12 Mar 2010

OK, so I'm biased. I shall be supporting the underdog

Complaints about yesterday’s blog that there was nothing for my blogista community to get their teeth into – specifically from Jim Flavin that I had not followed up our debate on elderly care. Plus the delightful line from Adrian Clarke that he only joins the Channel 4 News fray to monitor my bias.

I like the concept of bias. Because I think bias is at the root of many of our woes and is an endemic element of the human condition.

There is no such thing as neutrality. The human is not a neutral animal; indeed this is what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal condition. We think, we reason, and we conclude, as individuals. Any journalist who tells you he or she is neutral, is biased against reality.

The best journalists are, and always have been, politically motivated in my biased opinion. Not in a dogmatic, ideological, or party political sense, but in terms of seeking to bring about a better world.

Our mission is to weed out evil and report it, to undermine arrogance and expose it, to be prepared to cry, to laugh, to applaud, to reveal and highlight excellence – in short to admit that we are fully paid up members of the human race. So, Mr Clarke read on, your monitoring of my bias will be fully rewarded. My sense of fairness, objectivity even (at times) will attempt to be beyond your criticism.

As proof, I am biased against hotels that gaze out upon multi story car parks. Yes, I have moved on in my attempt to discover the condition of pre-election Britain.

My iPhone sprang back into life thanks to my cameraman who found out that if you depress on and off at the same time for a few seconds, stuff happens.

The produce of the first of my two days in Luton will cascade onto to C4News anon – I shall return there on Sunday.

I am now in Hull. I have never been here before. It has been dark since I got here, but the place seems to have more industry than I anticipated and more Victorian red brick grace. The place feels more spacious.

But getting here was a revelation. The ever widening of the M1 continues apace. The bumper to bumper 68mph queues are tedious. From time to time the three lanes are now in sight of being four, and the sense of an American freeway is all but here.

The motorway that sweeps east from the M18 to bear us on to Hull is all but deserted – glorious spare capacity that will never be utilised. Hull is nearer than either you or it thinks. Three hours from Luton. The bridge, even in the dark is a wonder, even if at 9.00pm that too is all but deserted.

The hotel I’m in has had the wit to stack seven floors of parking below the hotel so that it elevates the view from the rooms above the dual carriageway outside.

One guy told me last night as I checked in, “Hull is not the end of the road, but the beginning”. We shall see.

They play Arsenal here on Saturday and for one of them at least, it will be the end of the road – either of their stay in the Premiership or of their chances of glory.

I am biased, Mr Clarke, toward the underdog, I shall be supporting Hull!

I have not addressed elderly care Mr Flavin. I shall. Mr Clarke, I am biased enough to want to explore the whole concept of a death tax. I must hurry, I have two early morning dates – with a caravan maker, and a boat builder.

My bias had been that poor old Hull would be past manufacturing either. I will doubtless be put right.

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