Not for the media to praise Government

The BBC relies on the government for funding; the board of the BBC itself has government appointed representatives. Sarah Sands, a former right-leaning journalist, became editor of the Today program on Radio 4in

2017. If the BBC has bias against the government then it’s coming from people who notionally support them ideologically.

As for Brexit, it’s hard for a public broadcaster to show ‘balance’ when independent figureheads were being dragged into a partisan debate from both sides. A genuine attempt was made to report and question both sides accurately but their was too much complaint.

A recent YouGov poll said that as of April 26, 47% of those polled said they had ‘a great deal’ or ‘a fair amount’ of trust in BBC News journalists, higher than the other news options including newspapers. I’d personally hold that on higher authority than discussions with some friends. As far as I am aware though, the press should question and analyse actions by an elected government and it should be able to use facts from the past, not hindsight as it was put, to show inadequacies in government policy. If you’re saying the media shouldn’t be questioning the government and getting their response to opposing views then that’s a worrying sign for a democracy.

Besides, the 24-hour media needs conflict of some variety to get viewers, so why would they spend their time praising the government. Their bias is sensationalism.

Lloyd Allen