BBC Forums: Part II

It gets better – this forum on whether there should be a new UN resolution on Iraq and more troops sent there, features …(drumroll)…’BBC reporters’.

I am sorry, but a BBC reporter setting out matters relating to an issue is a news article, not a ‘Forum’. Perhaps they could ask Mahathir to comment on this as well (see post below on ‘Ask the expert’) – no odds on who he would blame for the current problems in Iraq.

There really seems to be a problem at the BBC – the BBC, which is supposed to be a non-profit public broadcaster, has swallowed the whole digital media thing hook, line and sinker.

Commercial stations have digital and satellite, so why not use bags of public money to screen BBC tat (4,000 home improvement shows, apologies for Islamist terrorism masquerading as human interest stories from the West Bank, and EastEnders) in direct, subsidised competition with shareholder-funded commercial outfits?

The internet is the future, so why not spend bags of coerced taxpayers’ money on churning out this sort of rubbish?

This is exactly why the BBC could be a narrow, high culture state broadcaster, or a privatised commercial one, but not the bastard offspring it is. This shows Blair’s mistake in corporatising it – witness the BBC’s institutional reaction to the Gilligan – Kelly scandal – close ranks, and defend, whatever the facts. Whatever you do, don’t let the organisation’s continued existence come into question.

I fear with BBC online that the tail has started to wag the dog – the BBC has a website, and it should get bigger and bigger of course (like all government departments – great when you are unaccountable and have £2.7billion of taxpayers’ money to squander), so let’s just fill it up with more and more of this rubbish. Someone is paid to sit there and idly think up filler, as the organisation takes on a life of its own.

How many jobs in the BBC depend on BBCi? I would be most interested to know.