Great interview. Good on both sides, was fascinating to hear Rob's stories from behind the curtain and agree completely about the challenge of cynicism. Lowering our expectations around capability and hope for change removes the challenge to politicians wanting our votes.
Irony curtain
Well said. The interviewee was right about the need to resist CYNICISM. It leads nowhere and is just a conformist, lazy-minded cop-out whether in journalists or voters.
This bloke is a joke thinking the BBC is left leaning just wow
I know ‘centrist or slightly left’. There is no doubt it is full woke and well to the left of centre.
We can assume you consider Mao a centrist.
Really! The beeb has sadly visibly slid to centre right particularly with the appointment of Laura Kuenssberg.
Kuenssberg - there's an aristocratic German name if ever there was one 🤨
Laura "Goebbels" kuenssberg is right of Genghis Khan
@@oldishandwoke-ish1181 Wikipedia says she's Scottish but her background wasn't as rough as she looks and sounds..
Yes, an organization that supports;
-insane transgender ideology
-far left diversity equity and inclusion agenda
-open borders and massive immigration
and constantly runs stories about how sexist, racist and homophobic Britain is is really just so right wing.
Neither left nor right. Just stooges for the regime and whatever message it wants pushed today.
A fascinating interview. I'm in my 80's and remember well interviews on the radio or TV where the interviewer would press the politician to explain in depth their policies. Often, you would see the beads of sweat and the fear in their eyes. Nowadays, the politicians just talk over any questions and repeat verbatim what the media coach back at party HQ has told them they must say and not deviate from their brief.
The BBC / Rob Burley didn't give Carole Cadwalladr or Peter Jukes the right to reply to Arron Banks' appearance on the Marr show in Nov 2018 despite repeated requests to do so. Did Tony Hall or the show’s ex editor Robbie Gibb (he left to become the Downing Street’s Director of Communications) have any influence on that decision? See the i Newspaper article “The angry reactions to Arron Banks’ ‘utterly shameful’ interview with Andrew Marr”
What I don’t get is why the BBC broadcast the Neil v Corbyn interview before the Neil vJohnson interview was in the bag. Was that a mistake or was it Tory insiders?
They were in on it. It was always the plan.
Most interesting is thst Jonhson refusing to be interviewed by Neil did not affect his popularity. At one time it would have , made him look like a coward. Things have changed.
Yes because becoming a celebrity and you’re half way there. People see you on the tv and they think they know you and that’s more important than actually listening to a person’s policies. Sophistication taken to a new level……..sickening.
On not being cynical of elections is tantamount to a scientist repeating an experiment ad nauseum and expecting a different outcome. No, something different and better needs to happen and it won't happen if we're not cynical because the analysts will see our apathy as a plus.
you've got to win yourecshuns / but we've gutted our entire manifesto of anything meaningful and it hasn't changed ANYTHING! What else should we cut?
Try being intelligently sceptical and probing, as I’m sure you are, but not abjectly cynical.
Here is the Walden-Thatcher interview that Rob was talking about: ua-cam.com/video/vu7kZdbI2sg/v-deo.html
Cheers
Thanks I'm off to watch that instead of this leftist drivel
I remember the 1987 parliamentary broadcasts for the tories promising to build 200+ hospitals, our town was on there, the only hospital the tories built was private.
If you could find that, I would love it.
Cheers for that though
@@JupiterThunder Jesus if you see leftism in the establishment liberal wet flannel being interviewed here then we're really stuffed 😂
They, MPs in general, have forgotten they are there in parliament to represent US, not themselves
Excellent discussion. Alas, I fear that the bulk of the British public (PolJoe aficionados aside) wouldn't have the understanding or patience for a Walden-style interview today and the modern breed of politicians would blackball the interviewer immediately. Where do we go to find honest interviews, when so many politicians are dishonest or worse, dishonest and ill-informed/uninterested careerists.
True - that's why these podcasts and others like Triggernometry are doing so well.
The British public absolutely would have the appetite for 40 min interviews. They aren't given the opportunity because democracy is being deliberately dumbed down by media. and politicians
Felt olly was soft on this guy for his career.
It did seem more like a chat between journo pals, rather than an interview of a previousl BBC news power broker. A missed opportunity really....
I can't believe he talks about "gotchas" without giving any credit to Noel Edmonds.
This guy produced program after unbalanced program over Brexit.
Bwian Wawden on Weekend Wowld was a national treasure.
Portraying his speech impediment as making him sound like an imbecile. Great stuff mate, great stuff.
Keir Starmer will say whatever he needs to get into number 10 that is why I like him - that is his job. If Keir Starmer were to now commit to ANY left of center policies the media, including Rob Burleys beloved BBC, would absolutely bury him and we would now be looking forward to 5 more years of Tory rule. Don't blame the player blame the game (or to be accurate those who set the rules of the game i.e those people who own and run the UK's political/news media).
Keir Starmer and his MPs are members of the same private club with its own agenda that the Tories are. You can Google it and see he's a WEF member like the PM and Tory MPs.. Labour and the Tories are two sides of the same coin. I imagine a lot of media heads are also members. I haven't checked those myself.
It is my belief (hope really) that when he was DPP he looked at the way things were changing politically and decided he had to do something to put it back on the right track. Won't know if this is true until he actually makes it to No.10 but I have high hopes - he's named after Keir Hardie FFS!!!
It’s delusional to think that Starmer will fundamentally change anything. He was instrumental in destroying Corbyn.
"Vote Labour if you want a Liar for a Leader" 😂
@@Wigalot Oh we can google can we? A private club with its own agenda? The problem with you lot is you get fooled by the fake conspiracies and miss the real ones. Clown.
Rob Burley is completely implicated in the BBC's decent and his gross stupidity in allowing Boris to get away with dodging the Andrew Neil interview once Corbyn's had already aired says everything you need to know about him. Btw it's worrying to see Oli Dugmore being so pally with him - and ironic given the subject matter - completely failing to hold him to account.
100%.
There's class divisions in journalism too
To go to bat for Oli, he made a couple of clever snide remarks in there. I particularly loved when Rob was talking about Jeremy Hunt doing a better job in Covid and Oli just leans back with a grin and says, "One would hope so."
I think people often misinterpret what Joe is actually doing in these interviews. They're not trying to hold people to account, they're tryoing to expose them for what they are by just letting them speak in the same way they present those montages of Conservatives speaking at conferences.
I can get why that's not enough for some, but the fact is Rob would likely have not done this interview had he expected it to be a grilling, since this is obviously just a book promotion event for him, but just letting him speak tells us all we need to know, and I doubt many of us are surprised, because he's basically confirming everything we've long suspected in regards to the bias's going on behind the scenes in the BBC, though unfortunately for Rob, it's not the "soft left, liberal" views that he seems to have deluded himself into thinking it to be.
You gotta be joking, this channel gives softball interviews to every lefty, failing to hold them to account.
Are they in power?
I thought this was an old interview with all the no bias at Sky/BBC stuff, but when I saw the date I was astonished. I think the 'no bias' ship has sailed now, if we were in any doubt! I'm surprised Joe went along with that given the other interviews he does
Laura Kuenssberg ... Andrew Neil... Fiona Bruce... Nick Robinson... All the "centre left" in key positions. Lucky us!
That was interesting and the nugget for me was in the final sentence. "We the public should think about the trade offs". Guess that is true, but the politicians have to get into the habit of verbalising those tradeoffs so that the public also get into the habit of doing so as part of their reasoning. Starmer cannot justify not re-nationalising the energy and water utilities in his coming prospectus, because if he did those exercises in logic, freely in public discourse, he would demonstrate that there is no trade off to be had from keeping them private. The deal for the public good can never gain from the present privatised energy and water. The only benefit that can be derived from the privatised utilities is payment from those cash cows into politicians pockets to keep the party's coffers full or into individual pockets as lobbying corruption.
Thanks for this interview. I learnt quite a lot about interviewing and the processes behind it. Did anyone else think with Johnson having stiffed the BBC on the interview they should have given Corbyn more favourable coverage to make up for this and punish Johnson?
The BBC spent 2 years starting and ending every bbc broadcast with Corbyn is a #@&%... I don't see how that's leftwing bias myself lol
They shouldn't be giving anybody favourable coverage. Unfortunately that's not the media world we live in, and the lies they helped spread during the Corbyn years were basically the prelude for their coverage on the genocide taking place in the middle east right now.
And honestly, Rob exposes his own bias right here, lambasting Johnson -- who was terrible -- before claiming Jeremy Hunt, the guy who literally killed the NHS before the pandemic -- would have done a better job. There's not even a single pause for thought that a Corbyn government could have done a better job, because it's just a forgone conclusion that he was the worst of the bunch for reasons purely down to the fact that he wouldn't have protected the ongoing wealth gains of the rich. This is bias through and through, where whether intentionally or not, he makes clear there is a cabal of politicians who are "his guys/gals". And this ideology is rampant throughout the entire mainstream media, much of which is either funded or operated by people who are either members of or have a vested interest in those within that upper wealth class.
But I digress. I find these sort of interviews extremely conflicting, because the underlying message that we need strong interviewers and a free press to hold the powerful to account is absolutely correct. We just don't have that in our current media infrastructure, and rather than self-reflect and work to better themselves, instead they double down and pretend that the discontent of their obvious is and of itself a means to pushing some authoritarian regime.
The BBC allowed Corbyn to be called an anti-semite live on questiontime with no pushback.. How's that for Bias.. lol
I really really enjoyed this interview. I found it very informative and it was an easy listen with a humorous undertone that kept a serious subject matter from souring the mood. There was good chemistry between the subject and the host that shone through. Fantastic work!!!! Keep it up the quality of this kicks the arse of anything ive watched on TV all week. Well done 👌
As the greatest singer-songwriter to ever come out of the wide and savage land of Canada, no, silly, it is of course Stan Rogers, sang about lying bastards:
"And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again."
Rob Burley? For a minute or two I was wondering why Dylan Moran had lost his Irish accent!
Great discussion with a very important conclusion.
Excellent. Brilliant book. Surprised it's taken so long to get this interview.
Agreed. Just finished the audiobook, enlightening and funny. Worth a listen/read.
Thanks
There is a clear bias in their news and current affairs programmes to the economic right and to the social left in their entertainment programmes. Hence people of both stripes think it's biased against their viewpoint.
You are describing manufacturing consent.
The intention isn't quite what you say but it's close.
The point of the ring wing economic bias is clear. It is to always frame issues with a bias that suits elite economic interests.
The reason for the liberal social bias is to give the impression that the media actually has a centre left bias. This is find for elites as social issues rarely affect their interests.
But secondly, the liberal social bias creates a barrier to any discourse further left - this far and no further. eg if you're left of the Guardian then you must be a nut.
But of course the Guardian (or NYT or WAPO) are all establishment papers serving elite interests just like the others.
Because the business model of any newspaper is not to serve news to people. It's to serve audiences to large corporations who advertise.
The issue isn't the bias the issue is the ignorance, obfuscation and lying. We can all live with a bit of bias, however there is no reporting quality any more so there is no news.
@@michaelrch summed up my own observations perfectly.
@@partlyflammable Very true. Why hasn't a mainstream media outlet conducted a genuine study of Brexit. With a breakdown of the promises made at the time and the likelihood that the people making said promises truly believed them, or had good reason to believe them. Contrasted with the realities of today...
Why hasn't a mainstream media outlet made a study showing the way the NHS has operated over the last 40 years?
Why are tangible gaffs and clear lack of understanding of the core elements they are supposed to be managing made by Tory ministers allowed to go virtually unreported? Our media is a cesspit...
@@michaelrchYes. Control of the Overton window. Giving the illusion of a free market of ideas while towing establishment line.
Nick Robinson and the BBC during the Scottish independence referendum. Disgusting behaviour. And the less said about Andrew Neil and Laura Kuensberg, the better.
Anyone else seeing Bernard Black?
thanks for the interview -- i found it interesting and informative and welcomed Rob Burley's "You've got to try" attitude -- as he pointed out, "It's easy to be cynical", which often seems to be synonymous with "lazy thinking"
Hear hear. Laziness is always with us.
Laziness and a desire of non-thinkers to appear knowing and clever. The same ingredients which nowadays, played out in social media, give us a plague of conspiracy-theories. Like malaria borne by a swarm of mosquitoes.
Great interview.
Fascinating interview. Will be buying the book.👍
Sadly, we are seeing now the death of journalism. And I know - I've been in it for 34 years.
Are you in print journalism?
good interview and he has it hit the nail on the head
I like this guy, you can instantly tell he's a straight up man that would value an employee that made a major fuck up but was honest about it, than a minor mistake where they tried to bullshit about it. Good work PoliticsJOE
Killing it with the guests lately guys!
GBNews really should be re-named GBTV
What’s wrong with GBebees?
you mean GBerish tv
Asking a politician ‘How much is a gallon of milk these days?’ is absolutely NOT a cheap shot or a gotcha question.
I wonder if this jackal knows how much HE reveals about all that continues to be wrong in media - not just the issues he has writes about, there remains an absence of self awareness that doesn’t even register with him…
I think there is a fair point to it being a cheap shot, as it doesn't actually say anything about their policies or ability to do their job. A gotcha which is actually centered on something they ought to be able to answer because it's their job has more value.
@@davidpacker7602 I’d offer that sexism & classism underpin the assumption that it’s a cheap shot, circling back to my point about lack of self awareness. Policy chops & the ability to do the job are scaffolding around the structure of being a human being that lives in the world.
@jess4048 what do u mean by sex?
Sexism*
@@callummcgregor4589 please tell me you’re joking.
the term gotcha came from saturday primetime tv shows and was then used to describe other things including politics
I am not a Stamer fan. But looking back at the 13 to 14 years of Tory politics and then looking at Blair's time in office, I think Blair on average did more good. Except for the wars, Tuition fees, and PPE. I am more left and a JC supporter, unfortunately, the majority are more to the center. I will vote tactically at the next election to get the Torys out. The big question for me is will any party in power support PR. Yes, we may have some ultra-right-wing MPs getting elected. But is that not democracy.
I am mmore left wing than most but Corbyn was a buffoon, even McDonald was not really practical.
Do you think that there is any connection between the fact that Brits are often centrist with the facts that there has been no left government for 50 years, and that except for 4 years, the Labour Party has effectively accepted neoliberal capitalist doctrine for 40 years?
I voted Corbyn in as leader of the Labour party. I wish I gave Andy Burnham my vote now.
@@Oflaherty86 Burnham 2015 was much more right wing. He has become much more left wing since he became Manchester mayor.
@@slightlyconfused876Enlighten is as to why Corbyn was a buffoon? Other than the fact he didn't do the correct thing and purge the Labour party of the Tories, such as Starmer?
Was Diane Abbott having a diabetic event?
She got a number wrong by a factor of 10. It is a relatively easy mistake to make if you are memorising numbers from a briefing document.
The BBC falls foul of "false equivalence" . You have two people of different parties. So that's equal? Depends on what they say!
It one tells a plain fact and the tells a lie, would the viewer assume "impartiality" and draw a line in the middle ?
That's what happens on some BBC political programmes! Check out Joe Lycett on Laura Kuenssberg one Sunday last year! 😃
Andrew Marr and Emily Maitliss have gone from the BBC!
Really appreciate the point on cynicism. I think people often give in to cynicism because it allows them to feel a bit smart and aloof, when all they're really doing is lowering their expectations to the point that they'll never be disappointed. People mistake blanket cynicism for a non-partisan position, but it isn't. But it leads to that whole "all as bad as each other" mentality, which is great news for those who are very much worse - they get to be seen as only as bad as everyone else!
Being less cynical requires us to investigate and learn - to find out who actually is worse and keep track of the ongoing political soap opera. It's exhausting, and I totally get why people would rather dismiss it all as beneath them.
Well said,
If it makes you angry, why keep pursuing the concept of politics, which is screaming? IT IS NO LONGER FIT FOR PURPOSES . At what point in evolution are we going to say, "This doesn't work anymore."
Great discussion, guys.
Excellent interview! 👏👏👏
Interesting interview, weird seeing Ollie getting condescended to so hard. This guy comes off like a greasy steamroller, he’s why we can’t have nice things.
One of the worst things in political journalism is the demand for obsequiousness in exchange for access. If you ask Politician A a hard question, you won't be allowed to ask Politician A any more questions. So you can have access to these politicians... as long as you don't do any of the things that would make access beneficial to you.
I wish more political media was just not about trying to get interviews with politicians. Because it's not like we really need it. Sure, you might get the odd Paxman/Howard moment, but for the most part, it's just getting a spokesman to recite a script which, if you waited an hour or so, you could just read for yourself. (I know this is covered in the interview, but I wonder if part of the problem is that the interviewer needs the knowledge to know for certain that the interviewee is talking shit.)
I'd much rather the news did more actual analysis. Given the choice, I'd rather be told what Politician A said, what it means, and why it's probably bullshit. If him being in the room gets in the way of that, why bother?
Legacy media is dying. You can find the type of political news coverage you speak of on UA-cam and elsewhere, independent and directly funded by viewers. Owen Jones and Novara Media are good examples. They play clips of speeches, then critically analyse them.
@@theskankingpigeon965 - I agree. If you want an hour-long disection of a single issue, you're not going to find it on the BBC. They're too obsessed with mass appeal, which to them seems to mean "don't upset the boomers".
TV just doesn't allow for the kind of deeper analysis that can make covering politics worthwhile, rather than just a platform for soundbites. Politicians have got very good at wasting airtime, and the media either hasn't caught up, or is hampered in doing so.
Neil’s partiality showed through even at the BBC. He may has growled equally loudly at both Tories and Labour politicians but I noticed that he often growled more difficult and detailed questions at leftie politicians. I remember one occasion when he threw a few generic, predictable questions at the Tory guest, he then went into decimal-point detail with Barry Gardiner who, fortunately, was up to the job. Neil was no ‘Rolls Royce’ especially not without the BBC behind him.
Great interview!
Take yesterday on the News Channel. Starmer giving his speech at the Scottish Labour Party Conference. Interrupted so that the ending (important to capture reaction from audience) was cut to go to a journo from the Independent to comment on what his opinion was of what Starmer said. This covering a person who may well be our next Prime Minister -whereas a non urgent item re a King's cancer diagnosis - which we still do not have - cut everything else off our screen.
Neither man in this discussion says what the GATT Treaty paragraph 5(c) actually said, only that Boris Johnson didn't know what it said (see first 10 minutes) . To say that a lot of this conversation is rambling is an understatement.
What a surprise he has a book to plug..
"Nation Shall Speak Truth Unto Nation". Whatever happened? I lived by that. Lived for that. Where did that go?
Great video
Great interview
@2-41 "GIves us an advantage against a minster who does this job all day long". WHHHHHAAAAATTTTTTT! Are you mental? it's YOU that does it all day long mate! Ministers are busy governing! What a slip!!
This was so good!!!! I love Politics Joe. Why is it that I find the Pubcast analysis of PMQs so irritating even though I am besotted with Ava?
Best producer of political tv from the last 20 years.
You wont have heard, but BBC Scotland had to issue more error corrections last year than all of their other UK regional and national offices combined.
8 Jan 2024 - BBC Scotland issued a correction on its initial correction after the broadcaster discovered it, too, contained “inaccurate phrasing”.
Something is far wrong with the media here if our national broadcaster has to issue so many error corrections for news aimed at 5.7m Scots.
Where did you get the extra 300,000 from? 5.44 million in the last census, although 5.7million sounds more impressive…
@@lookherenow It was an approximation, but so many error corrections for news aimed at even fewer people, does indeed sound impressive...In all the wrong ways.
Stop the licence fee and make the BBC compete in the market place... and watch it disappear.
Walden on LWT cost an absolute fortune to produce. Those were the days.
"Centre left bias" what a joke
It's metro Liberal London dominanted.
@evolassunglasses4673 tory chairman gives secret loan to tory pm, tory DG who is literally a tory activist sets bbc standards, revolving door between directors in the BBC and those in number 10 when Tories are in government, most prominent political commentator was chairman of the right wing spectator magazine which went as far as to support neonazis but okay
Centre left is what we used to call right.
centre left to you is probably deng xiaoping
"centre left" means "I am a realist but in my heart of hearts I'm on the side of good".
He sounds like a BBC employee. The cadence of his voice is a dead giveaway.
That chair makes Oli look like he has his hands behind his back and someone else is sticking their arms through
Not on the podcast yet?
I'd rather be cynical than naive
False dichotomy
@@mauvegreenwisteria3645 i didn't say it was a dichotomy. And my preference still stands
Surely not?!? I wouldn't have ever considered that unless you pointed it out 😅
back in the day!! i remember having to get through Walden, then Police 5, to get to SMURFS lol #boringlifeinthe80s
appreciate the interview. don't agree with everything but good to hear from behind the earpiece. HOWEVER i don't know how lads can sit cross legged like that...crushing news...
The epitome of the “gotcha” question could be found in the interviews of the Washington establishment journalist Tim Russert in the first decade of this century, so much so that when he died, rather unexpectedly, in 2008, sites made compilations of his most “memorable” “gotcha” moments.
Most often, these moments consisted of Russert saying something like “This week you said _x_ was _y._ But”-and here he’d have some malevolent Grinch-like grin-“didn’t you say, in 2004, that _x_ _wasn’t_ _y_ ?” and maybe he’d roll a clip of the person saying just that. (He was also the journalist who asked each of the Democratic candidates during the 2008 debates what their favorite Bible verse was.) It passed for “tough” journalism at the time, at least among the establishment, when it was, in actuality, completely shallow and idiotic and revealed just how _non-confrontational_ US journalism actually was (and is).
fantastic
9:37 I’d argue that the 5c question is a “gotcha moment”, but that not all “gotcha moments” are gratuitous, pointless and underhanded. When a journalist catches out a politician on something they really should be across or is able to use the words of a pollie to disprove their own narrative, they have “got them”, but that is exactly what they should have done in those circumstances. I’d argue that the problem is the skewed perception people have of those moments because of the narratives of politicians and the genuine examples of grubby and gratuitous so-called “gotcha moments” that do happen.
I am always quoting Brian Walden who would listen attentively to some hapless politician and then politely say "Let me see if I've got this right..." before summarising the contradictory and duplicitous account just delivered. It was so much more effective than the pathetic repetition of a question that a politician is refusing to amswer. Brian Walden assumed the viewer had a brain and could judge for themselves if a politician was lying or obfuscating. And yes ...we can!
Excellent interview by Oli, as always. Pity about the click bait headline. That journalists in general veer slightly left of centre is no revelation. And how any organisation that had Andrew Neil as a presenter for decades can be a leftie stronghold begs belief. But apart from that nit it was the usual excellent thought provoking interview.
The "argument" that if the 'left and the right are complaining equally about about the BBC then they must be getting it about right' is just completely moronic.
The BBC just practices "Dynamic silence.
So what DOES 5(c) of the GATT have to say?
Politicians turn up, lie for 5minutes and then leave. They think we do not recognise this? They are afraid to have to answer a question. Truly we are in a political abyss at present, they are all lying, incompetent, inept, corrupt, careerists only interested in their bank balance.
Rishi Sunak always strikes me as being the school prefect telling others not to run in the corridors or he would take their names and tell the head.
The other impression he gives me is of a team manager at a call centre who loves team meetings and doing staff assessments where he tells you how good you’ve done but always has to find a negative to show he’s your team manager leaving you thinking ‘what a prat’.
I hired Brian to host lunches with Mrs Thatcher and the biggest UK investors after she made leader of the Tory. No-one knew her and what she stood for. They were outstanding events.
Well, I will be going to that Walden interview directly... I confess to being in the same age bracket: I knew they were doing important blah blah, but I guess I couldn't get over Walden's slight speech impediment: kept thinking about whether we were going to welease Woger 😂
My autocorrect is gonna haunt me for that... Digital karma.