Yup. Scott Burgess’s title pretty well states the case.
I do not subscribe to the argument that the BBC should resemble the nation as a whole. The nation as a whole is too varied, fickle, inconsistent and unclassifiable for that to work. The two issues he picks as examples of “broad liberalism”, support for the death penalty and support for not persecuting homosexuals, are, in their very different degrees of public acceptance, a vignette of why his argument smacks of trying to sell a package deal to a customer who wants to buy goods separately.
Humprhys himself would be horrified if he were asked to represent the views of a majority of the nation on asylum seekers, say. Gypsies – don’t even think about it.
ADDED LATER: Thinking further, I could go with the argument that the BBC should generally represent a highest common factor of British values (acknowledging that the HCF is a pretty low number!) Obviously I’m talking about the BBC’s collective persona here, not about individual opinion honestly labelled as such. Yet I also agree with commenter “billg”, that there are times when the BBC should rise above popular opinion – and I’m fully aware how dangerous that sentence is. Finding a definition that allows for both these views is beyond me at the moment. Yet I suspect that the right course is hard to define but fairly plain to see.
Doesn’t the discussion beg the question if a news source should seek to represent the majority views of its audience? (Let’s don’t even ask how it would actually determine those views.)
The prevailing views of a society often do not reflect reality or truth. How could a new source represent those views while still reporting the news honestly and accurately?
If the majority of UK citizens believed that the Earth was flat, would BBC seek to debunk over-the-pole flights out of Heathrow?
What we are talking about is John Humphrys choosing his own definition of what is the “centre ground” and tending to push that case. When in fact his definition is out of step with public views as reflected in opinion polls. And he is VERY forceful in advancing his views/prejudices while giving the kid-gloves treatment to liberal views of his own slant.
The link to the Jon Snow article was good. He describes himself as a numero uno fan of Chomsky !
They certainly promote liberal views in this story: “Kerry ‘would lift stem cell ban'” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3546418.stm
The only problem is that in the U.S. there is no ‘ban on stem cell research’.
There are limits on what stem cell lines will receive Federal funding for the research. You can do all the stem cell research you can afford. Just don’t expect the government to subsidize it.
Kerry and the Dems repeat the lie and the BBC perpetuates it without question.
OTish
Headline
California annuls gay marriages.
‘Gay marriage is a controversial issue in the US.’
Not like in the UK hey or Saudi Arabia or China or India or…
The BBC do promise to represent any significant strand of public opinion. The 800,000 BNP voters don’t get much recognition from the BBC.
Francis,
There seems to be an awful lot of coverage for respect, and they got a lot less votes…
curious eh?
OK, but even when the BBC rises “above popular opinion”, it could portray honestly those opinions it rises above and how widespread they are.
Capital punishment is a case in point: the BBC doesn’t have to defend it, but it would do no harm to give its defenders a fair hearing and tell the public how large is the segment of the British public that agrees with it.
The trouble begins when the BBC simply ignores the opinions it disagrees with, declares their own to be mainstream and either doesn’t back this assertion with facts or, if it does present some facts, then it deforms or manipulates them.
Last week the BBC headlined their news with the decision of the Iraqi Prov admin to re-introduce capital punishment.
They probably thought that their viewers would share their horror of such a barbaric policy.
The problem is not John Humphrys’ pathologies, or mine or yours, but the BBC’s use of public money to fund leftist propaganda and squash dissent.
The line between news and editorial content disappeared years ago, to predictable effect. The BBC now airbrushes the news just like those Politburo pix of decades ago; Humphrys is frankly just another of Lenin’s “useful idiots”.
So do spare us the postmodern angst, because this actually *is* a flat earth argument. The rot is now so deep, the denial and obstructionism so total, that the chance of real reform is zero.
The BBC is not a credible news source. End it.
Orla returns to give us a balanced analysis from Nablus
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3562938.stm
Just read the article. Shock & horror, how terrible! Does she not realise that this is a war, that the soldiers lives were very much at risk? Releasing the BBC team would’ve been an insane risk, if not suicidal. It seems the that none of the BBC team or the other civilians were actually harmed in any way, and their complaint should be, in a life or death situation, very, very low on anyones priorities.
Orla can thank her lucky stars she was held by the Israeli Defense Forces.
The IDF didn’t force her to wear an orange jump suit or make a sick home video.
I’m sure Nick Berg’s captors were a lot more terrifying.
Uhh, excuse me but I thought the BBC was a broadcaster of NEWS….not OPINION. News organizations should not “rise above” (or below) public opinion at all. It should report the NEWS.
Therein lies the problem with the British public’s understanding of the BBC mandate to exist.