He was headhunted from the Express where he used to work by a senior manager who also shifted. He had worked at the Express for many years, starting when it was a respectable broadsheet and not the tabloid rag it is today.

He is a professional, looking after his family’s future, so money talked. He was a sub editor, rewriting copy so it fitted the space available and was in the style of the paper. That’s done by professionals whose personal opinions are irrelevant.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Why? It’s simply untrue. There were several products I was involved in the successful promotion of that I personally disliked. They weren’t aimed at me though. That didn’t mean I was unable to do my job. I was a professional. So are the journalists.

The position is indeed set at the top and the journalists must follow it. If they don’t they won’t last long.

I regret to say that all that is being proved here is that bias does indeed exist, but only in the minds of those who continue to think the BBC shows any.

Murdoch no longer owns Sky. It was sold to Comcast. His influence in the media remains strong though as he owns both the Sun and the Times and in the USA he continues to own, and control, Fox.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Family! That's a bit bourgeois isn't it. How does he expect the Revolution to come about if Comrades have those sorts of attitudes? You wouldn't have caught Fidel Castro working for the Correa Diario.

Edited by georgenorman (21 Apr 2024 3.00pm)

I know it's pretty pointless, but it is amusing to read the replies as they become more and more tenuous.

For the same reason anyone who's vaguely conservative is called an extreme right winger.

Of course we all have biases, or better put, view points, which impact how we think about things. I am instinctively biased against extreme thinking from the left or the right. My instinct is to always try to steer a middle course, to find compromise so that people can work together for the common good.

However there is an enormous difference between what anyone personally thinks and what their job requires of them. Which is especially true of journalists, who need to leave their personal views at home and do what their employer asks them to do. If they were blogging in their own name you can expect the biases. If you read the Mail or watch the BBC you can expect the party line.

It’s a litmus test for a journalist. If they fail it then their contract tends to expire. That’s not to say that papers like the Mail don’t employ leader writers with strong views that set the tone for the paper, which must, in turn, reflect the direction desired by its owner. Not so the BBC where it’s the charter impartiality requirements which are paramount. Professional journalists whose ethics and integrity command they are truth seekers, not politicians, first and foremost, have no difficulty in squaring that circle.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.