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Osem · 13-10-2016, 10:34

What constitutes independence or bias in the context of an issue like Brexit? Can anyone be truly unbiased on such a matter and how do we know how much 'bias' has been applied* to the gathering, interpretation and/or presentation of the 'facts' our 'experts' (on both sides) rely upon?

* whether deliberately, unintentionally, directly or indirectly.

The Beeb is supposed to be fairly unbiased isn't it? Well I've just heard a BBC TV news reporter commenting on a report (linked to a BBC investigation) about mistakes made by Concentrix in their handling of tax credit claims. In her words: 'many people were having their money stopped by mistake'.

Is that unbiased? It could be argued that it's just vague or deliberately intended to create a certain impression. If the figures are available why weren't they or even estimates given? If there are no figures how do we know it's 'many' people who're affected? What percentage of claimants have had their payments wrongly stopped? 50%, 20%, 10%, 2%, 0.01%? Even the latter might turn out to be quite a number but without any reference to actual numbers it could be argued that deliberately choosing the word 'many' was intended to give the impression of a bigger problem when using the word 'some' would have had less impact and therefore be less newsworthy. Now of course having payments stopped is likely to be a big issue for those affected and 1 mistake is 1 too many but if the overall percentage of mistakes made was just a couple of percent or even less, it's hard to imagine that much more could be done to improve matters since no system is ever perfect and some mistakes will always slip through. So is this sort of thing just sloppiness or bias? Whatever the reason/intention, something as simple as the choice of a word can have a big bearing on the conclusions which will be drawn so we can have no guarantees of veracity.

There are so many questions and unknowns surrounding everything that Brexit involves that seeking certainty, total independence or whatever is going to be like searching for the Holy Grail. Furthermore if we start dismissing every source of information because, just for example, someone involved is paid via the EU or is a member of UKIP etc. etc., I think we're going to be left with our own gut feeling to go on. Being 'biased' doesn't preclude anyone from being right but being 'independent' doesn't guarantee it either. Who's the arbiter of bias?

13-10-2016, 10:34	#1943
Osem Inactive Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Right here! Posts: 22,315	Re: Post-Brexit Thread What constitutes independence or bias in the context of an issue like Brexit? Can anyone be truly unbiased on such a matter and how do we know how much 'bias' has been applied* to the gathering, interpretation and/or presentation of the 'facts' our 'experts' (on both sides) rely upon? * whether deliberately, unintentionally, directly or indirectly. The Beeb is supposed to be fairly unbiased isn't it? Well I've just heard a BBC TV news reporter commenting on a report (linked to a BBC investigation) about mistakes made by Concentrix in their handling of tax credit claims. In her words: 'many people were having their money stopped by mistake'. Is that unbiased? It could be argued that it's just vague or deliberately intended to create a certain impression. If the figures are available why weren't they or even estimates given? If there are no figures how do we know it's 'many' people who're affected? What percentage of claimants have had their payments wrongly stopped? 50%, 20%, 10%, 2%, 0.01%? Even the latter might turn out to be quite a number but without any reference to actual numbers it could be argued that deliberately choosing the word 'many' was intended to give the impression of a bigger problem when using the word 'some' would have had less impact and therefore be less newsworthy. Now of course having payments stopped is likely to be a big issue for those affected and 1 mistake is 1 too many but if the overall percentage of mistakes made was just a couple of percent or even less, it's hard to imagine that much more could be done to improve matters since no system is ever perfect and some mistakes will always slip through. So is this sort of thing just sloppiness or bias? Whatever the reason/intention, something as simple as the choice of a word can have a big bearing on the conclusions which will be drawn so we can have no guarantees of veracity. There are so many questions and unknowns surrounding everything that Brexit involves that seeking certainty, total independence or whatever is going to be like searching for the Holy Grail. Furthermore if we start dismissing every source of information because, just for example, someone involved is paid via the EU or is a member of UKIP etc. etc., I think we're going to be left with our own gut feeling to go on. Being 'biased' doesn't preclude anyone from being right but being 'independent' doesn't guarantee it either. Who's the arbiter of bias? Last edited by Osem; 13-10-2016 at 11:12.