tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763010932242315938.post3670335006443006520..comments2023-08-27T10:28:30.200+01:00Comments on Temporarily Significant: The BBC 6 O'Clock Regional Bias ReportBen Aaronovitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14827057173097312360noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763010932242315938.post-85916948059092869242012-10-05T09:06:56.106+01:002012-10-05T09:06:56.106+01:00Hi Ben,
I think you'll find that the North We...Hi Ben,<br /><br />I think you'll find that the North West will continue to outperform the rest of the country as the BBC new centre is now in Salford, which happens to be in the North West.<br /><br />In previous times there may have been a slight London bias, but, as you point out in your commentary, it is the largest urban area and Greater London would account for between 15 and 20% of the UK's population depending on where you drew the boundariesGazzerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14027875183498768490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763010932242315938.post-450991767851330962012-10-02T03:47:21.909+01:002012-10-02T03:47:21.909+01:00Bugger all ever happens here.
Kevin from the West...Bugger all ever happens here.<br /><br />Kevin from the West Midlands.dylanwolfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15124050644054144172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763010932242315938.post-23616640704179313632012-10-01T21:43:54.001+01:002012-10-01T21:43:54.001+01:00"Nick Clegg arrested for dunk and disorderly ..."Nick Clegg arrested for dunk and disorderly in St James Park 'People used to love me,' says Deputy PM - is a London story."<br /><br />Haha love it!<br /><br />Interesting results.<br /><br /> As a North Westerner myself, and possessed with a huge degree of civic pride, my opinions may be biased but, we're a large region encompassing major cities like Liverpool and Manchester which inevitably feature in the news and sometimes, as this past month has regrettably proven, a degree of that is because of the news favourite medium - tragedy; both the Hillsborough findings and the tragic pointless deaths of WPC's Bone and Hughes.<br /><br />The other major preoccupation of the news is of course the weather with several ridiculous 'ooh look, bad rain' reports taking up a vast amount of airtime. The NW as a region is often beset by poor weather and seems to be the go to region when discussing it at its worst.<br /><br />As such I'm not surprised a great deal of coverage is NW heavy.Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14569732807130090838noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763010932242315938.post-76813427898991267752012-10-01T12:36:07.882+01:002012-10-01T12:36:07.882+01:00Thanks for the clarification, and the update.
I w...Thanks for the clarification, and the update.<br /><br />I was thinking about the psychology of it too. A slightly different measure that might work for the pyschology is to divide by the numbers of towns and cities in each region. <br /><br />London, of course, does terribly on this, dividing by only 1. But, for example, I live in York. News about Leeds, Hull, Wakefield, etc. are (correctly) tagged by you as Yorkshire & Humber, but mentally they're tagged by me as 'somewhere else' and London is certainly the most commonly mentioned somewhere else. Ergo, psychologically it appears to be overmentioned.Eloisehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00645110245532917138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763010932242315938.post-66900059908186193952012-10-01T11:15:23.446+01:002012-10-01T11:15:23.446+01:00I do political news by foci.
Thus Nick Clegg MP ...I do political news by foci. <br /><br />Thus Nick Clegg MP is ignored by UN over Syria is International.<br /><br />Nick Clegg Fails to Gain Meaningful Constitutional Change - is National.<br /><br />Nick Clegg beaten by angry constituents - is Yorkshire + (because of his Sheffield constituency).<br /><br />Nick Clegg arrested for dunk and disorderly in St James Park 'People used to love me,' says Deputy PM - is a London story.Ben Aaronovitchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14827057173097312360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1763010932242315938.post-13451876283839757742012-10-01T10:22:58.199+01:002012-10-01T10:22:58.199+01:00I agree you need a longer sample set because there...I agree you need a longer sample set because there will be a lot of variation.<br /><br />While I'm not arguing that minutes per million population is a pretty reasonable measure, what happens if you crunch by land area? That would help with the weather stories to some extent. You could possibly retag by 'people centred stories' and 'nature centred stories' - so murder is people centred, floods are nature centred - and then scale them that way.<br /><br />Also, how do you record political news? Is a story about Nick Clegg Yorkshire or London? If was during their conference, was it Yorkshire, London or the North East?<br /><br />Or, of course, you could make us, your loyal fans, happy and spend the time writing the next book or two or three :)Eloisehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00645110245532917138noreply@blogger.com