A newspaper cannot be neutral. The real problem with the BBC is that it is officially proud to be neutral but it is not. I way prefer a lot of non neutral papers, where I know before hand their base political/economic/social views. This way I can go and read both sides of the story or if not that important, read just one side knowing that it is a partial view.

The BBC is by far the most neutral news source I have ever encountered. It's constantly subject to attack by both the government and the public, to the extent that it's terrified to take a stance on any issue.

This is what you think and this is the problem because you are not alone at all. I highly recommend you reading this book: "NEWSPEAK in the 21st Century". It is highlighting the fact that the BBC is not neutral for a lot of critical issues. This is why I prefer "opinionated" papers.

Sorry for this thread going maybe a bit off-topic, but this a subject I am pretty attached too. Again, I am not saying that the BBC is not doing great work, but just that it is not as neutral as what the opinion think it is.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/NEWSPEAK-21st-Century-David-Edwards/...

Thanks for the book tip will have a look at it.

Having worked in news for some years and seen how (esp. online) news are produced and weighted for priority, it is to say, that it is quite a sad state of affairs.

I stopped reading the news, following any news at all. If news do reach me and my interest exceeds a internal threshold, I start investigating the topic further.

So having a view from outside my home country might be interesting.

Cowardice is not neutrality. This is how we get global warming denialism given unreasonable amounts of airtime, using the "Views On Shape Of Earth Differ" approach.

Yes, that's a problem. But the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Hold on - there's no 'it' (it can rarely be said to speak with one voice) and where do you get 'terrified' from? 'Attack' is also pejorative. It is entirely appropriate that a public broadcasting organization paid for license holders to the tune of £3.7 billion or so, is subject to extensive positive and negative critical comment.

BBC neutral? Jokes on you :)

They're not supposed to be taking a stance, only reporting, that's the whole point.

There are basically no neutral papers in the UK. The Independent sort of tries, and the FT/Economist tend to be accurate with the facts but reflexively probusiness/neoliberal.

The Economist is increasingly pro-BIG-business, pro-establishment, rather than fair/free-market (as it used to be).

Good to know that I'm not the only one who's noticed this. It used to be my favorite paper, but I'm disappointed with the direction it's taken lately.

There's no requirement to or expectation that they will be. Papers are not required to present any kind of balance, as long as what they say is broadly true (external pluralism), for a given value of true. The broadcast media (the free-to-air ones) are required to be demonstrably internally pluralistic, to show a variety of sources and viewpoints within their output - and that applies across BBC, ITV, Ch4 and Channel 5, but not Sky News; goes back to when Radio came on stream in the 1930s.

Yes. Americans keep expecting "neutrality", which is hard to define and impossible to achieve.

The FT is not that neoliberal, it is fairly generally liberal, and generally more left wing than most of its readership by quite a margin, although it is quite varied.

Left-leaning? So privacy is a left-wing thing?

Left and right are increasingly meaningless labels. These days it is more pro-establishment vs anti-establishment.

For example, the most vocal people on privacy are an amalgam of independent thinkers on the "left" (The Guardian, etc) and independent thinkers on the "right" (Ron Paul, etc.)

While the "leftist" Hillary Clinton calls Snowden a traitor (so do a lot of "right"-wing people, too).

Although Britain's left wing party, Labour, is pro surveillance, even it seems under Corbyn, who is himself a target.