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Media bias

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/30/bbc-question-time-audience-leaders-special

I read of this first in the Daily Telegraph and thought it was a very interesting definition of 'left wing' that embraces the Liberal Democrats (only in the United States possibly...). For that matter the UK Conservative Party would probably be dangerously liberal in the US!

However, more broadly, I thought it abiding strange that a politician vying to be the Prime Minister would not be happy to be in front of an audience of any cross-section of the nation's citizens and respond to their concerns and questions. You thought that might be the mark of a healthy democracy and of the confidence in which the candidate held the importance and truthfulness of their understanding of the world and vision for the country.

Better to my mind that the BBC simply selected a group of interested citizens at random than try the futile task of 'balance'. Balance should be in the presentation of the candidates and their air time, not in citizen's access to those who deign to represent them.

Meanwhile, the idea of the Daily Telegraph complaining of 'bias' is wholly laughable given that it has descended, more than most privately held media outlets in the UK (not covered by the provisions for balance attaching to broadcasters), into the status of a propaganda sheet, manipulated by the eccentric demands of their brotherly owners.

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