Trump

But you expect that from Fox. What do you think of UK media constantly giving a platform to someone like Farage with his Soros conspiracy theories, and support for people like Erdogan and Orban?

The BBC comes to mind.

I have believed this for a while, that many people who work for the BBC are far-right.

Look at the QT invitations to Farage, and the general normalising of fascist elements (Bannon, Bolsonaro).

I actually doubt that. I think most are soppy middle of the road centrists who think that good journalism means treating all ideas fairly, including regularly platforming fascists - they probably think its hard hitting, important and serious lol. Fox on the other hand just do it because they support it. In that sense, the BBC is in some ways worse.

Too right. There’s this reluctance to call a spade a spade in the media. Look at how often the US media uses words like “mistruths” or “falsehoods” instead of “lies” when Trump makes some shit up. It drives me up the wall.

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They make up the majority, for sure, but I am convinced there are far right elements involved.

Like I remember reading a few QT producers were Ukippers

UKIP does not equate to far right

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That’s true but it does attract voters who have no far right candidates.
In a way it’s the almost acceptable face of the far right.

Though there’s certainly some overlap, I’d have to agree in general terms.

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No one with far right beliefs would ever progress to a position of influnce within the BBC.

Not sure if Farage on QT or a Tommy Robinson newsnight focus is proof of anything than BBC giving fair representation

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More like that exposure to the public from purported reputable organisations got them increased support.

Farage has no right to the amount of exposure he has got, we all know this.

People that vote ukip are more likely to support Britain first and other far right organisations, and people like that are everywhere. (52% voted leave - now I’m not saying everyone that voted leave is far right, but a proportion of that 52% will hold those views, still a lot of people) it’s not out the question that they could hold ordinary jobs, like QT producers.

You think this because he occupies a different side of the polictical spectrum to you.

Whether you like him or not, his place on a QT panel discussing Brexit and issues surround it is appropriate imo

Farage is a fairly grassroots politician who built his base up as an outsider really. Whether it leads to more support for him is irrelevant. It’s the BBC job to present the facts and opinions of relevant trends in a balanced and fair way then let individuals decide.

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Check out this news

He has never been an MP. He has been rejected at the ballot box numerous times.

His party regularly come 4th/5th in elections.

Yet he has the most QT appearances?

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/uk.news.yahoo.com/amphtml/nigel-farage-set-record-question-time-appearances-century-155615416.html

If the BBC truly were giving a representative picture then they’d have a ton more exposure of the Green Party, who regularly outperform UKIP in elections at the council, devolved and parliament level.

The SNP have like 20 times the seats in parliament yet get a fraction of that kind of publicity from the BBC, even if QT is in Scotland.

The BBC have a huge part to play in the rise of his support, and since they haven’t adequately given exposure to equal (actually those with more representation in the country) forces, they are culpable in increasing his support.

This isn’t, ‘give both sides and let people make up their minds’, it’s ‘get a far-right and a centre guy, give the far right as much attention as possible’.

His support grows and the political spectrum shifts further and further right.

Also, with the things he said about ‘swarms’ and the like during the EU campaign, I have to say he is now far-right.

I admit I look at things with the centre ground further left than is the case here (where it should be imo) but still.

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I think the general problem with the media is that they gave undue attention to UKIP before they were relevant or deserving of that much airtime, which was a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy because that undue attention absolutely fuelled their rise to relevance and prominence.

In my opinion anyway, it’s not like I can offer empirical evidence to support this.

It’s a general problem in the media, a skewed sense of what constitutes balance. They think balance means having one person from each side of the debate. They’ll have a qualified highly experienced scientist talking about global warming, and then some tinpot cunt who has no qualifications saying that global warming is a bullshit hoax. They give both equal time in the name of “balance”, but the two are not equally valid, and do not deserve equal weighting. This manner of presenting leaves people thinking that there are two sides to the debate and that both have some merit, when the evidence for global warming is overwhelming and the number of people in the scientific community who think global warming isn’t real is miniscule in comparison, so sceptics shouldn’t be given an equal platform because its misleading and incorrectly frames the debate.

I think this quest for balance can be applied to more straightforward political matters too, climate change/global warming is just a good example to illustrate exactly what I mean in perhaps the clearest and least controversial way I can think of.

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I don’t accept any of this. Farage was the leader of a rising single issue party which commanded the 3rd largest vote share in the 2015 GE, over double of what SNP got. Under a more proportionate electoral system UKIP would have had seats in parliament and would likely be in a coalition with the Tories today if so.

Hes a leading figure of Brexit, It’s absolutely appropriate for BBC to feature him on QT panels about the issue hes essentially know for.

Disagree. Farage was known for using alternative media outlets to promote his agenda his current level of support is down to right wing populism he bulit up through UKIP not the BBC. It’s lazy to attribute his standing and influnce to the BBC in anyway

UKIP got 12.6% of the vote in the 2015 General Election. To say they shouldn’t have been represented is unrepresentive of the voting demographics.

Farage and UKIP also won one of the largest political referendum’s in our modern history. So to say he was rejected at the ballot box doesn’t tell the whole story at all.

For the record I’m centre left myself

I didn’t say that he should have no representation, just proportional to how popular and relevant his party is. Before 2015 he was on more than many Lib Dems, despite having less vote share then. I want to say more than Labour and quite possibly Tory too, but I don’t have the numbers to back that up.

Since 2017, his share has gone down (i.e the amount of people he purports to represent) yet he is on just as much?

Technically that was the leave campaign and the tories, not him although I will concede he had a large part to play in that. That couldn’t have happened without his popularity increase thanks to the been, mind.

My point is that going on the BBC made him relevant as opposed to him being relevant already and then being selected by the BBC because of his relevancy.

@sevchenko I’m interested to know which media outlets he used to build up his popularity before he was on the BBC.

I think that’s fine, as long as he gets called on his bullshit.

Question Time is hosted by the BBC but is a private company programme, I believe, so it will certainly contain some bias. I’ve never considered UKIP representation a bias particularly, but the oft wheeled out right wing commentariat types is odd, though I think it has much to do with who the programme knows, essentially who they have in their phone book lol.

As for the likes of Tommy Robinson I think it’s fine to platform him and to debate openly some of his ideas on Islam, after all lots of it is true, but they really waste their time trying to debate him on the issues, partly because the interviewers are simply not equipped to try and bully him with wishy washy liberal sentiment; what they should do is hold him to account for actions like kicking a women in the head, which would show him as a total thug. Again, being that they are middle of the road centrist wet blankets they probably consider this line of attack impolite and not proper journalism, which makes them idiots as this is the obvious journalistic thing to do.

5 days until the next elections. Can’t wait to get out and put a check on this POS.

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