Bias, bias everywhere (and not a policy to get excited by anywhere)

According to The Guardian, lots of Liberal Democrat supporters are complaining of bias against Norman Clegg in Sky's Prime Ministerial X Factor contest.

Now, that's interesting.

Joking apart, we were thinking of complaining that the broadcast was biased in his favour.

We base that assertion on the editorial decisions as the three wannabe successors to Will Young and Leona Lewis delivered their final swansong.

The camera shots selected by the director during Cameron's closing speech barely focused on his face. There was a shot of Gordon Brown shaking his head. There was a long, protracted shot of the studio audience which seemed to last for half the duration of Cameron's closing statement. Then, right at the end, they remembered to show David Cameron for a few seconds again.

This compared to the camera selections for Clegg's closing statement. An incredibly slow zoom in to Clegg's face, allowing him to appear serious and authoritative. He was no different from Cameron - it's just the editorial decisions being made in the studio gallery artificially injected that impression. The first cut from this close shot was a reaction - almost instantaneous - to a wide shot of Brown and Cameron when Clegg slagged off "these two parties". A quick glimpse then of the studio, before back to Clegg and a serious close-up again.

Bias takes many forms and, using the imagery created on screen as a basis for analysis, this blogger thought the bias in the coverage of those closing statements was incredibly obvious - in Clegg's favour.

Watch out for differences in the treatment the three get in the use of camera shots during the third and final song contest debate type thingy... if you can tolerate watching yet another.