Bashing the Beeb

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Originally posted by John C:
His producers are they not his consumers? Your exagmination round his factification for incamination of a warping process. Declaim!


John

Hit The North!

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'Nuff Said.

We'd have to be bloody crazy to lose the Beeb. It, along with the SAS, is about the last thing that makes the rest of the world take this small island seriously.

G

JonR,

A good whinge is good for the soul, don't knock it till you've tried it.

Graham - I agree about the SAS!!!

ITV is a pile of shit. Channel four has the occasional thing of interest interspersed with Hollyoaks and Friends and channel 5 has four films on rotation.

I am more than happy to pay the license fee, for not only the programming but radio 1, 2 and 4 the only radio channels I listen to, almost every day all day.

The website is amongst the best in the world as well, I visit it every day, and Mozilla Thunderbird downloads RSS feeds from the news every five minutes, news you can generally rely on to be presented as it is. I don't believe the BBC has any interest in being Pro Labour, but lets face it the useless Tories have nothing newsworthy and the Libs are headed by a ginger drunk.

If you want biased news check out FOX news, we had it for the time we were in America, I insisted on watching it because it was hilarious.

Yes its a forced subscription, but yet people are happy to spend upto 5 times the amount for SKY which manages on a daily basis to come up with 50+ channels of shit day in day out.

Stop your winging.

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Originally posted by Earwicker:
JonR,

A good whinge is good for the soul, don't knock it till you've tried it.

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How little you know about me, EW - I can whinge for England and can write the book on it - in fact the 2005 edition will be out shortly...!

JR

Gary,

I largely agree, to be honest. Channel 4 has the best news programme, although finding something decent to watch on ANY terrestrial TV channel is pretty difficult. And I HATE soap operas with a vengance!! Radio 2 is okay, except that they keep playing the same shite songs over and over.

Ooops, sorry, I'm whinging again! Poor me, some day perhaps a cure can be found!

The main Channel4 News bulletin is excellent indeed -- and if you like that you'll love the "The World" which immediately follows it at 8pm

Except that's a) BBC and b) Digital only on BBC4 so anyone philosphically opposed to the licence fee will be obliged to not watch it out of out principal.

Matthew

how did this end up all the way over here? Whatever, for reasons already given on the orginal thread i'd like to say Big Up The BBC.

Think yourselves lucky to have the choice. There is no cheap or very practical way for those in exile to enjoy the Beeb much beyond British shores. Nobody should mention Astra 2D above a whisper. Shush! You are hereby sworn to secrecy or I will have to kill you!

The TV license is just another government tax that goes to subsidise the best Radio/TV service in the world. And no it's not fair that the detector vans never go near the posh houses and always pick on the housing estates and young unmarried others with seven children in particular.

I have nearly one thousand viewable channels on digital satellite TV and can assure you without a moment's doubt or hesitation that the BBC is streets ahead of any other nationality in programming content. This, despite the endless dumbing down and the strange working-class accents of late. And BBC Three!

I'm from the pre-TV, pre-colour and pre-stereo era when "they" wore suits and spoke perfect English. As did we. (in black, white and all shades of grey)

Radio 3 alone has to be worth the license fee. Just think what the CDs or records would cost. If one could even obtain them!

Nime

"detector vans"

*giggles* Um, you realise that, like Santa and The Tooth Fairy, they don't actually exist?

Matthew

EDIT: Maybe I nmissed some irony?

In the past it is highly probable that I have criticised the Beeb. I have just watched Newsnight and I thought Jeremy Paxman was remarkably even-handed about the US and the assistance it is providing to the Far East.

At the end of the day the Beeb produce a few tv programmes that I like to watch. I quite like listening to the news on Radio 4 in the morning. The website for news is excellent.

There is a lot of dross on the Beeb but then some people may like it (we all have different tastes I guess). Then again, there is an awful lot of dross on the other channels. I guess that is called diversity.

BBC News 24 is great to watch when I am not in the UK.

At the end of the day I do not begrudge paying the licence fee - it's not a lot really particular when compared to the Sky subscription.

Regards and happy New Year to all of you.

Mike

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Originally posted by matthewr:
_"detector vans"_

*giggles* Um, you realise that, like Santa and The Tooth Fairy, they don't actually exist?

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I'd just like to report that, inspired by this thread, I've just renewed by TV licence by telephone (it expired December 31st).

You bastards.

Steve M
PS: God bless her Majesty and the Blessed Beeb.

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1) Flagrant political bias towards the Labour Party

2) Irritating anti-Israeli, anti-American "woe is me, poor little terrorists, how badly they're treated" news coverage

3) Appallingly dumbed-down news and current affairs programmes and crap quality PC dramas

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I think this is worth a read:


ZNet Commentary
Directing Bbc News In Support Of War January 05, 2005
By David Cromwell

BBC news coverage is balanced, objective and fair. At least, that is what the BBC continually tells its viewers and listeners. In particular, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been, and is being, properly reported. That's the message the British and, indeed, global public is supposed to accept. In reality, the BBC, and all mainstream news outlets, have failed in their public duty to hold power to account. Worse than that, they effectively acted as campaign managers for an illegal and immoral war; itself, merely the latest in a long list of murderous foreign 'interventions'. The BBC holds a particularly heavy responsibility both for its public source of funding and its largely undeserved worldwide reputation for rigour, accuracy and fairness. All of this is unmentionable in 'respectable' circles.

Public complaints about BBC performance are handled by -- the BBC. Moreover, we are supposed to be satisfied with the occasional tossed scrap of carefully managed public 'feedback' and 'consultation', such as the BBC's recently instigated whitewashing 'Newswatch' service (http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/default.stm). Newswatch may well be a response to the flood of emails, many seen by Media Lens, being directed at Helen Boaden, the new BBC director of news, and senior BBC editors about the BBC's biased coverage of Iraq.

Boaden's predecessor, Richard Sambrook, who was in place while the BBC performed its traditional role of managing public opinion on behalf of a British government preparing for war, has moved on to another high-ranking position as head of the BBC's World Service. He appears unrepentant about the failure of BBC news during his tenure to challenge, far less expose, the countless government deceptions on Iraq. Indeed, as a recent speech he gave at Columbia University makes clear, he remains proud of the BBC's record in news reporting.

So, I sent the following to Sambrook on 9th November, 2004:

To: richard.sambrook@bbc.co.uk

Dear Richard,

I read the text of your recent speech at Columbia University on the topic of objectivity. You said that:

"The mindset of the country [in 2003] was that it was at war. Our natural instinct is to support our country. But the responsibility of the news media is to ask the difficult questions, to press, to verify. And we now know that all of us failed to ask the right questions about WMD in advance of the war." (Richard Sambrook, "Holding on to Objectivity", annual Poliak lecture, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/events/poliak/sambrook.asp)

"All of us"? Well, yes, certainly amongst mainstream news media. But you were hardly unaware of the "right questions", as you surely recall from numerous exchanges with Media Lens well before Iraq was invaded.

* You were asked repeatedly in the months leading up to March 2003, why BBC news did not adopt a more sceptical view of government propaganda about WMD. You were told, or perhaps reminded, about the million or more Iraqis that had died under "genocidal" UN sanctions (quoting Denis Halliday). This was a cruel policy that was maintained largely at the behest of Washington and London - who spun deceptive propaganda, faithfully relayed by the BBC, which attempted to deny their own complicity in those deaths.

* You were told on numerous occasions that standard US/UK government propaganda was being deployed to obscure the fact that Iraq had been fundamentally disarmed of no less than 90-95% of its WMD by the time inspectors were withdrawn in December 1998.

* We repeatedly asked you why knowledgeable commentators on Iraq - such as Scott Ritter, Denis Halliday, Hans von Sponeck, Milan Rai and Glen Rangwala - were either essentially ignored by BBC news or banished to the margins.

* You may feel that at least the BBC was no less critical than other major news broadcasters. But, alas, even that isn't true, as Professor Justin Lewis (Cardiff) and Media Tenor (Bonn) have shown.

Many Media Lens readers wrote to you in the autumn of 2002 (and at other times), challenging the BBC to be more questioning of the Bush and Blair agenda, before they dragged us into war. You responded to one such reader on September 5, 2002:

"Our role as impartial journalists is to examine all the points put forward based on what information we know, or are able to acquire in future, including briefings and news conferences from the UK and US Governments, the UN and others [...] It is also important to understand that the Government, through its intelligence network and channels of international diplomacy, is privy to much more information about Iraq than we are."

How ironic +that+ comment appears now, post-Hutton and post-Butler [two inquiries with tightly-constrained terms of reference which were conducted by government-appointed judges after the invasion of Iraq]. But even at the time, it was a clear admission that, despite credible evidence already then available which undermined Blair and Bush's pronouncements and dubious dossiers, you were tilting towards the government's deceptive line. This was far from being fair, balanced or objective and was a breach of the BBC's own producers' guidelines.

On 18 December 2002, Media Lens editors David Edwards and I wrote to you. The final paragraph read:

"We believe you are being used to channel propaganda to generate public support for a cynical war against Iraq. It is the job of free and honest journalists to +challenge+ crude attempts to manipulate the public, not merely to pass them on without comment. Your responsibility to the British public and to the people of Iraq is clear. Please consider the moral gravity and responsibility of your position."

Today, in Fallujah and elsewhere, we can see the outcome of the deep failure of the news media to do its job. The responsibility borne by the BBC, as the UK's public interest and publicly funded broadcaster, is particularly heavy.

I would be pleased to hear your comments in response to the above, please.

best wishes, David Cromwell

Richard Sambrook has never replied. Does his silence indicate shame, contempt or indifference? Only the BBC's former director of news can answer that one.

David Cromwell is co-editor of Media Lens (http://www.medialens.org). He is also co-founder of the Crisis Forum (http://www.crisis-forum.org.uk).

The Beeb is like an elephant to a blind man. Clearly both too far to the right and to the left, what has the BBC ever done for us?

Steve M

The Beeb is like an elephant to a blind man.

Something enormously solid - with balls. If only.

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The Beeb is like an elephant to a blind man.

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What was it now...Oh yes
Weighs a ton, shits a ton
Oops look out!!
Fred get a shovel...

BUT more seriously..
No bashing here, the Beeb is much appreciated by me.

Well it saves me from insanity as I travel around the world on business and it provides an informative contact point in my native language which I appreciate where I live aswell.

When I was living in that US I was so frantic for some informative and reasonable programming that I even downloaded streaming video off the BBC website over a TELEPHONE line. If you think the beeb is crap you should try 120 channels of Californian rubbish. Even the bloody news over there was a joke. Basically 15 minutes on the very local stuff, 5 minutes on what may have happened elsewhere in the US, and 10 minutes for commercials. International news nada!

"Just trying to make a NAIM for myself"

Adam,

I gather the Beeb's a client so keep them sweet!!

Incidentally, I've been surprised at the response to this thread: I perceive a lot of general anti-BBC sentiment in the broadsheets (if you ignore the Guardian) and most people I ask say they're irritated by all the political correctness, left-wing bias and dumbing down that's rife in the corporation. Maybe it's just a hi-fi enthusiast thing. Mind you, I'm a hi-fi enthusiast...!


*** Every silver lining has a cloud ***

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Originally posted by Earwicker:
Adam,

I gather the Beeb's a client so keep them sweet!!

Incidentally, I've been surprised at the response to this thread: I perceive a lot of general anti-BBC sentiment in the broadsheets (if you ignore the Guardian) and most people I ask say they're irritated by all the political correctness, left-wing bias and dumbing down that's rife in the corporation. Maybe it's just a hi-fi enthusiast thing. Mind you, I'm a hi-fi enthusiast...!


*** Every silver lining has a cloud ***

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Earwicker, the newspaper barons (the Guardian and the Mirror are the only papers not owned by old-fashioned proprietors like Murdoch, Rothermere, the unlamented Conrad Black [now replaced by the Barclays], Desmond and O'Reilly) have always been anti-BBC. Since 1922, in fact.

You can tell just how worthwhile the BBC is by looking at who its enemies are; and you should consider what they could gain by Auntie being broken up.

Also, how many "people" have you "asked" about all this "pro-Labour bias" and "political correctness"? In my experience, "most people I've spoken to" is a shorthand for "a couple of my mates down the pub, one of whom is a deranged rightwinger who bangs on about poofs and asylum seekers".

Kevin

Kevin,

I sort of see what you mean about the newspaper barons, although what they'd gain from the breakup of the BBC I don't know - apart, perhaps, from a louder voice for their own political biases, which are usually to the right of the Beeb.

That aside, I said left wing bias, which isn't the same as being pro-Labour. At the moment I'd say they were more anti-Tory than actively pro-Labour, but they're supposed, ostensibly, to be neither.

As for irritating political correctness, well, I hope I don't need to justify THAT remark!! Your view of it depends, I venture, on whether you happen to believe that political correctness is good for the health of a nation; I do not. And asylum is a serious problem which you shouldn't associate with mindless right-wing ranting.

As for who I've asked, it's something that interests me and I've solicited many opinions from people from many diffrent professions and social backgrounds. In fairness to you, a good many of them just tell me how much they like Eastenders!! I do not. Because it's utter crap.


*** Every silver lining has a cloud ***

There is little to watch on any terrestrial channel these days, and the only thing I can remember being worth watching in the past year or two has been the Olympics and Michael Palin's Sahara & Himalaya series. After that it's just reality shite which consists of putting people of opposite personalities together for a gladiatorial puch up..Big Brother, Wife Swap, etc etc. It is now just the modern version of cock fighting basically, and it is tabloid TV shite. Eastenders is just misery and hatred, it's appalling crap. Casualty is the same bollocks every week (my wife watches it) and they don't bother with the public anymore, they just have all the accidents amongst the hospital staff. It is total brain-numbing garbage. Channel 4 have apparently put up £50k to the first couple to have sex on camera in Big Brother, so that is the level that this has all sunk to. It's Daily Star level.
Maybe the Beeb should survive, but it bloody well has to improve because it has never been this piss poor before. I see they are still showing Only Fools & Horses for padding between reality progs.

I think the theme emerges - BBC Radio is bloody marvelous. BBC television - is television and subject to the inevitable stupidities of that medium.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by matthewr:
_"detector vans"_

*giggles* Um, you realise that, like Santa and The Tooth Fairy, they don't actually exist?

MatthewQUOTE]

I've seen a few detector vans, one a few days ago near Reading outside a new housing estate. Which begs the question....does the tooth fairy now exist?

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Originally posted by 7V:
The Beeb is like an elephant to a blind man. Clearly both too far to the right and to the left, what has the BBC ever done for us?

Steve M

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Steve,
I would be very interested in answering your question abour Sharansky. Can I have your e-mail address since they locked the topic of 'Resting my case' Haim

Haim,

My email is 'steve at seventh-veil.com' and I'll look forward to hearing from you.

Steve

Rasher,

Yes, quite. Well said!

Adam - Television IS television, but if just 50 % of air-time was given over to the drivel we'd be getting somewhere. As Rasher says, after all the crap soaps and "reality TV" and holiday/relocation programmes and re-runs, all we're left with worth a damn is... er... well, Channel 4 News basically.

Radio is the BBC's trump card. Just compare Radio 3 with the lamentable Classic FM...!


*** Every silver lining has a cloud ***