Respected technology news website The Inquirer

reports on Why the BBC is rubbish, in an article by Andrew Thomas, who sounds like a man after my own heart. Here are some excerpts:

At the beginning of the last century, its newsreaders spoke proper English and wore dinner jackets even though they were only on radio, or the wireless, as it was then known. It was a trusted and respected organisation, much as the London Times used to be before it was taken over by an antipodean charlatan.

Today, the news is read by excitable young folk with impenetrable regional accents who find it impossible to sit down while spouting forth in some hateful modern argot about some soap star’s new hairstyle.

The BBC’s charter states that it should be ‘free from both political and commercial influence’. A laudable aim and one that the BBC completely ignores.

And:

And while on the subject of pseudo journalism, when did journalists stop interviewing the people directly involved in the news? In a story on the Prime Minister, the BBC news anchor will interview the BBC Political Editor, rather than the man himself. A science correspondent will be wheeled in to explain some new technical wonderment, rather than the boffins who developed it and an economics reporter will be interviewed on some shady business deal instead of the man who’s just fled the country taking the pension fund with him.

And:

The ‘commercial influence’ aspect of the BBC’s charter extends beyond straightforward advertising. For years, the BBC’s technology coverage has been beneath contempt. Not only do correspondents genuinely believe that ‘the CPU is the brain of the computer’ and that ‘the sun goes behind the Earth’ during a lunar eclipse, but their coverage could hardly be called objective.

It is all to easy to see the BBC technology desk wetting themselves every time an Apple press release arrives. If it contains the word ‘iPod’, you can imagine them fainting with excitement.

All too true! Do read the whole thing.