Student Fees - impartiality?
SteveBentley
Posts: 2,003 Forum Member
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Just an idle thought - a number of BBC Local Radio presenters also lecture in journalism or broadcasting at various universities (I can think of two at Radio Leeds alone).
Given that the tuition fees situation has the potential to mean job losses at universities, should these presenters be declaring these interests on air, particularly when conducting interviews?
Given that the tuition fees situation has the potential to mean job losses at universities, should these presenters be declaring these interests on air, particularly when conducting interviews?
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On 5live the worst offenders are Fogarty, Derbyshire and Nolan who can barely conceal their left-wing bias.
Like it or lump it, the UK has a national debt of £4 Trillion pounds, mostly caused by the Blair & Brown years of spend, spend, spend. But who's money were they spending...? Ours!
The new coalition government are looking like the bad guys from those who do not understand politics, and those who are left of the middle, and they need to understand the cuts are needed to get Britain back on the straight & narrow, due to the reckless spending of the past 13 years! If the students realised this, they would take it on the chin, or seek other ways of getting on in life, other than the mentality of 'Uni is the only way.' :rolleyes:
In all honesty, in six months' time, government supporters are likely to look back upon these times as comparatively happy times.
I've noticed middle aged presenters on commercial stations trying too hard to take the students' side on the matter too. These are stations where most of the producers and office staff are cheap graduates, fresh out of Uni or even technically doing work experience (despite being in their 20s), lucky if they get so much as a few quid for their travel.
It led me to wonder whether some savvy presenters, who have managed to remain on air after 50 by not ruffling the wrong feathers, don't want to upset the only people they have to rely on at work anymore, or want to be rememebred as a student hater in a few years from now when the younger people on the marches are themselves making the tea and answering the phones at the same radio station, let alone a few years on from that when they start to become important members of staff.
In a strange way, leaving Uni with large debts means you never really move on in the same way as leaving school. One day the media is going to end up full of people in their 30s still living under the shadow of student loan repayments (or in their 40s remembering only too well how they spent years working long hours paying it off whilst making a decent life for themselves), and therefore much more sympathetic/biased toward the current crop of students protesting about things. The media as a whole may become generally more biased toward students in the future.
And as you say, with the media already being full of freelancers with fingers in so many pies, there are all sorts of conflicting interests and ulterior motives at work already.
It all depends how quickly the fees are implemented and how it affects admissions. The current fees sit at just over £3000 per year for a BA programme in most instances, so if the fees triple then the admissions can decrease by two thirds and the Uni's won't lose any money.
If they stay the same or even increase then there's the prospects of the Uni's having more money to employ more staff.
I don't think it's a case for stations - as with most students - of the level that the fees are set at, it's more to do with the Lib Dems signing pledges saying they wouldn't raise them that angers people.
It's not an issue anyone, especially BBC stations, can avoid - and one that's VERY hard to talk about on air without giving some sort of opinion on the subject. As long as they're not forcing their views on guests or listeners then I don't see a problem.
Incidentally I notice that Anna Ford was Chancellor of the Victoria University of Manchester for the last five years of her newsreading career, John Simpson is the Chancellor of Roehampton University and Trevor McDonald was Chancellor of London South Bank University.
Whilst Chancellor is mainly an honorary figurehead role it does seem strange that journalists would get involved in such an appointment (which could be seen to compromise their impartiality on education matters) whilst still active in journalism.
I think you're overlooking that there will also be a significant cut in government funding for many courses. Lots of universities have warned that there will be redundancies.
Correct - although I would stress that I'm not accusing either of being anything other than impartial, just questioning the general principle.
Fair point - however a lot of Uni's (mine included) were facing cuts before the tuition fee debate got to the stage it's at now anyway, and as such some of my lecturers were made redundant. Government funding for courses may fall but logically that should only be comparative to how much they're raising fees.
Then again, 6 months ago they weren't cutting fee's anyway..... *ahem*
So how about the Sky News or commercial radio presenters who also lecture at universities. Should they be declaring their interests?
The short answer is "no". A couple have people have attempted to make this thread another BBC bashing gripe, but here's the reality.
1. The idea of "impartiality" does not mean "perfect balance". It never has. The BBC's Editorial Guidelines set out the principles and they're published online. For those that can't distinguish between the two, go and have a look. As for declaring interests, there would only be a need to do this if a presenter was speaking in a personal capacity about his or her job, and the impact that fees might have on it. Any professional journalist can make the distinction.
2. The BBC's full of lefties.... yes of course it is; that's why Alistair Campbell was frequently ranting to the DG and anyone else who would listen about the anti-Labour bias during the Blair years. That's why the Blair Government framed Greg Dyke over the David Kelly affair. Read a couple of modern history books and you'll see that wasn't the first time it happened.
The point is that the BBC will always be accused of anti Government bias, whoever's in powe, often because it's simply challenging those in charge.
"Nick [Ferrari] looks out over the Thames Barrie, which protexts London from a 90cm rise in water levels which would affect 400,000 properties along the Thames."
Perhaps it's only fair that students who can't even spell and think Winston Churchill was the fourth Ghostbuster should have to pay a fortune to go to University, just like civilians have to pay the Russians a fortune to become a space tourist, whereas those who have a genuine reason to be there do not? 'Cos everybody hates a tourist, especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh.
Why is the only coverage on uni fees, what about EMA?
I didn't mention them because I'm not aware of any (I did mention Trevor McDonald's Chancellorship) - I'm disappointed by the BBC bashing on this thread too.
A very, very accurate post!
Agreed. The BBC and Sky can't win sometimes.
I think all sides have been allowed to express their points of view on the BBC. Leeds uni students have staged a sit-in. Radio Leeds has covered both sides in its news coverage and not tried to influence listeners.
I think if BBC staff were going to be obviously biased, they would be over matters that directly affect them such as the freezing of the licence fee and industrial disputes.
With more BBC presenters using Twitter, people can have a look at their tweets to see if they express more biased views.
Dan, Dan.......Dan.........Dan.........Dan!........Dan!.......Dan!...Dan!!...Dan!!...Dan!!!...Dan!!!!...Dan!!...Dan!!...Dan!!...Dan!!!...Dan!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2D3-FkoXNU