, might as well have been a Labour Party Press Release – a jolly retelling of Ed Balls’ words, unencumbered by any opposition response (not even from the BBC’s favoured ‘opposition’, the LibDems), with, for good measure, a free kick at David Cameron at the end.
Biased BBC reader Pete points out another BBC Views Online story, NHS staff protest against reforms, apparently so universally uncontroversial that it too requires no balancing comment.
A very large survey (which must have cost more than 100k) has been implemented on behalf of the World Service regarding policy measures related to climate change. The results have now been presented on the BBC homepage.
An issue for me is the reporting as well as the timing of the results.
Firstly, the report seems a little like the BBC taking on a lobbying, agenda shaping role rather than the reporter of news. This is especially so in relation to some of the questions that have been asked, in particular those regarding support for higher energy taxes. The reporting on the main BBC page is a little bit too forthright. The headline link states that “Most [are] ready for ‘green sacrifices'” and a subsequent link is entitled: “A Green Lesson for Politicians”. This page also states that:
“The poll comes just a few weeks before negotiations are due to begin in Indonesia on a new international treaty to follow on from the Kyoto protocol”.
I wonder a little if this is appropriate behaviour for a news gathering organisation.
Survey results:
Click to access 02_11_07bbcclimatesurvey.pdf
Main report page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7075759.stm
Lesson page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7078282.stm
Richy,
The timing of this fake poll does appear to be aimed at the forthcoming negotiations.
Anyone with half a brain can see that the questions aimed for a specific answer BUT I wonder if the BBC picked people at random or were they hand picked by the interviewer, so they were more likely to give the right answers? I mean a young indoctrinated greenpeace supporter would give the right answers wouldnt they? I would not be surprised if it turned out that the BBC cheated and this poll was fixed! After all the BBC do have lots of ‘form’ for cheating polls/quizzes/competitions Etc?
I can only hope that this latest piece of dishonest rubbish will be exposed and I look forward to a BBC appology with the usual excuses!
Time for another training course in honesty?
There’s a weird virus sweeping through the BBC.
Newsnight is calling for people to tell them what they’d like covered on the programme:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/11/newsnight_a_la_carte.html
And yesterday I saw that BBC Trust is asking us to wade through a jumbled and badly set out document a mile long and tell them what we think of the framework for their proposed new look complaints procedure:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/open_consultations/comp_framework_page1.html
And the Over to You programme, where they pretend to be taking listeners’ concerns seriously but are just providing a platform for editors to justify themselves and then carry on regardless, has this appeal:
Over the coming months the BBC World Service will be working on creating a new look and feel to the English site and we could really use listeners help.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/over_to_you.shtml
World Have Your Say has had this system of gleaning ideas for programmes from the public for some time:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/
Dunno how it will help anyone. The BBC will simply pick out what it agrees with and go with that.
But I suppose it gives the impression of impartiality which will then allow people to be fooled and the BBC to continue on its unaccountable way.
In reference to the comments above, the last two links have climate change as a subject.
Further to the ‘is DHYS improving?’ debate.
Two posts yesterday
1. Critising people who want housing built on green belt to increase.
2. A pop at Ed Balls for his stupid idea of keeping kids at school until 18.
Guess which one didn’t get published …
However it was nice to see that many of the posts were vehemently anti-Labour. Has the worm turned? No, but it may be stirring in it’s sleep.
This morning Fivelive presented a report on family life where it was used to explicitly critique Conservative party policy (V. Derbyshire specifically discussing Tory party policy). There was not a single mention of New Labour’s positive or negative role in family life or an mention of Lib Dem policies. It was all about bashing Cameron’s statement about “the breakdown of the family”.
Another fine piece of work from the Labour Broadcasting Corporation.
Apparently Beeboids, like toddlers, are very fussy eaters.
They also seem to have a preference for the bacon butties they tell the rest of us to resist.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/04/nbeeb104.xml
Richy | 05.11.07 – 8:30 am
the report seems a little like the BBC taking on a lobbying, agenda-shaping role rather than the reporter of news…
How so? The report discovers information that was not previously known. Asking people questions and publishing the answers isn’t anything like ‘lobbying’.
the poll comes just a few weeks before negotiations are due to begin in Indonesia on a new international treaty…
Quite so. When reporting on what a bunch of politicians are deciding at a conference, it helps to know what their people think, doesn’t it?
I wonder a little if this is appropriate behaviour for a news gathering organisation.
The BBC is rather more than ‘a newsgathering organization’. But even if a newsgatherer like Reuters or AP were to conduct such a survey, I can’t see why that would be inappropriate.
The World Service is funded by a grant-in-aid from the Foreign Office.
JOhn
Precisely what do you mean when you (correctly) say that the BBC is more than a “newsgatheriung operation”?
How does the Beeboid mind – which you admirably personify – define its role?
Was it my imagination or was it Tariq Ali who was selected by “Today” this morning to be the disinterested voice on world affairs re the troubles in Pakistan? And guess what! Yes it’s all the fault of the US. This conclusion comes as a bit of a shock given TA’s views on the US and the “so-called” [TA’s words] war on terror.
Dr R | 05.11.07 – 11:42 am
How does the Beeboid mind – which you admirably personify – define its role?
Why, to inform, educate and entertain – natch.
Precisely what do you mean when you (correctly) say that the BBC is more than a “newsgatheriung operation”?
What I had in mind were the large numbers of current affairs and factual documentary programmes that conduct analysis and investigation together with those that offer platforms for debate, comment and discussion.
JOhn
Given the demonstrable bias (Hutton, Balen etc etc etc etc etc etc etc) and tendency to cheat and lie (Blue Peter etc etc etc etc etc etc) , do you think the BBC performs this role?
JR(s),
“The world service is funded by a grant in aid from the foreign office”
That little snippet tells us that the FO may be paying to lobby itself, to set the agenda and aims that it wants to promote?
Its called a “planted non story”
The poll was rigged to point to a conclusion that people are “happy to pay more tax” because that is what the NuLab regime wants, ie, to pile on more taxes! I wonder if JR is happy that the BBC has been turned into pathetic regime propaganda mouthpiece, like the old Soviet ‘Tass news agency’?
The EU knows how to lobby itself and pays shills to do it! I wonder who learned from who?
Dr R | 05.11.07 – 11:56 am |
Reith won’t reply to that – he picks and chooses remember ? 🙂
Dr R | 05.11.07 – 11:56 am
…Given the demonstrable bias (Hutton, Balen etc…
I think I’ve read more or less every minute of Hutton testimony and every word of his report. I recall no finding of bias whatsoever.
And, though I have not read the Balen report, someone I know and trust, who has read it, says it contains ‘no smoking gun’ on the bias issue.
Moreover, I gather the main recommendation of the Balen report (since implemented) was the creation of Jeremy Bowen’s job!
…and tendency to cheat and lie (Blue Peter etc……)….
I don’t regard the tiny number of instances of unacceptable dishonesty discovered as a ‘tendency’. Quite the opposite. If you’re looking for tendencies of this kind, try the private sector – particularly in the early morning.
do you think the BBC performs this role?
You betcha.
(PS & O/T Are you a doctor of medicine?)
http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/rulings/statement280104.htm
point 53 summarises things nicely.
The BBC is rather more than ‘a newsgathering organization’. But even if a newsgatherer like Reuters or AP were to conduct such a survey, I can’t see why that would be inappropriate.
The World Service is funded by a grant-in-aid from the Foreign Office.
John Reith | 05.11.07 – 11:37 am | #
Hmmm … JR
I suppose whether the study was appropriate or not might depend upon the impartiality credentials of the organisation carrying it out – wouldn’t you agree?
I looked up the BBC World Service/Globescan/PIPA combo who produced this study on Wikipedia.
This reference to another one of their studies gives us a hint of where they’re coming from:-
Some of PIPA/WPO’s best known studies include global polls conducted with GlobeScan for the BBC World Service, often covering 30-35 countries; a study linking viewership of Fox News to misperceptions of facts concerning the war in Iraq, as well as other topics.
Well I suppose if you think it’s OK to spend public money on proving that Fox viewers “misperceive facts” you might well support the latest equally tendentious exercise.
The rest of us, however, will continue to view it as the BBC spending yet more of our money (in addition to the licence fee) on a desparate attempt to confirm its institutional prejudices.
Incidentally, my guess would be that Richy’s estimate of £100k for this exercise is way short of the mark.
Since this work is funded by tax money rather than the licence fee, presumably it’s regarded as non-commercial and therefore covered by FOI provisions.
Any chance you could use your legendary research facilities to let us know how much it did cost us?
With respect to the Climate Change poll. Globescan who undertook the work are a very well respected organisation with a good record in the general area of sustainability.
However, it is well known that ‘stated preference’ surveys of this type are of relatively little value, especially on cotroversial issues, since respondents will tend to give the interviewer the ‘correct’ answer rather than the real one. There is a well known difference between ‘stated preference’ surveys and ‘revealed preference’ surveys especially in relation to environmental taxation. When people are asked they usually agree its a good idea, but then when they vote they vote against. You only have to look at the discontiuity in the UK over the price of petrol and Gordon’s retreat from the fuel duty escalator.
It is beyond annoying to continually hear the untrustworthy Barbara, Crybaby, Plett pontificating from Pakistan. I’m waiting for her to start leaking tears about the demise of democracy. What’s that you say? She only weeps for terrorists like Yassir Arafat. So when is she going to be fired?
Interesting link to a piece about press bias relating to Iraq in general here:
http://ybfblog.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/when-is-good-news-no-news-when-it-comes-from-iraq/
It doesn’t mention the BBC specifically, but cast your mind back – can you remember a positive story about Iraq from the Beeb?
John Reith | 03.11.07 – 10:50 am (other thread)
Reith – where is your reference for the Hava Nagila piece of Toady? When was it broadcast?
BBC writes in May of this year approvingly about the director-general Jonathan Evans and MI5 almost as if they were a bunch of Penny Toynbee outreach social-workers, that
“It has started operating in the regions as part of multi-agency teams alongside the police and close to the Muslim communities in which its targets operate.”
But Evans himself now talks a little differently and note how a BBC journo has started deploying the famous quotes:
“speaking on Monday at the Society of Editors’ annual conference, he said the number of individuals in the UK causing concern had risen in part due to better intelligence gathering in “extremist communities”.(Nov 5th)
So BBC what is it to be- shall we carry on with the description “Muslim communities” and one or two “targets” within them (of course • totally unrepresentative, and don’t mention the word “children”) or do we go with “extremist communities”?
I notice that the Telegraph runs with the headline: MI5: Al-Qa’eda recruiting UK children for terror. CNN follow suite, the BBC just don’t want to go down this route.
BBC subterfuge instead of news!
John Reith spins in his grave | Homepage | 05.11.07 – 1:03 pm
Well I suppose if you think it’s OK to spend public money on proving that Fox viewers “misperceive facts” you might well support the latest equally tendentious exercise.
Who says anyone spent any public money on the Fox survey?
Who says the BBC had any connection with it?
GlobeScan has many other clients including: CNN, Reuters, Warner Bros, UBS, Sun Life, Swiss Re, the World Bank, The World Trade Organization and the governments of Australia, France, Mexico, Canada, the UK and the USA……and not forgetting the CocaCola Company, Cadbury Schweppes and Ronald MacDonald himself.
But then…..who said GlobeScan had any connection with a study on Fox viewers’ misperceptions……?
Maybe you’ve had some multiple misperceptions of your own. No doubt arising out of a failure fully to grasp the role of a semi-colon.
Anon:
Hava Nagila. Today. Saturday.
It is well-known in market research circles that polls which ask what are termed ‘caring’ questions, ie ‘Would you be prepared to pay more tax if it was guaranteed to go towards improving schools and hospitals’ will always return these sorts of results.
The reasons are fairly obvious: nobody wants to be thought of as selfish or uncaring and since it is hypothetical and costs those being polled nothing, they give the idealistic answer • of course, we all want the world to a be a cleaner, safer place with better schools and hospitals.
But when push comes to shove (or vote), most people do not act altruistically • turkeys, as they say, do not vote for Christmas.
Anyone hear John Humphreys TELLING Alistair Darling what the government should have done over Northern Rock.
Clear breach of impartiality rules, I’d say.
From today’s Opinion Journal “Best of the Web“:
John Simpson, BBC News’s world affairs editor, went to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to interview King Abdullah ahead of the king’s state visit to Britain. When he arrived, he learned that Abdullah was setting preconditions for the interview:
The king would not, it seemed, be prepared to talk about Iraq, or the possibility that the Americans might bomb Iran.
Nor would he speak about the BAE arms contract between the UK and Saudi Arabia, with its attendant allegations of corrupt payments. . . .
I have never been told so close to an interview that some of the main questions are off-limits.
And so I heard myself saying that, unfortunately, it looked as though we would not be having an interview after all.
In the end, though, he got the interview:
Something else had become clear to me by now. The king was not refusing to talk about Iran and Iraq because he was not interested in them.
On the contrary, I now realised he felt so strongly about what the US had done in Iraq, and the thought that they might soon bomb Iran, that he felt he might upset his relations with Washington if he spoke openly to me.
So I agreed.
Within five minutes of agreeing to the deal, I was sitting opposite the king.
Presented with an interview subject’s unacceptable restrictions, Simpson simply read the subject’s mind, found him to be simpatico, and agreed to the restrictions. That’s how they do journalism at the BBC.
I wonder what the response would be if you polled 21 countries around the world and asked people if they would like to pay a tax for owning a television?
Globescan, purveyor of truth to the right thinking, worldwide.
Isn’t it headed up by that Lib Dem peer who had to excuse himself from the Broadcasting Standards Authority when the N.O.W. caught him at it with a couple of bimbos (“The spanking Mr Toad” I think the headline was – very Lib Dem).
On their website, Globescan describe themselves thus:-
“GlobeScan’s roots lie in the fields of sustainability and green marketing.”
They also describe their favourite client thus:-
“The BBC exists to enrich people’s lives with great programmes and services on television, radio and online that inform, educate and entertain. Its vision is to be the most creative, trusted organisation in the world. BBC reporters and correspondents at home and abroad can be called on for expert coverage across a huge range of subject areas.”
Sounds like the sort of organisation you’d throw public money at to get a completely impartial opinion on something – doesn’t it?
Now – how much did you pay them again JR?
I think Andrew should start a new sidebar – with a rolling list of all the specific questions you get asked and manage to avoid answering.
Edited By Siteowner
John Reith spins in his grave | Homepage | 05.11.07 – 9:11 pm
Now – how much did you pay them again JR?
I’m afraid I’m not privy to the procurement records of World Service. You’ll have to ask the boy Milliband.
Isn’t it headed up by that Lib Dem peer who had to excuse himself from the Broadcasting Standards Authority when the N.O.W. caught him at it with a couple of bimbos..?
Goodness, a couple of bimbos, was it?
I suppose it makes a change from copraphilia and rent boys.
I’d clean forgotten that the Lib Dems did hetero scandals. Bring back Paddy Pantsdown.
He does appear to be chairman of the board, but day to day management of this Toronto-based outft seems to be in the hands of polyglots with a taste for adventurous sports:
http://www.globescan.com/team_management.htm#
GlobeScan’s roots lie in the fields of sustainability
Whatever that may mean. When people start talkng about sustainability, I reach for my remote.
The Five Live phone in at the moment is discussing th case of the Jehovah’s Witness who died rather than have a blood transfusion. Strangely there is not much of the extremely careful pussyfooting around the subject of others religous beliefs that the BBC displays when discussing another religion that is often in the news. The presenter is being quite forthright in his questioning of the logic of the rules of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. At least this Jehovah’s Witness’s behaviour only caused her own death. The terrorism and honour killings associated with others religions often cause the deaths of innocent people. It seems that the BBC is not equally concerned about offending the believers in all religions.
It was the perfect story for the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7078612.stm
An ultra rich supermodel and the denigration of Amerikkka’s currency.
The story was the most popular on bbc.co.uk for much of Guy Fawkes day.
Just one problem, the story is false:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/21641711
Al Beeb now putting third party ads on their web site for international users.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/11/carrying_adverts_1.html
Good.
Although I would be highly suspect that the money generated will go anywhere else except the Beeb’s pockets, I think it’s about time BBC learned how to generate revenue from advertising.
Hopefully, this is the first important step down the inevitable path.
There now follows a party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour Party:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7079333.stm
No Conservative or Lib Dim reaction here – but Tony Woodley was available for comment.
Oh well – I suppose they did remember to put scare quotes around “historic”.
Hava Nagila. It’s a popular, iconic song and no one really wants to make such a big thing about a 10 minute filler on Radio 4.
Tim Franks, in what will apparently going to be a weekly feature, Jerusalem diary comments on it’s centenary. Still it would be nice if he had provided the lyrics, as he did for the song it apparently replaced.
My God: why have you forsaken me?
In fire and flames, they burned us.
Everywhere, they shamed and mocked us.
But no-one could turn us away from you, O God.
BTW Perhaps because I’m not a musicologist, I has never heard the song “Eli, Eli” although I find it hard to believe that Jews of the 19th Century saw it as a defining song. However, Tim Franks missed the salient point. Eli, Eli is in Yiddish, the language of the past. Hava Nagila is in Hebrew, the language of the future.
As a public service.
Let’s rejoice
Let’s rejoice
Let’s rejoice and be happy
(repeat stanza once)
Let’s sing
Let’s sing
Let’s sing and be happy
(repeat stanza once)
Awake, awake, brothers!
Awake brothers with a happy heart
(repeat line three times)
Awake, brothers, awake, brothers!
With a happy heart
BTW Feinberg, singing Hava Nagila, bizarrely IMHO adds an extra and meaningless consonant to the word Hava. He sings Ha(m)va. Perhaps the BBC musicologist has an answer.
Tim Franks, Jerusalem diary is to new but should be watched. I suspect it will continue to be top heavy with Palestinian stories but give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
The picture chosen to illustrate Nablus police directing or failing to direct traffic is attached.
http://thumbsnap.com/v/VYZGa04B.jpg
Perhaps the heavy Kalatnikovs hinder the policemen’s ability to provide crisp hand signals?
In Balata Style (accompanying photograph attached http://thumbsnap.com/v/NnpQiYdo.jpg. ) Tim Franks sees the typical boys’ close-cropped pudding bowl of a haircut as a sign of solidarity with a ‘militant’ who was killed by the Israelis. Who knows why?
I have an alternate, less sexy explanation. Bowls cuts are usually chosen by parents who have too little money, time and artistic style (and possibly too many children) to pay for a professional job. It’s quick, simple, uses available tools and requires no training or manual dexterity. The “martyr’s” parents probably cut his hair in a bowl cut for that same reason.
Check out 10 pages of bowl cuts, none of them to my knowledge a potential shahid.
Just had a look at the BBC website ‘HYS'(dont) and I see an article with the title “are scientists underestimating climate change”. Nothing wrong with that you may say BUT of the 80 comments only 2 are shown and surprise surprise they are both positive to the article!
One lied about the greenland ice cover disappearing faster than anticipated, WRONG, Greenlands ice cover is increasing!
The next comment lammented the early showing of daffodils, so what?
The BBC must be desperate to pull tricks like this.
The usual BBC love of ecowibble/leftism, means that they couldn’t possibly resist printing an article about “Understanding ethical investment”.
No hard data or useful information, just ecowibble and the statement
“Contrary to popular belief, many ethical funds deliver impressive returns.”
The Fat Contractor | 06.11.07 – 10:01 am
So are there cracks in the system or are they blocking ip addresses of those they know don’t like ’em?
According to a reply from January on the BBC FoI page about moderation – the BBC hasn’t employed ANY full-time moderators for about a year now. The vast majority of moderation (and that probably means ALL of HYS) is outsourced.
There may be all manner of software glitches throwing up bizarre effects such as strangely disappearing comments – but there’s no agenda-driven beeboid ghost messing with your posts. Get real: accept it.
Just because HYS Moderation is now outsourced does not mean that it isn’t subject to BBC ‘interference’ it would be very strange indeed if the BBC had not provided the contractor with explicit rules of engagement.
I would see no objection to having those rules made publically available, linked to the HYS site. This would enable posters to be aware of what the rules where and should lead to a drastic reduction in the number of posts that were rejected. Perhaps Mr Reith could put a word in the right ear at the BBC.
There is a nice article on the BBC and its ability to blow a huge amount of money at the Register today ..
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/06/highfield_tactics/
The Fat Contractor | 06.11.07 – 10:01 am
Nearly fell off my chair. I got a response from BBC Information to a complaint I’d sent to the Complaints website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/
about the bias of HYS moderators, in this case the pro-Iran bias. I’ve been advised that I sent it to the wrong department and I should send it to centralcommunitiesteam@bbc.co.uk
This is the first I’ve heard of such an animal. I had a look at Have Your Say feedback. There’s a link there to a Newswatch complaints form
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4000000/newsid_4000500/4000561.stm
but they state that they wont be able to read or reply to all e-mails. Great.
I responded to the response from BBC Information only to get an automated response basically saying, “Sorry, we don’t take responses to our responses here – and directing me to the Contact Us page
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/contactus/
which has a link to the Complaints website where this arduous quest began.
So I’m wondering whether I should carry on being the ball in this particular game of ping pong or just accept that the BBC “complaints” system is a bad joke and give up.
Reith:
Spreading disinformation again are you John?
The HYS moderation is not out-sourced, it’s dealt with Beeboid staffers, full time or not.
Accept it.
John Reith | 06.11.07 – 10:32 am |
There may be all manner of software glitches throwing up bizarre effects such as strangely disappearing comments – but there’s no agenda-driven beeboid ghost messing with your posts. Get real: accept it.
Wasn’t being entirely serious, I’d’ve thought you would have got that by now.
I happen to believe DHYS is getting better but it is doing so in odd ways. The school ’til 18 case being typical. A number of the posts broke the house rules but still got through. Some of the comments were astonishing for a BBC board and one was completely off topic (about Enoch Powel IIRC). But at least it wasn’t supressing anti-government views or suddenly ending because 90% of the comments went ‘the wrong way’. So a point won for the BBC – for doing it’s job. A point is then lost because my comment, which was not against the house rules and pretty mild compared to some, seems to have been rejected. Why? I have no idea and as I never give a real email address I’ll never know. A glitch? Maybe, probably not.
The breast feeding DHYS is even funnier and, at the mo’ my comment is the most recommended! In fact I have had two comments posted, under different names, curiously. So again, good to see it’s working.
Interestingly, and it has happened several times, my post from here, the one you replied to, has vanished too. Perhaps it’s paranoia? Or Martians!!!
Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark and her husband investigated by police for data theft
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=492007&in_page_id=1770
Nice unbiased BBC reporting on 5 lite. They’ve got a couple of lefties in reacting to Gordon’s Queen’s speech. One of them being that geordie toady that’s big buddies of Gordon Brown.
1327,
Highfield’s blog is getting pounded by Linux users about him stating that there are 400-600 users, and now suggesting there are between 30,000 and 90,000.
And, though I have not read the Balen report, someone I know and trust, who has read it, says it contains ‘no smoking gun’ on the bias issue.
Moreover, I gather the main recommendation of the Balen report (since implemented) was the creation of Jeremy Bowen’s job!
John Reith | 05.11.07 – 12:20 pm | #
Pretty much my experience of it. My understanding of it, without actually seeing it, but having to implement something to do things about it (work that one out if you can) is that in general, staff needed to know far more about the facts and sensitivites on both sides.
I think by being so coy about it the beeb has created an expectation that the report is hugely damaging in terms of bias. I don’t think that’s the case, ignorance maybe, although some might say that’s actually far worse…
I should say in the spirit of openness that the nature of my relationship with the beeb has changed and I am now very part-time and not directly employed by the beeb, although I have a full pass on logon and from time to time may have a BBC IP although I am more likely to logon from home.
I dont know how much of a beeboid that makes me, about 25% I would guess.
(anyone new around here should know that I am not the real Sarah-Jane either, if it wasn’t obvious)
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2007/11/the-bbc-the-lic.html
support for the BBC from a perhaps surprising source
It’s a good article that.
Being mostly outside these days, it makes it more obvious that there are sections of the BBC that are totally removed from what people want from it. And they will remain so while people are faced with a choice of cough up or go to jail.
It might be that giving people choice about whether they pay for it, is the only thing that can save it.
It is interesting to read that Hitchins thinks something quite different – because we have to pay for it – that means we can change it.
🙂
I should add that I completely agree with his comments on Channel 4, particularly the realistion that so-called conservative thinking is a source of radical programe ideas
Well if we HAVE to pay for the BBC then perhaps WE the people should decide who runs theBBC rather than a bunch of unwashed Nu labour luvvies?