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Both sides think you're biased. That's how the BBC does it.
by ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
Both sides think you're biased. That's how the BBC does it.
- lesuorac 3y agoHow do you do this in a country with more than 2 political parties such as the United States [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_t...
- George83728 3y agos/Both/All/
- concordDance 3y agoMove to Canada, Germany, Australia or wherever.
- lesuorac 3y ago> Move to Canada, Germany, Australia or wherever. Your solution on how to cover a topic in a neutral fashion when there are more than 2 political parties is to move to a country where there are more than 2 political parties? That doesn't seem like a productive comment.
- concordDance 3y agoA Wikimedia based in a country with much less polarised politics will have a much easier time with neutrality. I guess I didn't include enough elaboration in my comment...
- ThrowawayTestr 3y agoThere are only two parties in Canada. Three if you count the Bloc.
- kwooding 3y agoThat’s a weird comment. Were you trying to be sarcastic? There are 3 major federal parties (Liberals, Conservatives, NDP), who received 33%, 33%, and 18% of the popular vote respectively. There are two minor federal parties (Greens and the People’s party) who together took around 7% of the popular vote, and Finally there is the Bloc Québécois. It is a federal party but it exists only in one province. It grabbed around 8% last time. Of course those percentages aren’t entirely representative, because seats are won in a first-past-the-post style in each riding.
- ThrowawayTestr 3y agoThe NDP has never formed a federal government.
- stonogo 3y agoPretending the US has more than two political parties is a weird hobby. There are only two that matter, and it can't be any other way with the current federal election system. It's a problem worth fixing but Wikipedia is not relevant to any solutions.
- lesuorac 3y agoOk but ideally the federal election system will be fixed eventually (and also most of the states). And I'd prefer if then we also didn't need to fix a bunch of other systems because they had a lot of 2 party assumptions baked into them.
- kevviiinn 3y agoOkay but your ideal scenario is not our current reality
- lesuorac 3y agoThe reality is that the US Federal government currently has elected members belonging to neither the Democratic nor Republican party [1] [2] (Sinema doesn't count since she changed her party after being elected). This has been true for the majority of the US's short existence. There is no reason to make long-term decisions based on the current short-term circumstances of a two party dominance. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_Senate_election_in_Vermont https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_Senate_elec... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_Senate_election_in_Maine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_Senate_elec...
- stonogo 3y agoAll of them caucus with one of the two major parties. As with so much in politics, it's a distinction without a difference.
- int_19h 3y agoTwo-party dominance has been a feature of the American political scene since before the Civil War - that is, for most of its existence. I wouldn't call that "current short-term circumstances". It's also very hard to change because both major parties benefit from the existing system and are protective of it, knowing full well that proportional representation would cost them a lot of votes. Republicans usually trot out the old "but small states!" canard, while Democrats are getting creative and claiming that IRV and RCV are racist because e.g. "majority voting may seem innocuous, but if the vote is racially polarized, “runoffs discriminate against Blacks because they are a minority of the voters.”" Given that Congress has the final say on how federal elections are run, I find it rather unlikely that this is going to change anytime soon - at least, not as long as federal politics is consumed almost entirely by polarization and voting against rather than for.
- RugnirViking 3y agoIdk I live in a place like that I find there are still two broad groups of parties that rarely make coalitions a large distance across the divide. It's not like there is only one axis of politics but there is a sort of broad undercurrent of older/conservative and younger/change broad split. But speaking to your point, there is no reason at all why a two party system is required to have a rule of thumb that if everyone thinks you're biased you're on the right track...
- ekianjo 3y agoThe BBC is not neutral. They are the mouthpiece of the UK government.
- gadders 3y agoHardly. They're pro-immigration, anti-Brexit, anti-any cuts anywhere for anything. They're the voice of the Guardian-reading middle classes.
- bluescrn 3y agoTo be fair, pro-immigration is governnment policy too. Just for different reasons. The Tories want cheap labour/low wages, and sky-high house prices.
- gadders 3y agoFair point.
- rsynnott 3y agoThis thread nicely illustrates the BBC's long balancing act. From a (BBC) radio sitcom from the 80s: > [interviewer to Director General of BBC] Director General, everyone seems to hate you. How would you respond? > [DG] Well, I think that shows we have the balance about right.
- ars 3y agoMaybe in the 80s, these days they don't have the balance right.
- ThrowawayTestr 3y agoThis makes me think they do in fact have the balance right
- 3y ago
- bluescrn 3y agoBut being heavily biased in different directions on different issues doesn't sum up to neutrality.
- smsm42 3y agoYou seem to be implying BBC is not biased. I have bad news for you in this case.