It is hard to contemplate a world where people are unbiased. Most people are biased, understandably, towards the things that matter to them. Family, of course, but also friends and home and probably their immediate environment. For all the problems and difficulties work brings, it's fair to say there is a bias in most workers towards the business or whatever that it should keep going and paying wages.
There are also, less obvious biases in our lives. The adoration of a certain sports team, the love of a certain novelist or singer or even the nature of one's beliefs. Plenty of things tilt us one way or another, either in favour or not.
Most of this bias is sometimes contradictory (just tell me, how can I love someone in my family who nakedly supports one of the worst football teams ever?) but we cope by adjusting and perhaps compartmentalising. In other words, we get by with balance. Few of us anyway, wants to lean too far one way in case we fall over.
But then there are biases that are almost undetectable, and I am looking at you here, BBC.
It is no secret in my family that I think the BBC, or Al-beeb as I call them, are not my favourite entity. Sure, they put out some good programmes but they also put out a lot of dross and no matter how professionally presented it is still dross. Okay, I accept that's the nature of the media: not everything is gold.
Some, for example will think EastEnders a deep and searching examination of the life and loves of a small community, and others will think it is a shallow shout-fest where no one likes each other and has a major crisis in their lives every two months -- at least when it is their turn to be on screen. The BBC naturally believes this is good for us, but that's their bias. They are entitled to their view as they built the sets, after all.
But I am more worried about their supposed unbiased news. A core element of Al-beeb has been the continual drip-drip of propaganda that they are unbiased and merely report what's happening. They are an institution and even were called Aunty because we all loved our aunties, right? Yes, even dear aunt Mavis who has too much of the cooking sherry at Christmas, loveable old nutcase that she is.
But this came to mind when I heard a top member of Aunty's elite (and God knows there are plenty of them all well-paid by the ludicrous concept of a Telly Tax you cannot escape and they can squander) who said he was proud of the Beeb's unbiased news output.
Shocked? I nearly dropped my guide to what's coming on other channels.
I was listening to Al-beeb's flagship news the other day from another room, rather than watching it. I admit I often avoid Aunty's output on current affairs (I admire people who can watch Newsnight and not feel ill) but it was on in another room, so I listened. Without the pictures which play a huge part in news -- the tradition was if you didn't have pictures it wasn't important news -- there was a faintly hectoring moral correctness about what was said by the newsreader and the various correspondents.
They knew, you see, what was good for us. they knew how we should be thinking. To this end they often spice up little bits of news with slightly biased but friendly hints; a 'British' man they say was killed in Syria, fighting to oust the dictator Assad. being the Beeb there is no question asked about how 'British' he was or why he was interfering in someone else's civil war, or more likely tribal conflict.
An elderly muslim male is killed by an immigrant who wanted to spark, the Beeb tells us, a race war. But at the same time they are telling us the old man is a pensioner (thus nicely bracketing the poor unfortunate man in a sympathetic light) they are loathe to tell us that the murderers of Lee Rigby wanted a race war. That would, they suggest, stir up unfair hatred.
On this front, Al-beeb often talk about the fears of the muslim community over a backlash over some islamist activity, which neatly waters down the difficult task of telling us what was done and avoids telling us mayhem was on our streets.
When Gordon Brown made some almighty screw up with the economy in his time (yes, I know, it's hard to figure which one it was among so many) Aunty was quick to lead with the headline that told us the Prime Minister promised to try harder in future. Better, they might say in Al-beeb's offices, than telling viewers and listeners and internet readers what had actually been cocked up.
The promise of hope and change trumps all else, apparently.
The sneering in a BBC reporter's voice when asking the then Tory opposition what they intended to do, moments after toadying praise for all things Labour controlled along with softly-lobbed questions to some state-loving socialist, had to be heard to be believed. Anyone would think the reporter loved NuLab more than unbiased reporting.
When that large clothing factory collapsed on the Indian subcontinent at a terrible loss of life a while ago, Al-Beeb's man by the pile of rubble was quick to tell us it was where we got our cheap clothes from. Did you feel guilty about going to places like Primark with this news ringing in your ears? Maybe not, but I think you were meant to feel bad that you had caused it with your careless demand for cheap vests and tank tops, if anyone still wears them.
Nearer home, there was good news the other day about the economy. But dear old Aunty Al followed up in the next breath with boiler-plate socialism by asking how much of this improvement was reaching us ordinary folk? Rising prices and bills were immediately mentioned. Yes, it was serious: improvements in industry but not in our pockets. The news reader frowned at us too so we got the message. You see, Al-beeb likes state control; they benefit from it enormously. It pays their wages without question and allowed them to send 600-odd staff to the Beijing olympics when the vast majority of them could have stayed at home and taken the Chinese media's live feed and made comments from the studio basement.
No, surely not, you say! People like football commentators needed be there to help report on the football which, er, isn't a big olympic sport.
If you want further news on this, just check how many BBC reporters get to report from the US of A or do features or series about life across the pond. They like that we pay for them to get the best, but they go there to tell us how bad for example this Tea-Party lot are for having demonstrations where they don't rape anyone, avoid spoiling the environment, can't bring themselves to crap on police cars or worse of all, take their litter home.
Now this to me is typical of Al-beeb's on-going hectoring tone and unnamed biases. We, the people are wrong not to love all immigrants. We the people aren't served by an improved economy. We the people don't need to know what screw ups are made if it was Labour doing the screwing. We the people have to feel guilty because we shop at places that encourage buildings to collapse. We the people don't need a balanced view at all. We only need Al-beeb's subtly (and not so subtly) biased view to educate us.
Above all, we do need to pay for shout-fests among all the Attenborough documentaries. And pay you shall, whether you watch any of it or now. Owning a TV is reason enough and in time you can bet they will press for a slice of internet provider fees because their web-presence is so huge. So important to us all, they are sure.
Al-beeb tell us this in little ways, with lots of little digs and hints. And they will frown and speak sternly if we even begin to object to it.
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