(no subject)
Feb. 20th, 2004 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hermionesviolinI saw this button on LJ a lot and asked my dad what the deal with the BBC was, as i hadn’t been paying attention and knew only that a lot of the bloggers i read had been displeased with the BBC throughout the whole Iraq thing.
His response:
And then of course, there's Patrick Belton on government-sponsored dumbing down of culture.
Oh, and following up on the “Bush lied, people died,” there’s this InstaPundit post:
His response:
A pretty much off the top of my head "what the deal is" about the BBC:I don’t remember what exactly i had planned to say following up on this, though it was probably my same old issue about the condescending way Leftist intellectuals try to dictate the way society should work while getting furious at the Religious Right for doing the same thing. Also about how i’m a capitalist and i dislike the idea that “X should exist, should in fact be pushed on people, even though people don’t want it, because we know it’s good for them.”
Years ago the government of Great Britain--and much of educated opinion--decided that commercial television would be yucky. It would be better if tv was run by people of education and taste, who would give people what was good for them. So a non-profit organization called the British Broadcasting Corporation (which already existed for radio) would decide what programs to fund and when they would be broadcast.
Of course, they would need money to do this so it was decided that every television set in use during the year would have to pay a "license fee" to the BBC. The 2004 fee is 121 pounds, or about $223, more than our tv cost, and considering that Britain is not as affluent as the United States, a good chunk of change for most people.
For a long time, the BBC had a television monopoly but beginning in the 1960s, the government has been allowing more and more competition. There are also more and more BBC networks. I am pretty sure the various competitors get their money from ads.
From listening to commercial tv and radio news, we know how superficial and sensational it can be. The BBC prides itself on not being either. If it didn't have the license fee, say its defenders, it would have to do a more superficial job, and it would face pressure from advertisers.
The BBC claims to be impartial and unbiased. If its way of looking at the world, the way it selects what is important and what is not, who it finds believable and who not, if all that happens be be pretty much the same as the worldview of the acacemic left or the left wing of the Labour Party, well, that's just because they are right (though no one EVER comes right out and says this).
And that way of looking at the world is indeed its way. That is how news is presented. That is its vision of Truth.
A good number of people don't like that. And they have trouble with the fact that they are forced to give this organization $223 each year to spread views that they disagree with. If Britain had a First Amendment, this would be a "coerced speech" problem--but it doesn't.
So skip back to a year or so ago. The BBC very much does not like George W. Bush and very much opposed Britain going to war in Iraq. As part of its coverage, it ran a story by Andrew Gilligan saying that a senior intelligence official had admitted that Tony Blair had "sexed up" a public "dossier" about what a threat Iraq was, that he had deliberately lied to the British people, in order to go to war. The official was not named but it quckly came out that it was weapons inspector David Kelly, who then committed suicide.
This created a big brouhaha, with Blair denying the charges and the BBC making a big deal of them. An inquiry was ordered, to be run by Lord Hutton, who had made a name for himself trying cases in Northern Ireland.
The report came out on January 28 and it said Blair hadn't sexed things up, Kelly hadn't said that, the BBC hadn't acted professionally, etc. (thus the play on the "Bush lied; people died" slogan: "The BBC lied; Kelly died.") Several people at the BBC have resigned, including the Chairman, Gavyn Davies, the director-general, Greg Dykes, and Andrew Gilligan.
The BBC's charter comes up for renewal some time in the next few years. Various people would like to cut back or eliminate the BBC's privileges. Some are people who don't like paying so much money for something that, given the competition that now exists, they don't use much. Some are people who don't like the idea of a relatively unaccountable organization telling people what to think. Some are people who do like the idea but think the BBC has abused its trust. Some are people whose poliitcs are different from the Beeb's. Some are people who think they could prosper if they were able to compete on a more level playing field, e.g. Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox and a number of newspapers and SkyTV in Britain.
One view:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040129/COWENT29/TPColumnists/
Cultural reference: after Richard Nixon resigned, Gerald Ford became president and pardoned him, declaring, "Our long national nightmare is over."
And then of course, there's Patrick Belton on government-sponsored dumbing down of culture.
Oh, and following up on the “Bush lied, people died,” there’s this InstaPundit post:
INSPECTORS LIED: People died. Fortunately, not nearly as many as would have died had Saddam remained in power.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-20 07:17 pm (UTC)The BBC does not have to bow to commercial pressures. It's not in the buissness to sell soap - as John McWethy descirbed the purpose of ABC News. It exists purley to serve the public interest. Has it been dumbing down? Yes. Does it have a "leftist" bias? If by leftist, you mean holding government to account, then yes. But that is the role of the journalist. That is why we give them protection.
And it is intellectual to some degree. But where else would we get such important debates? From commercial broadcasting? That doesn't seem likley.
As for Rupert Murdoch, he's on a quest to destroy public service broadcasting around the world. He wants the BBC gone, as it's his biggest competition. And if the BBC seems condecinging, just try reading the Murdoch press. It's based on the assumption that the people that read it aren't smart enough to know what to think, so he has to tell them.
Oh, and Channel 4, which is state owned but also commercial - gets some of the liscence fee, but the others, all publicially traded, get none of it. I would prefer the BBC to be funded through a more progressive way, like general taxation, but I'm afraid it would loose some of its independence then. It's the most independent broadcaster in the world, and even with its faults, I don't think we can get any better.
no subject
Date: 2004-02-21 05:15 pm (UTC)Again, i'm such a capitalist. I feel like, if people would actually watch it then commercial broadcasting would show it. (Networks vie for getting the Presidential debates over here in the States, no?)
And if the BBC seems condecinging, just try reading the Murdoch press. It's based on the assumption that the people that read it aren't smart enough to know what to think, so he has to tell them.
I don't watch the BBC and didn't actually mean them specifically. Apologies if it was phrased confusingly. What i meant was that there's this attitude of many Leftist intellectuals which i find condescending. The attitude is: We, unlike these these poor uneducated/brainwashed schmoes, know how things should be, so even people don't think they want this, we are going to give it to them, because we know what is good for them.
I know i just articulated that horribly, but does that make more sense than what i said in the original post?
Re:
Date: 2004-02-24 07:34 am (UTC)I'm very, very scared of your attitude that if capitalism doesn't provide it, then it isn't needed. If that it taken to its extreme, then life would be very, very nasty. At first I wanted to use the word "society", but then I remembered that such an attack from an unrestrained free market would destroy society. Take Thatcher making museums adapt to market forces. Admission rates detered visitors, then the museums lost money. It was a loose-loose situation for everyone but HM Treasuary. The market doesn't always work. It some cases, including the media, it can be very, very dangerous.
I prefer to take the classic liberal approach - starting with Smith, but closest to my posistion in Mill - that there are some areas in the economy which the state must opperate, not because it can, but because it should - because the free market will not provide them.
I'm not opposed to a free press at all. I do think there should be regulations on ownership to ensure that the press is free, though, from both corporate and governmental tinkering. It should serve the public interest - I know (I think he's your father) has problems with my use of this term (public service), but isn't the role of the government, even to libretarian thinkers, to serve the good of the people? In a healthy democracy, citizens must be well informed. The same goes for capitalism. The market can not function if consumers are not informed. And how can they be informed properly if those who have the most to hide control information channels? The same goes for state control of the media.
Apologies for getting confused on the eliteism - although the competition must be taken into account whenver this is discussed. There is some "this is what is good for you", but I think, in general, learned people beleive that education and culture are good - for the indivudial and soceity. That's the BBC's role - to spread knowledge and culture. And it does a damn good job. It's liberal only in the sense of Mill et al.
Finally, what other news organisation in the world would be as frank as the BBC has in discussion its own problems and the debates over its future?
I have much more to say on this, but I know both of us have little time, which is a shame. The BBC isn't perfect, but I'll take it over the more irrational elements of the press - on both the left and right - any day.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-21 05:43 pm (UTC)Back when I was eligible to be drafted into the armed forces, there were a group of people who had taken an oath to serve the public interest; in fact, to be willing to die for it. They also systematically lied about how their war was going in Vietnam, pumped up the figures of how many "enemy" had been killed, and generally engaged in an orgy of CYAing (that's cover your assing).
The BBC charter says that it will serve the public interest. But that is no reason to think it is really doing that. The charter did not force Greg Dykes to serve the public interest any more than his oath forced General William Westmoreland to.
RAS