Biased BBC
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Natalie #
'Cos Doctor says. A BBC report, Patients going 'private' on NHS by Nick Triggle, says:
Thousands of patients a month in England are using a government reform to get what is effectively private treatment paid for by the taxpayer.
Patients have the right to opt for any NHS hospital or private unit that can offer the care at NHS cost.
In little over 12 months, the number opting for private hospitals has risen 10-fold to over 3,500 a month.
This story caught the attention of Tom Bowman at the Adam Smith Institute blog, who writes
You might think that everyone would consider this a good thing, but unfortunately you would be wrong. Just read the BBC article I linked to above, the implicitly negative slant jumps off the page every bit as much as the organization's left-wing bias. Take the first paragraph as an example: "Thousands of patients a month in England are using a government reform to get what is effectively private treatment paid for by the taxpayer."
Couldn't they just have said, "Thousands of English patients are now getting better treatment at no additional cost to the taxpayer", instead?
That would be an equally valid statement of the facts. The question of why the BBC couldn't just - and just couldn't - have said it is an interesting one, covered elsewhere on this blog.
However there is an even worse example of bias in the next sentence from Mr Triggle:
Doctors said patients needed to think carefully as vital NHS money was being lost to private health providers.
Emphasis added. I note this partly in obedience to the necessary convention that quotes are not doctored without warning, partly because it helps the reader better amuse him or herself when repeating these words in a voice modelled on that of an awestruck student nurse rebuking a recalcitrant patient inCarry On Nurse.
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