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Bell, Book & Candle. Please no nasty stuff, but they had it coming didn't they ? When I were a nipper, they were one of the most respected organizations in the world.
The Tories attack the BBC. Labour attack the BBC. They get stuff wrong but give me the BBC over an unelected billionaire's propaganda channel (Fox or similar) any day of the week. On an island where everything else is falling to bits, the BBC remains one of our great institutions.
The Tories attack the BBC. Labour attack the BBC. They get stuff wrong but give me the BBC over an unelected billionaire's propaganda channel (Fox or similar) any day of the week. On an island where everything else is falling to bits, the BBC remains one of our great institutions.
**the BBC remains one of our great institutions**
They were one time but they are not now.
My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic.
The Tories attack the BBC. Labour attack the BBC. They get stuff wrong but give me the BBC over an unelected billionaire's propaganda channel (Fox or similar) any day of the week. On an island where everything else is falling to bits, the BBC remains one of our great institutions.
Really ?
It does national events well, but it dumbs a hell of a lot down and reinforces stereotypes, which is not good.
Yeah, when the alternative is an oligarch owned media organisation, I'm taking the BBC over them every day. Currently watching the BBC give themselves a kicking for this on the ten o'click news. Can't see Fox doing something similar.
The Tories attack the BBC. Labour attack the BBC. They get stuff wrong but give me the BBC over an unelected billionaire's propaganda channel (Fox or similar) any day of the week. On an island where everything else is falling to bits, the BBC remains one of our great institutions.
They only attack the BBC when they're not sufficiently towing the line. I notice Davie didn't resign over the Corbyn Panorama hit-job. You need a DG who'll at least put up some resistance to government, because they'll akways apply pressure. Even Trethowan got grief from Thatcher for not being patriotic enough over their coverage of the Falklands war, and he let Mi5 and Mi6 vet both their staff and programming to keep out the lefties.
I channel-hop for my news on the laptop, we seldom switch the TV on.
Time was that the BBC were top of the tree or whatever you wanna call It, I find their presenters a hard watch now.
There was another time on a Sunday night when a David Attenborough programme would be on and so would our TV, but that doesn't happen anymore, I used to avidly watch Question Time, but I can't be arsed with It, I watched a snippet a couple of weeks ago and the host just couldn't keep quiet and kept butting In.
Unless I've got my figures wrong I find that the BBC have grown stale, If I could be arsed I'd switch the TV on and try again but I can't be arsed with It all.
To quote Groucho Marx; "Television is very educational. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into another room and read a book"
My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic.
The Tories attack the BBC. Labour attack the BBC. They get stuff wrong but give me the BBC over an unelected billionaire's propaganda channel (Fox or similar) any day of the week. On an island where everything else is falling to bits, the BBC remains one of our great institutions.
The thing is, the BBC portrays itself as a neutral non propaganda broadcaster. It’s state operated, public financed and consequently is duty bound to adhere to those principals. It clearly hasn’t.
Put aside your politics for a moment, surely you can see this is totally unacceptable.
The billionaire’s propaganda channel is a completely separate animal. It’s privately financed and if you don’t like it, you can stop paying for it, if it’s free to air you can walk away from it. Due to the licence fee it is virtually impossible to walk away from the BBC in one form or another.
The thing is, the BBC portrays itself as a neutral non propaganda broadcaster. It’s state operated, public financed and consequently is duty bound to adhere to those principals. It clearly hasn’t.
Put aside your politics for a moment, surely you can see this is totally unacceptable.
The billionaire’s propaganda channel is a completely separate animal. It’s privately financed and if you don’t like it, you can stop paying for it, if it’s free to air you can walk away from it. Due to the licence fee it is virtually impossible to walk away from the BBC in one form or another.
I have a lot of friends who think the BBC serves the Tories/Big business. Take the BBC out of the equation and you have people like Murdoch delivering the news. Billionaires generally seem to have a particular view of the world. And I wouldn't call it balanced in favour of 99% of the population. So I'm a massive fan of keeping and supporting the BBC.
I have a lot of friends who think the BBC serves the Tories/Big business. Take the BBC out of the equation and you have people like Murdoch delivering the news. Billionaires generally seem to have a particular view of the world. And I wouldn't call it balanced in favour of 99% of the population. So I'm a massive fan of keeping and supporting the BBC.
But you’re still missing the point.
If there’s a right leaning privately funded news channel then good luck to them. Equally if there’s a left leaning privately funded news channel then good luck to them too.
But if you’re a publicly funded news channel, run by the state, irrespective of whichever party is in power, then you are duty bound to be impartial.
You seem an intelligent fella, but it’s bizarre that you can’t grasp this concept. It’s quite sad if you’re looking at this issue purely from a political standpoint.
I’m just asking you to acknowledge and show a sense of fair play otherwise we really are on the road to hell.
If there’s a right leaning privately funded news channel then good luck to them. Equally if there’s a left leaning privately funded news channel then good luck to them too.
But if you’re a publicly funded news channel, run by the state, irrespective of whichever party is in power, then you are duty bound to be impartial.
You seem an intelligent fella, but it’s bizarre that you can’t grasp this concept. It’s quite sad if you’re looking at this issue purely from a political standpoint.
I’m just asking you to acknowledge and show a sense of fair play otherwise we really are on the road to hell.
I'm away to my bed now, but I'm not sure I'm missing the point. A lot of remainers and people left of centre think Nick Robinson and Laura Kuensberg are rabidly Tory and pro-Brexit. Tories and people on the right seem to argue that everyone who works at the BBC is a Marxist-Feminist-Lesbianist-Refugeeist. I think they get stuff wrong. On balance, its heart is in the right place (verified news) and I'm taking it over shouty mouthy cun ts bankrolled by oligarchs.
The Tories attack the BBC. Labour attack the BBC. They get stuff wrong but give me the BBC over an unelected billionaire's propaganda channel (Fox or similar) any day of the week. On an island where everything else is falling to bits, the BBC remains one of our great institutions.
There is getting stuff wrong and then there’s deliberately falsifying factual programming and not doing basic verification checking. The female newsreader getting a slap on the wrist for her facial expression when changing the script from pregnant people to pregnant women says a lot about where they are at nowadays….. Their Sports Dept is still just about bearable though.
The BBC has a huge profile and still a lot of influence on the news. More influence than a lot of people would like it to. I listen to their radio programmes more than I'D like to really, often due to lack of imagination in finding alternatives.
It puts out giant amounts of content every day, and some of that is probably tinged with a certain amount of bias. That's not excusing it.
One question I have around all this is, has more controversial info than the Jan 6th Panorama come out?The letter published in the Telegraph is apparently 14 pages long. FWIW I think that Jan 6th edit was misleading, hard to get away from that and not holding their hands up was a very bad move. If there isn't anything else new I'd be more sceptical about what's behind this. Nick Robinson seems to think people like Robbie Gibb have been pushing the agenda. No idea.
Saying all that, I still side with the Konk view though. You need to take everything you hear/read/see with a grain of salt these days. I don't see a reason not to do that with the BBC, but they're still better than most of the others.
There is getting stuff wrong and then there’s deliberately falsifying factual programming and not doing basic verification checking. The female newsreader getting a slap on the wrist for her facial expression when changing the script from pregnant people to pregnant women says a lot about where they are at nowadays….. Their Sports Dept is still just about bearable though.
Wouldn't you struggle to keep a straight face if you had to say 'pregnant people'.
I know where Konk's coming from, but the argument "both the left and right complain about it so therefore it must be ok" is a logical fallacy.
In truth, there is plenty of academic work into the structural biases of the BBC, and it's pretty evident that it has a political leaning that could be broadly described as Labour-right / Blairite.
(Edit: There's probably a good argument to be made about the reason that everyone feels alienated from the BBC and MSM generally these days is because these people - Labour-right types - don't really exist anywhere in society other than in the Labour party and the media)
And speaking personally, I find it remarkable how the objectively hysterical and politically motivated coverage of Corbyn is just brushed under the carpet. I mean, I get it if you think it was good, because you don't like lefties, but it should be pretty clear that the BBC was very much part of a concerted effort to prevent Corbyn from becoming PM. You might think that's good, but you can't then also claim objectivity. The John Ware stuff in particular was astonishing really.
Incidentally, it always made me laugh that only months after the "broadband communism" stuff we had COVID and a national conversation about whether the country had the infrastructure to support everyone working from home.
I think it's one of the last great British institutions and will be a sad day when this gets shut down or defunded.
That said what they did was ridiculous and unnecessary so it's only right that heads have rolled and to be honest it's so manipulative it brings into question their impartiality which is at the core of what the BBC must be
If there’s a right leaning privately funded news channel then good luck to them. Equally if there’s a left leaning privately funded news channel then good luck to them too.
But if you’re a publicly funded news channel, run by the state, irrespective of whichever party is in power, then you are duty bound to be impartial.
You seem an intelligent fella, but it’s bizarre that you can’t grasp this concept. It’s quite sad if you’re looking at this issue purely from a political standpoint.
I’m just asking you to acknowledge and show a sense of fair play otherwise we really are on the road to hell.
It's never been impartial but it should at least be accurate. Whether those failings are down to the brutal cuts, external pressure from government or the anti-BBC agenda pushed by our privately owned media corporations it needs a board and a DG that can withstand those pressures.
I think it's one of the last great British institutions and will be a sad day when this gets shut down or defunded.
That said what they did was ridiculous and unnecessary so it's only right that heads have rolled and to be honest it's so manipulative it brings into question their impartiality which is at the core of what the BBC must be
Not attempting to excuse the lack of correcting and apologising for the the issue, earlier. However, was this programme made and therefore edited by an outside company?
It's never been impartial but it should at least be accurate. Whether those failings are down to the brutal cuts, external pressure from government or the anti-BBC agenda pushed by our privately owned media corporations it needs a board and a DG that can withstand those pressures.
The question of impartiality is tricky. Steve's demand - for a state-funded broadcaster to be impartial - is totally reasonable on the face of it. But, what are the limits of impartiality in this context?
For example, I'm a researcher who deals in quantitative measurements. I can design research in such a way as to control for as many things as possible, pre-register my methods, and then publish my data alongside my findings and interpretations for public scrutiny. In doing so I can be fairly content in my claim to objectivity in this context, and transparency.
But if I'm reporting on a news event, unless I am literately only reporting facts -- names, ages, locations, barebones details - then I am inevitably providing a framing to it. And even then, the inclusion or omission of details -- the ethnicity of someone who has committed a crime for example -- provides implicit framing.
So I'm not sure we can have - or have ever had - absolutely impartial news broadcasting. But people have just become much more sensitive to the politics of the BBC because of the contrast with other contemporary news outlets, the access to (dis)information online etc., and as I said above, the growing disconnect between the politics of the BBC and most people.
All of that said, I'm not advocating for the abolition of the BBC, or a move to a subscription model. But I do think there needs to be a rethink of how it operates and its place in the broader ecology of media outlets, and perhaps a reckoning with the public's expectations of it. It's absolutely reasonable that it be held to basic standards of accuracy, which it has obviously failed to uphold in this case. But more generally, the public imagination of a totally impartial broadcaster i just don't think is possible.
Not attempting to excuse the lack of correcting and apologising for the the issue, earlier. However, was this programme made and therefore edited by an outside company?
Yes I think made by an outside company from what they’re saying.
I’d like them to spend more of their income on documentaries and dramas and better comedies. The amount they spend on footballer presenters is ridiculous. There’s also so many other channels that have football on.
Not attempting to excuse the lack of correcting and apologising for the the issue, earlier. However, was this programme made and therefore edited by an outside company?
Quite possibly but that seemed to be an easy thing to spot and fix, it doesn't look good and just gives a real opportunity to those who want to get rid of the BBC to get their wish
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