And I hate the way some people use American spelling (patronizing?) - and iotum - when most people would be OK with iota. But hey....we do understand.

Mark I will accept your statement that the BBC does not always represent the views of the majority or even that it reflects the views of an elite. But how is the majority view for every news item to be established ? Furthermore one of the remits of the BBC is to "educate". How is it to do this without reference to informed opinion outside the organisation?

The problem of balance is a problem for all media organisations and no one is ever fully satisfied.

My view is that, compared with news coverage in the USA, ours is more balanced. Compared with Canadian and possibly Australian media organisations, ours is less parochial.

I do hate the practice often adopted here of, when using a quotation containg a spelling error or typo, using "sic" to point this out. So long as the meaning is understood, why do this? I either ignore the error, or correct it without comment. I don't see why others shouldn't do the same.

ACK

I certainly accept your most recent point - in my opinion ITV, Channel 4 and Sky are all as bad as the BBC when it comes to news - both in terms of their choice of stories to disseminate and the spin they put on them. It's why, as I mentioned on a recent post, I now watch Al Jazeera and RT from time to time (not because they're any better, but because they offer different news stories and different spin, so at least, after filtering, I am better-informed). There'd be no point watching ITV, Channel 4 or Sky as an alternative to the BBC, because their news output represents more of the same.

To that extent, your point that the BBC "reflected the predominant political and the established scientific viewpoint rather than its own" has some merit, but in my opinion, only some. They reflect the views of the elite and the establishment - they do not represent the views of most people, nor do they - in my opinion - offer balance.

Harry. You have a strange idea of what is patronising. My question was a straight question asking you if you really paid attention to that part of my post and its implication. Asked because if you had I believed you would not have responded the way you did (implying that the BBC had its own independent viewpoint). Strange that earlier you accused me of taking offense, when it is now you that are offended for some reason.

We disagree. This discussion is now ended.

After all the dust has settled about Nazi salutes by Trump supporters - and the claim that Trump is therefore a Nazi sympathiser, I have yet to see any comment - ANY - that when HRC had Jay-Z and Beyonce attend her at a campaign rally where Jay-Z was ranting about Ni****s (he might call it singing/rapping). However....being in the company of such lovely people, did that make HRC a racist? One would obviously say, not, but if Trump had had a white supremacist (and Jay-Z is, by any definition, a black supremacist) talking about N*****s he would have been arrested.

These are double standards that cannot be defended.

Mark Hodgson. You are now talking about selection of news items and the relative predominance given to them. This is a matter of editorial judgement (which you are dissatisfied with). Some months ago in connection with a similar "discussion" here, I did a comparison of the different editorial decisions made by the BBC, ITV and Sky News over a week. There was some variation in placement of items, but not as much as you might think, and less variation in the presence or absence of stories (the main variation here was the tendency of ITV to end its bulletins with "happy" stories). I concluded that editorial decisions did not vary much (ie the BBC did not differ much from itts competitors).

However, what I was discussing was the relative importance of balance and context relating to individual news items.

ACK: Oh dear...

Did you not notice that I claimed that the BBC reflected the predominant political and the established scientific viewpoint rather than its own?

I totally disagree that balance should supersede (sic) context

ACK

I'm not sure I agree. Yesterday's news, for instance, was dominated (on the BBC) by the story that the awful murderer of Jo Cox was found guilty of her murder. Yesterday we had the Autumn Statement and the news that a mass murderer of gay men had been found guilty of their murders. But it was the Jo Cox story that dominated (certainly on the World at One on Radio 4, as the Autumn Statement was still ongoing at that point).

Don't get me wrong - the murder of Jo Cox was a terrible tragedy, and the murderer should never see the light of day again, so far as I am concerned. But the BBC basically used the opportunity to regurgitate the collateral stories they like to see given prominence (mainly the issues Jo campaigned for), which they had already done at great length at the time of her murder.

Personally, leaving out the Autumn Statement, on as objective basis as is possible, I should have thought that of two stories of murderers being found guilty on the same day, the one about the mass murderer was the bigger story, but not in the eyes of BBC news editors. And I suspect that the reason is that the BBC look on Jo Cox as "one of their own".

Justin Webb, by the way, in my opinion has completely lost the plot. I wish I could find the transcript, but a few days before Trump won the US Presidential election, he was actively describing Trump (I paraphrase from memory) as a racist, misogynist, sexist bigot. This was expressed, as part of an ill-considered rant from Webb, as fact, not opinion, or as reportage of someone else's statement. It was so OTT I was shocked. I suspect Trump could sue successfully for libel if he could be bothered.

Harry Passfield Did you not notice that I claimed that the BBC reflected the predominant political and the established scientific viewpoint rather than its own?
I totally disagree that balance should supersede context. For a brand new story perhaps (although I would argue that the significance of a brand new story can only be fully appreciated when it is related to other stories (ie its context)). Other items need to be related to earlier developments or to other related stories. News is for the viewer or listener, it needs to be made relevant by relating it to what they already know (or should know) in order to fully appreciate it.