Just heard the BBC’s David Jordan, Director of Editorial Policy and Standards, (getting around a lot these days) telling Feedback on R4 that the BBC is ‘eternally grateful’ for audience feedback and complaints…it helps them make better programmes.
Away you go!
Also on Feedback complaints about the smutty or downright obscene nature of a comedy programme, Down the line, broadcast at 18:30
Apparently mentions of gay sex, slags and tarts, prostitutes, masturbation and so on, shocked a few listeners….
‘….is the 6.30pm comedy slot really the place for jokes about group sex on Hampstead Heath, brothels and sex workers?’
The BBC’s response…..well, audiences should realise it’s cutting edge comedy and there may be some explicit content.
Which makes you wonder what they were thinking here:
‘Victorian’ BBC slammed for editing out nipples in coverage of breastfeeding health issue
The BBC has been accused of being too “embarrassed” and “Victorian” to cover public health issues properly, after it emerged that an interview about breastfeeding was edited to avoid mentioning nipples.
Earlier this year the current affairs programme BBC Breakfast covered a story about tongue-tie – a serious congenital condition that affects up to 10 per cent of babies.
The condition makes it difficult for the child to attach properly to its mother’s breast, and sore or damaged nipples are the number one symptom used by medical practitioners to diagnose the problem.
BBC Breakfast covered the story throughout the morning on 18 February, but when an interviewee mentioned that nipples could become damaged and bleeding they were asked to redo their answer because the content was too “graphic”.
Suzanne Barber, a midwife and chair of the Association of Tongue-tie Practitioners, told The Independent that the incident was an example of the BBC’s “Victorian attitude” to matters of public health.
“The BBC’s embarrassment means the breast remains the preserve of sex and titillation, rather than child rearing or public health,” she said.
Ms Barber said that while it was good to see the issue of tongue-tie covered at all, the “very generalised” discussion undermined the BBC’s role as a public service broadcaster.
“It didn’t really give a full picture of the enormity of the problems women face, so many of the concerns were played down or outright dismissed.”
That is a minor example of the BBC attitude…..quietly avoiding topics that it thinks would upset the status quo or common decency.
Here it possibly results in mothers or even doctors not diagnosing a problem because the connection between a damaged nipple and a babies medical problem is not made.
In other cases such as Europe, immigration or Islam there are far more serious and wide ranging problems which could result from the BBC’s reluctance to examine issues fully due to its ‘fear of adding to a ‘right wing’ narrative’ and making immigrants feel unwelcome etc…whatever that is.
The BBC says:
“We always think very carefully about the language and images we use and the BBC has guidelines we follow depending on the context of a story and when and where it is being aired.”
A great example of why your audience feedback is not of any value.
Just heard the BBC’s David Jordan, Director of Editorial Policy and Standards, (getting around a lot these days) telling Feedback on R4 that the BBC is ‘eternally grateful’ for audience feedback and complaints…it helps them make better programmes.
Thanks for the chuckle. Far from complaints helping the BBC make better programmes, complaints simply help the BBC become more effecient in ducking, diving and denying them.
As far as I can see, the BBC only admits an error if it fears a dismissal of a complaint will follow with legal action that could well succeed.
So the BBC Trust goes through any communications with a complainant, so that any legally dubious point is left out of the findings.
So any future recommendation by a government committee, to investigate the complaints system of the BBC Trust, would cause the BBC Trust to hastily recommend its own abolition, immediately.
‘the BBC is ‘eternally grateful’ for audience feedback and complaints…it helps them make better programmes’
So grateful that when some people persist in trying to help them be better by asking questions they can’t answer, or pointing out logical fallacies they can’t explain, or inaccuracies they dare not confront, they expedite them.
Trust and transparency, BBC-style, told often enough it becomes truth for some.
After all this we get children’s faces blanked out regardless of context , in all stories . Bizzare
I had noticed, over the years, the blanking out, or “fuzzying”of so much more – logos, registration numbers, odd faces, images on television screens, and many other innocuous things. Sometimes, there’s so much “fuzz” I a). can’t see much else, and b). consider visiting an optician.
I think that there should be discounts available on the television tax, where excess fuzzing is apparent, as often only a small portion of unfuzzed real estate of the screen can be viewed comfortably.
PC, and fear of backlash has taken over so much in today’s society, hasn’t it? What a timid, namby-pamby bunch of wankers the BBC (and other broadcasters) are.