BBC under fresh pressure over extent of Reform UK coverage

20 comments

1. A BBC source has said they have tried to include more coverage of the Conservative Party but they’ve searched everywhere for them but they’re nowhere to be found.

   Boom Boom!!

2. I think ITV need to be put under the same pressure too, as they are also obsessed with Reform (at least at a local level)

3. At last it’s being picked up by other media! I’ve already made a complaint to BBC and they didn’t really care

4. I just don’t really see what the fuss is about. The reason the Lib Dem’s don’t get coverage is because very few people actually care about them or what they have to say. It’s hardly a national event whenever Ed Davey does some weird photo op of him serving ice cream or going down a log flume.

5. > Confronted over the issue this week, the BBC director general, Tim Davie, insisted the corporation was not trying to ingratiate itself with Reform with increased coverage.

   Tim Davie was a former Conservative Party candidate. Since becoming Director-General he whined about BBC comedy programmes being too critical of the Tories, banned BBC staff from openly stating specifically progressive political views, and gutted local radio (which is a key pillar in local democracy and transparent journalism).

   It’s very cool that our incumbent government have done precisely *nothing* about this. Day One they should have replaced this Tory political hire with an actual impartial and qualified Director-General. But I guess allowing the state broadcaster to become a propaganda outlet for the hard-right is just fine, I guess? At least they aren’t saying genocide is bad!

6. “Reform featured in 49 bulletins between January and July this year, whereas the Liberal Democrats – the third party in parliament with 72 MPs – featured in 17.9% of bulletins, with 35 references.”

   If you measure according to seats it may seem disproportionate. However, If you look at the votes in the 2024 general election, Reform had 4,117,610 slightly more than the Lib Dems with 3,519,143. This is not far out from how the BBC have proportioned their coverage.

   Furthermore, voting intention is currently 27% Reform compared to 15% Lib Dem. In my opinion, should be hearing about the parties that we are likely to vote for the most, so I don’t think it’s far out to be honest.

   While I understand Reform’s popularity, I am very unconvinced they are the party to solve the UK’s problems. We should be discussing Reform, why they are so popular and the main parties should be taking that into consideration for their own policies to counter Reform. Conjuring reasons (particularly when they are related to the bizarreness of FPTP) to discourage discourse on Reform is not the right play.

7. This is what happens when the supposed right wing party has essentially wandered off into political irrelevance. Reform is on course to make massive gains and quite possibly be the next governing party. The amount of times I’ve heard “I don’t see any alternative to voting Reform” is staggering, even from people who actively dislike Farage.

8. Those odious people have 4 MPs, the same as the Greens. They get grossly excessive media coverage.

9. It is curious how the Lib Dems and Greens, and even Labour’s policies and work they’re doing, don’t get the kind of coverage Reform does.

   It all feels rather engineered. How surprising

10. Our non biased broadcasting service being biased af… No way?!

11. They should cover him a fair amount, more specifically how he dodged taxes and won’t step down.

12. He’s actually annoyingly relevant these days given how Reform are polling, but the BBC should be investigated over the inordinate amount of Farage coverage they’ve provided in general over the decades. They’ve consistently given anything Farage is associated with massively more airtime, back to the UKIP days and I’d argue have worked overtime to raise and maintain his profile for the better part of 2 decades.

    I do somewhat wonder how his seemingly inevitable PM-ship will go, the man has clearly rarely had much interest in actually doing his fucking job and is more interested in gallivanting around the US with his mates while stealing a paycheque. Half of me expects him to torpedo himself so he doesn’t have to do any actual work.

13. There basically only 2 political parties in the UK, and the opposition isnt one of them

14. “When you walk around with a hammer in your hand, every problem looks like a nail.”

    This is true of the BBC and Farage. If you keep looking for a Farage story, every story will look like one.

    People flying flags – Farage

    Boat people – Farage

    Inflation – Farage

    Labour leadership – Farage

    Sneddon by election – Farage

15. People arguing that they get coverage as they are popular don’t realise they are popular because they get more coverage.

16. I now believe that majority of British people are conservative and not progressive, and with every strongly worded letter that comes against farage, there is two beautiful letters with cheques attached to them.

17. There’s no doubt in my mind whatsoever that there’s an ongoing effort both within Reform and the big media blocs to get Farage and the party at large in front of cameras as much as they possibly can.

    You could see it coming from a mile away as soon as Farage was wedged into the cast of I’m a Celeb two years back. All of a sudden he’s wasn’t Mr Brexit, he was just a “down to Earth, older lad from the countryside”, bantering with young podcasters and influencers. Any mentions of Brexit or politics from other contestants that year were noticeably absent compared to other years. Taking Boy George for example, multiple arguments broke out over their being in the camp due to George’s assault convictions.

    It was the perfect starting point for rebuilding Farage’s public image to those who may have previously only heard him mentioned in passing, and so far it’s working like a charm. Ever since Rhys-Mogg got away with hosting GB News while in government, you knew there was going to be no accountability for clear media manipulation.

18. They got more votes than the greens and libdems and are higher in the polls

19. Well no sh*t the media are going to cover the party that’s gone from an outsider to become easily the most popular party in the UK, soon to be our government.

20. If I was a politician from Labour that was being interviewed by Chakrabarti and Stayt on Breakfast and they’d be grilling me, as they do with any politicians, I’d just turn it around call them out as to why the BBC has been giving so much coverage to Reform.

    If Reform do get in, how much should we blame the BBC basically turning into a propaganda wing for Reform despite supposedly being “impartial” and how much do we blame Labour for shitting the bed?

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