We spend most of our time making criticisms of the BBC, that being the nature of this site, but in an indulgent break from that here’s a film from the BBC that is a showcase for the brilliant material that it can produce……Mississippi: Tales of the Last River Rat

‘An intimate and poetic portrayal of wildlife along the Upper Mississippi River – seen through the eyes of Kenny Salwey; a beguiling backwoodsman, storyteller and philosopher of nature, who has lived his life in a log cabin, a stone’s throw from the water’s edge.

This film is a sumptuous evocation of the outstanding natural beauty of one of America’s most iconic rivers – a story that focuses on the plants and animals closest to the narrator’s heart. Country blues combined with wild tracks recorded on location add an authentic atmosphere to the story of Kenny Salwey’s deep, almost spiritual connection to the mighty Mississippi.’

I saw this fim years ago and have never seen it since until I eventually dug it up on YouTube (It’s in 5 parts…50 minutes total)….

The BBC seems to have forgotten all about this magnificent little film with its great music, wildlife photography and narration, and haven’t even produced a DVD for the series as far as I can see.

Maybe they’ll rectify that one day…..judging by the reviews it’s surprisng the films have been forgotten…

Reviews

Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian
Kenny himself is one of those flowers who are born to bloom unseen unless they are spotted by a sympathetic producer and poetic photographer. (I had never noticed before how water behaves on a duck’s back. It rolls around like mercury.) As the producer’s name, Andrew Graham-Brown, suggests, this is a British production.

Radio Times
…..it’s probably the most languorously beautiful film you’ve seen for sometime. There’s a poetic quality about Andrew Graham-Brown’s film….

Judy Adamson, The Sydney Morning Herald
If it were possible to give two upward thumbs, this documentary would easily earn the extra kudos…. Before long you’re completely drawn in to his world and you feel a real pull of regret when the program ends and you have to leave.

The Observer
In terms of natural history film making this is an outstanding programme.

The Guardian
….an exquisitely filmed documentary….

Royal Television Society
Stunningly beautiful and poetic photography …. Sensuous and languid, the remarkable footage captured all the moods of the river at all times of day and year. Often complex filming techniques never got in the way of the subject or mood of the piece. This was a near-perfect piece of natural history filming.

And as a bonus here’s a short film that I saw whilst hunting down the one above…

The BBC has different narratives for different religions…..Whilst they insist that Islam is a religion of peace despite wars around the world in the name of that religion the BBC, in order to defend Islam, tries to paint other religions as violent in nature thereby trying to make Islam appear no more strange and dangerous than say Christianity or Buddhism…..

‘Historically, Buddhism has been no more a religion of peace than Christianity.’

The problem is that neither Christianity nor Buddhism are inherently violent, neither of their sacred texts demand their followers kill non-believers whereas the Islamic Koran does demand that Muslims fight and kill non-believers and those who threaten Islam’s dominance.

Anyone who has followed the BBC’s reporting closely about events concerning Muslims knows that the BBC plays down, or completely denies, any connection with violence to the Islamic religion.  The BBC does not want you knowing that there is a problem with Islam because once you know that you might start asking for a solution to that problem.

An example of the BBC’s narrative of violence from other religions with Muslims as innocent victims is their reporting of events in Burma….as linked to above where they tell us that Buddhism is a religion of violence.

Here is another report from Burma that perfectly illustrates the BBC mind at work as the reporter turns Muslims into victims at the hands of Buddhist war mongers…..’Buddhist mobs’ as the reporter suggests.

It’s a very one sided tale…the Buddhist claims of Muslim violence dismissed as rumour and misinformation…

‘Rakhine Buddhists have a different story to tell. They repeat the accounts spread by word of mouth or through internet sites of gruesome Muslim atrocities, and occasionally bring out blurry photographs of mutilated corpses.’

What the reporter fails to emphasise is that the Muslims have been fighting a Jihad against the Burmese for over 70 years in order to annex this part of Burma to create a Muslim state, and indeed proclaimed one in 2012.  He alludes to a massacre in 1942 but fails to be more explicit and explain that the Muslims killed 20,000 Buddhists in one attack and have been on that Jihad ever since….we know that the Muslims have been linking up with the Taliban and that outside Muslims have come to Burma to fight the Buddhists….

‘The long decades of isolation and chronic injustice imposed by Burma’s military rulers have left prejudice and resentment in Rakhine state to ferment into a poisonous climate of mistrust and misinformation.

Some Rakhine hark back to massacres in 1942, amid the chaos of the British withdrawal from the advancing Japanese imperial army. Back then Buddhist men often supported the Japanese-sponsored militia forces, while Rohingyas backed the British. Some go back even further, to the glorified memory of a powerful, independent Buddhist kingdom in Rakhine from the 15th to the 18th Century.’

It is an interesting exercise to compare the BBC’s reporting of the conflict in Burma where we have an ‘interloper’ Muslim minority surrounded by the majority Buddhist native population with that between Israel and the Muslims surrounding them.

In Burma the British colonialists imported Bengali Muslims to work in Burma and many came as illegal immigrants….the Burmese Buddhists have never recognised the immigrants as citizens.  The Muslims are now fighting that ‘Jihad’ to establish their own state by annexing part of Burma.

The BBC’s reporting is very definitely a one sided bit of cheerleading for the Muslim ‘victims’.

Contrast that with Israel where once again the Muslims are considered the victims…once again the British were involved giving the nod to a Jewish homeland, subsequently endorsed and legitimated by the UN.   The Muslims in Burma have no such legitimate claim to a state.

Israel has not been attacking but has been under attack for 70 years by the majority Muslim population surrounding it, not just the Palestinians.

However, whilst Israel’s and the Burmese Muslim positions might seem to bare some comparison the BBC  sides with the Muslims in this conflict with Israel….on that basis the BBC should be supporting the Buddhists as they defend their land against a group of religiously inspired insurgents (Muslim Zionists?) who want to take over part of Burma….will the Muslim jihadists in Burma claim to be the new Jews of Asia as they claim to be the new Jews of Europe whilst ironically they persecute those same Jews?

It seems that whatever the circumstances the BBC’s default position is to promote the Muslim narrative of being the victims whereas in both cases it is the Muslims who are attacking….you may say that Israel has imposed itself upon ‘Palestinian’ land but firstly, as stated, the UN created Israel and the Bengali Mulsims have no historic claim to Burma as the Jews might to some of Palestine; and secondly, the UN at the same time also set up Pakistan as a Muslim state, annexing part of India in a move that resulted in a million deaths and millions of people being expelled from what is now ‘Pakistan’.  If you object to Israel then you must object to Pakistan…a state which is a sponsor of terrorism, a state that has 300 terrorist training camps inside its borders, a state that set up the Taliban and used them to try and annex Afghanistan….never mind Pakistan’s own internal religious persecution of its minorities….and what of Jordan carved out of Palestinian land just as Israel was?  Where are the objections to that State?

Just as the BBC has ignored the Muslim massacre of orthodox Christians in Bosnia just before the massacre at Srebrenica it ignores the jihad being fought by the Muslim ‘immigrants’ in Burma.  Both crucial bits of history that put a different perspective on the narratives being peddled by those with an axe to grind about Muslim ‘victimhood’.

That claimed ‘victimhood’ is a valuable currency…it puts pressure on the media, on politicians and on the public, it gains the Muslim community enormous political influence and money to rectify that ‘victim’ status and the second objective of this tactic is to silence the critics of Islamic practices by claiming that this criticism leads to Islamophobia, hate crimes and racism and yet more of that ‘victimhood’.

That’s why its important to challenge the claims that Muslims are under siege or being demonised and marginalised….all false claims but ones made for political, social and cultural advantage, ones that they know few politicians will ignore because they always have to look like they are doing ‘something’….or ironically face claims of ignoring and marginalising the Muslim community.  They also know that elements of the Media will give them enormous amounts of supportive and favourable commentary which is designed to back up their line.

And that’s where we come in.

Amused to hear Peter Allen saying he was going to devote the last part of his programme to the Labour Party….sure he didn’t mean that.

They were of course talking  about the ‘car crash’ Labour leadership election and one subject came up was the #toriesforcorbyn windup.  A Tory voting caller told Allen that he was going to vote for Corbyn…Allen said that he strongly disapproved and that this was very undemocratic…it would damage democracy.

Hmmm….how about the most influential media organisation in the UK, the BBC, siding with Labour year after year?….or Murdoch siding with Labour for 12 years?  Seemed pretty hunky dory then…at least until the Sun switched to the Tories and Brown declared war on Murdoch.  Isn’t that ‘war’ also undemocratic, usng the forces of government to smash a free press that doesn’t support you now?

I wonder what Allen thinks of the Guardian and Polly Toynbee…does he similarly disapprove or does he reserve his contempt just for the Tories?….here’s the Guardian’s idea of how to manipulate democracy……

How to vote tactically: a no-guarantees guide to gaming the election

Britain’s rotten electoral system means that once again it’s nose-peg time

Under first-past-the-post Labour, Greens and Lib Dems will have to vote-swap to keep the Tories out.

Talking tactics brings politics into disrepute and disgusts young voters with its calculating cynicism. But that’s what our rotten system demands: head not heart. For those in seats where they know following their heart helps Cameron into Downing Street, vote-swapping is an option that lets them register heartfelt politics while using their head to block the brutality of Conservative plans.

The new vote-swap site already has 100,000 voters signed up – with no publicity. This year vote-swappers could make all the difference.

So Polly Toynbee knows tactical voting is disreputable but is prepared to look away if it gets in the Party she wants to win…head not heart.

Which brings us to Lord Prescott being interviewed by Humphrys this morning (08:10) about Blair’s comment that people voting with their heart for Corbyn need a heart transplant.  Apparently this was ‘totally unacceptable abuse’ …can’t see the problem myself.  If Blair thinks Corbyn’s policies are wildly wrong and damaging and people are thinking of voting for him solely on the basis of a warm and cuddly feeling then perhaps they do need a change of heart….utopian policies that do more damage than good are not in any way admirable…just delusional.  Humphrys made no case for Bair’s defence.

Prescott’s not beyond a bit of personal abuse himself…

John Prescott: You’d have to be a plonker to vote for a Del Boy Prime Minister like dodgy David Cameron

A prime plonker not a prime minister.

Isn’t he calling voters who vote for Cameron ‘plonkers’?  Not really any different in substance to saying voters need a heart transplant if they vote for Corbyn.

How about when he declared Cameron a coward...’John Prescott was among the first to spring into the Twittersphere, branding Cameron a “coward” who knew Miliband would “wipe the floor with him”.’

Prescott seems to have a problem with demcocracy and free speech where people voice their opinions…if their opinons differ from his that is…here’s what he thought David Miliband should do…‘He should shut up.’

Yep, very democratic….I guess being a ‘Lord’ has gone to Prescott’s head.

It was amusing to hear Prescott advising Blair, the man who won three elections, on how to win elections…apparently the Iraq war was the cause of Labour losing voters in 2015…hmm…..how about 2005?  Wasn’t it Labour that won that election?  The invasion of Iraq being in 2003.  Margaret Beckett was right about Prescott. Humphrys said nothing but then again he doesn’t have a good record on comments aout Iraq…and the BBC’s standard response to any world problem is that the Iraq war caused it.  Well it certainly finished the career of Greg Dyke at the BBC.

Prescott claims that we should all be talking about policies not being abusive…which is why he spent so much of an interview on the BBC’s prime current affairs programme talking not about policies but about abuse and then spending a good chunk more of it abusing Tony Blair.  Prescott can’t even remember Liz kendall’s name.

Prescott claimed that the polls indicating Corbyn was in the lead were a Murdoch conspiracy…Humphrys didn’t raise an objection…despite the first such poll being reported by the lefty bible, the New Statesman, only a week ago….

Jeremy Corbyn “on course to come top” in the Labour leadership election

The BBC are pushing hard to make sure that criticism of the BBC and any projected change is seen as dangerous meddling by vested interests both political and commercial.

This BBC article gives us chapter and verse on those who voice support for the BBC…BBC facing ‘root-and-branch’ review…and though published after the revelations of media manipulation by the BBC there’s no mention of Danny Cohen organising that Luvvie letter.

The BBC reports, quite often, the hyperbole of Tory Lord Fowler (isn’t he a politically ‘vested interest’ then, all Tories being anti-BBC?) about the Panel set up to look at Charter renewal, and Lord Patten (another Tory…more of those politically ‘vested interests’?)…

‘Special interests’

The panel was criticised by conservative peer Lord Fowler, who warned in the House of Lords on Tuesday that the BBC was “under unprecedented attack”.

“I must warn those who support the BBC that we have something of a fight on our hands,” he said.

“The cards are marked and somewhat stacked against us. The advisory group advising the Secretary of State clanks with special interests and past opinions.”

Speaking at the same debate, Lord Patten, a former chairman of the BBC Trust, called the government’s advisory panel “a team of assistant gravediggers” who would help the culture secretary “bury the BBC that we love”.

No need to comment on Tory wet Patten but what of those people who are ‘Clanking with special interests and past opinions’ on the review panel?  Fowler is not himself immune to such charges…and an additional one of hypocrisy with his own special interest and past opinions….he being a great fan of the BBC and its unbiased reporting….so why does he think his comments are untainted by possible bias whilst others are doing the satanic work of Rupert Murdoch?

Here he is in 2009….

One of the easiest ways of winning a cheer at this week’s Conservative party conference will be to attack the impartiality or extravagance of the BBC. The corporation has never been a conference favourite but over the last decade the Conservative view has not counted for very much.

One of the achievements of the BBC over the years is how it has resisted government interference and, above all, maintained impartiality in its reporting. [Fowler’s contention of no bias rests on the BBC’s attack on Labour over the Iraq War….but that is absolute evidence of its bias…against the war…a stance that has helped recruit Muslim radicals for Al Qaeda and now ISIS]
My advice then to the new ministers who are likely to take over is reject the Murdoch path of cutting back the BBC and concentrate instead on making it more effective.

Pretty clear where he stood in 2009….for the BBC.

Fowler back in 2012 said this…..admitting the BBC had massive political influence but you know what…it’s not really a problem… his real target is Murdoch…

 The challenge remains to devise a system where nobody – Murdoch or anybody else – has a disproportionate share of the British media.

What about the BBC with its plethora of television channels and multitude of radio stations and programmes? Surely the corporation has a massive political influence, for why else would cabinet and shadow cabinet ministers queue up to be interviewed on Today or Andrew Marr’s Sunday programme?

As it happens my own view would be that BBC reporting is some of the best in the world, but that is not how everybody sees it.  Any new rules on share of voice cannot be directed exclusively at News International. The BBC must come within the net as too must the other media giants like Google.

The BBC faces stiff competition on all its television channels. The same however is not true for national news radio. Today, World at One and PM have a far too clear run. That kind of radio programme cannot be supported by advertising, but of course the BBC has the licence fee. One solution here is to make a portion of the licence fee contestable so that a new provider like ITN or Channel 4 can be attracted in to compete.

Fowler demonstrates much confused thinking.  He tells us that Murdoch is bad for the Media landscape because he owned ‘almost 40% of national press circulation and a big chunk of a successful television company’…however ‘Now all that is changing. We are into the post-Murdoch era.’  So Murdoch’s not a problem now?  And yet he, and others, mention him relentlessly.

And yet Fowler has little problem with the BBC dominating the news with its ‘ massive political influence‘?

What of that Charter review panel? 

Is it really a hit squad specially picked to be the BBC’s  ‘grave diggers’?

You would have thought so from much of the rhetoric flooding out from the BBC’s defenders and the BBC itself.  Here’s BBC comedian Stewart Lee with some wit and wisdom….

The government’s witch-hunters are ready to reform the BBC to death. 

He tells us that ‘Due to its legendary nose for news, last week’s Sunday Times was first to reveal the “eight experts” chosen by culture secretary John Whittingdale to “help decide the BBC’s future”, the Murdoch empire barely able to wait to share its horror at the venerable institution’s latest humiliation.

And what a golden shower of talent Whittingdale has stitched together, a veritable human centipede of business-minded entities, in order to safeguard the nation’s cultural heritage.’

Naturally out of the woodwork crawls the man with no thoughts of his own, Jon Donnison, to applaud this public display of prejudiced stupidity and ignorance by Lee….(H/T Craig at Is the BBC Biased?)..

  Jon DonnisonVerified account ‏@jondonnisonbbc

Jon Donnison retweeted Chris Hamilton

Chapeau. 

Chris Hamilton @chrishams   In which Stewart Lee gives it both barrels re BBC debate – then re-loads & gives it a few more http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/19/stewart-lee-bbc-witch-hunters-reform-panel-culture-secretary …

The problem is that the mouth frothing and eye-ball rolling are somewhat wasted.  If they had the slightest intent of providing an intelligent and informed comment instead of scaremongering bombastic exaggeration they would have told you what the Government actually says and what others, such as ‘Broadcast’ magazine, which is very pro-BBC,  says about the panel.

Firstly is the Panel the sole source of information and reference for the government?  No.  The BBC itself, through Hall and his executives and via the BBC Trust, will be having a huge say in what goes on and the Trust will be gathering information and data to support whatever case it decides to proffer….

One of the creations of the last Charter was the BBC Trust – set up to represent the licence fee payer. The Trust will, in thisrole, also be consulting on proposals for the future of the BBC. We will take full account of the Trust’s work and work with them on a range of public and industry events to explore in detail the important issues in the coming months.

The Public and whoever else is interested and concerned are also invited to contribute their views and opinions…

Reviewing the BBC’s Royal Charter is not just a case of publishing a consultation. We want to engage with the public and with industry to make sure that all views are given proper consideration. This is why we are engaging with people across the UK in a number of ways to make it easy for everyone to respond.

Not only that but other experts will be engaged to provide comment and relevant expertise…

There are also some areas where studies, reviews and research are needed – to add technical expertise or independence from Government. We will be commissioning these in the coming months.

Not only that but as well as the eight people on the review Panel other people or groups will be asked to join the panel as when the situation requires it.

Hardly the cosy little stitch up by a government in hock to the Murdoch empire as excitedly claimed by Fowler, Patten and Lee & Co as they paint a doomsday scenario for the BBC.

The only stitch up seems to be that organised by the BBC itself knowing full well that the review process is a long and involved one using the knowledge and ideas of a wide range of people, the BBC itself not being the least contributor to that process, and yet they set out with a deliberate policy to whip up the rhetoric and exaggerate, if not invent, the ‘danger to the BBC’ in order to attempt to cause a storm of protest and antipathy towards the government position…trying to intimidate the government which know that the Public ‘loves the telly more than the Tories’!

Here is what Broadcast Magazine said of the panel…most are pro-BBC despite having some critical thoughts about it…they are broadly supportive by default, even Alex Mahon who worked for Murdoch.  Some of them have worked for the BBC, one has the ex-head of the BBC iPlayer as his company strategist, one is the head of the Arts Council who has provided reports on Music education for both Labour and Coalition governments, and bound to be a good mate or acquaintance of Tony Hall (from the Royal Opera House), another is head of ‘Diversity UK’ who tweets approvingly of BBC programmes and has an MBE for services to the creative industries.  Another was head of Ofcom and is now president of the Voice of the Listeners and Viewer.

This is what the chairman of the VLV said….’

“We welcome the opportunity the Green Paper will provide for the public to be involved in the debate about the future of the BBC. The recent licence fee settlement did not allow for any public debate and was an unacceptable raid on the BBC’s income to fund government social policy, namely free licence fees for the over 75s.

“The preamble to this debate has not been edifying, with leaks and political point scoring. The BBC is too important an institution to be a political football. Now citizens must have their voice.

.

Hardly sounds like a bunch intent on wrecking the BBC or its connections to the creative industries and educational services….it would seem a lot of their ‘vested interests’ are actually aligned with the BBC’s.

Lee moans that he isn’t on the panel despite his own, self-admitted, brilliance…

Like it or not, and I am not sure that I do, I am objectively the most critically acclaimed British TV comedian this century, and every one of my BBC series of the last decade has been either nominated for, or won, multiple Bafta, British Comedy and Chortle awards. Any panel on the future of the BBC that includes a phone app bloke over me is clearly not worth the beer mat it was hastily drawn up on.

Trouble is that ‘phone app bloke’ has created a billion pound company and it is his knowledge of how to exploit the internet, what the public like to listen to and in what formats, and how to combine the two, that the government wants to utilise in order to contemplate and predict what a future BBC might look like as it adapts to the new digital media landscape around it.  Don’t know if Lee has that knowledge but the phone number, email and snail mail address is on the government website...feel free to give them your considered opinion instead of taking the easy route, whilst taking a big cheque for your troubles, of using the BBC’s outhouse journal, the Guardian, to air your grandstanding uninformed whinges.

The comedians have had their say, now let’s get on with the job and let the people with intelligent, informed views have their say.

Jonathan Dimbleby is worried….the family inheritance, the hand-me down job at the BBC, is under threat…what will the young Dimblebys do to earn a crust?

He urges a public revolt, an uprising to save the BBC….to save it from what I’m not sure…

Jonathan Dimbleby urges public to rise up in support of embattled BBC

‘The veteran political broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby has attacked the commercial enemies of the BBC for setting out to destroy it, and has urged audiences to rise up to defend the corporation.

“Even people within the BBC [who are] now beginning to stand up for it, fail to identify those vested interests. The Murdoch press is an enemy of the BBC for commercial reasons,” said Dimbleby, 70, in reaction to the release of the government’s green paper on the future size and remit of the corporation.

Making an unexpected intervention at a recording of Radio 4’s long-running current affairs comment show, Any Questions?, Dimbleby, brother of David and son of the BBC’s first war reporter, the late Richard Dimbleby, said the corporation’s opponents “have to be taken on by the BBC and by those viewers and listeners who own the BBC”. He added: “Go around the world, listen to what people say about the BBC, they think it’s astonishing we are having to think about whether or not it should survive.”

Dimbleby’s comments were not broadcast and are not included in the iPlayer version of the programme. His impassioned outburst was made over his radio microphone at the end of the recording in Leamington Spa, in response to a question from panellist and shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna and it came as the BBC Trust, the body that oversees the corporation, prepares to step up its information campaign.’

Ah it’s the usual suspects that are being lined up as the villains of the piece….criticism of the BBC or its reform are a machiavellian plot by Murdoch and his toady politicians…..and all in response to a question from a Labour MP…one too chicken to attempt to win the Labour leadership.

As the Guardian says the BBC Trust is also on the campaign trail…

‘A trust official said trustees were about to launch “the biggest ever version” of the research and public consultation work they regularly carry out. “There will be more intensive work than we have ever done in a single period and larger-scale research likely to reach more than 100,000 people,” he said. The trust was determined to broaden the debate and prevent a focus on perceived failings of the corporation.’

Astonishing how much effort and money they are putting into defending the BBC’s entrenched and very privileged position…money and effort they never put in before to discover the Public’s views….because they didn’t want to know them…on Europe, Labour’s economic policies, immigration or Islam.

The Guardian quotes another BBC defender…

Dimbleby’s sentiments were echoed this weekend by Frank Cottrell Boyce, the writer behind the most popular recent display of British cultural values, the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London.

“It speaks for the nation”….. ‘the “range of tones and ideas” embodied by the BBC formed a sense of national identity and provided the varied voice that politicians often claim Britain needs to defeat extreme ideologies and terrorism.’

No, it doesn’t speak for the nation, it speaks for a small group, a self-selected metropolitan elite that has no desire to listen to what the lesser mortals want or think, they only want to impose their own values and beliefs and to have to discuss or negotiate this with the Plebs is far, far beneath them.

As for defeating extreme ideologies and terrorism…has he never listened to the BBC?  Has he never listened to Nicky Campbell or Victoria Derbyshire pandering to Islamist callers on the phone-ins?  Has he never listened to the relentless drumbeat of anti-Britishness that blames everything from ‘carving up the Middle East’ after WWI to the Iraq War for Islamic radicalism…never once actually blaming the real culprits…the people who adhere to the Islamic religion and follow its commands to its inevitable conclusions.

The Guardian is in full-on save the BBC mode publishing article after article in its defence, however this one by Anne McElvoy has slipped through the net….

‘The BBC is not undergoing involuntary euthanasia’

‘[There are] howls of mawkish protest and rallying cries of “save the BBC” – before we’re entirely sure from what.

A collective protest letter from celebrities, which turned out to have been encouraged from within, has not helped. We should treat such confections with the scepticism we reserve for letters from self-interested business folk calling for Tory votes before an election. Deep breaths all round. The BBC is not really “under attack”, being “bullied”, nor on the brink of being replaced by a porn-funded network based in an offshore tax haven. But it is undergoing an exercise that it does not like – having to defend its funding model and growth of its services.

Neither is an unreasonable question to ask, which makes me think that it might be better to show an interest in the process and be firm and clear on what its red lines are, rather than adopting a “how very dare you?” one about the exercise.

Scope and finance are very much legitimate questions for publicly funded broadcasters. The BBC is big and has expanded rapidly from the 1990s. There are some good reasons for this – and some not so good. It is large because scale helped it achieve impact in a global media world and technology has enabled it to add services quickly. It has not, however, undergone much scrutiny for the impact of this on others. A serious radio competitor, for example, has never got off the ground, while newspaper websites are up against its prodigious online offering. Asking a group of people who have run other broadcasting bodies to advise the government on the BBC’s impact on media markets is not lese-majesty.’

A far more measured and reasoned tone….the BBC is not threatened with closure or very much at all in reality.  The review process has only just started and yet the BBC is firing broadsides at anything that moves trying to win the non-existent argument….or rather one, of a dire threat to the BBC, that it has concocted out of its own imaginings.

The BBC seems entirely unprepard to even contemplate the review….it may after all end up with the recommendation that nothing changes other than a few minor tweeks….and the likelihood is that the BBC’s funding will be on an even firmer footing with a simple subscription system or national tax and a charge for the iPlayer.  I fail to see how it will be prevented fom making all those programmes that the likes of Frank Cottrell Boyce say provide the UK with so much overseas influence….and even if they’re not made by the BBC they’ll be made by someone else….as with Top Gear, which will probably be resurrected under a different guise on ITV.  The real ‘soft power’, the ‘World Service’ will also still be funded and broadcast whatever.

The BBC is not under an existential threat.  Calm down and stop crying wolf.

Paul Mason is back, in the Guardian, and as daft as ever, more so in fact, having the constraints of the BBC removed seems to have completely unhinged him.  He’s offering us up for consideration a seemingly endless stream of socialist consciousness, or just an extreme of socialism.

Having got joyously over-excited about the Arab Spring and ‘The New Global Revolution’ that was kicking off everywhere, hence the Tory majority, he is back, peddling the same old glorious student utopian spindrift that tells us that….

The end of capitalism has begun

Without us noticing, we are entering the postcapitalist era. At the heart of further change to come is information technology, new ways of working and the sharing economy. The old ways will take a long while to disappear, but it’s time to be utopian.

Capitalism, it turns out, will not be abolished by forced-march techniques. It will be abolished by creating something more dynamic that exists, at first, almost unseen within the old system, but which will break through, reshaping the economy around new values and behaviours. I call this postcapitalism.

Capitalism is dead…he’s right, I hadn’t noticed ( Must try that in Tescos…‘What you want money for all that!!!??? Don’t you know capitalism is f**king dead!!!???’)….and Mason has dreamt up a name for the aftermath…Postcapitalism.  Wow man, what are you smoking?  I want some.

Wasn’t Capitalism pronounced dead in the 1930’s?

Even Seumas Milne acknowledges the flaw in thinking like Mason’s.…’A Financial Times-Harris poll conducted across the advanced capitalist world this month found large majorities believe the financial crisis has been caused by “abuses of capitalism”, rather than the “failure of capitalism itself”‘

The problem with people like Mason is that they think Capitalism, like Communism, Fascism or Socialism (The unholy Trinity that proves three can be one) is an ideology.  It’s not.  It’s the default human way of living and working….producing something, or having a skill, somebody else might want and selling it, then buying something with the proceeds that you need and so on….there’s no manual, little red book or sacred text.

Mason bases his disinterred theory upon three scenarios…one that we are all put out of work by robots…heard that before….didn’t happen…has he not heard of Luddites? We adapt and new types of jobs are created.  Second, he tells us, information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant….what?  I make widgets and I can’t price them because…information is abundant????  What information?  Just how does that stop me pricing my widgets?

Oh hang on…here’s the explanation… ‘By building business models and share valuations based on the capture and privatisation of all socially produced information, such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.’

Got that?  Good.

He builds on that...Third, we’re seeing the spontaneous rise of collaborative production: goods, services and organisations are appearing that no longer respond to the dictates of the market and the managerial hierarchy. The biggest information product in the world – Wikipedia – is made by volunteers for free, abolishing the encyclopedia business and depriving the advertising industry of an estimated $3bn a year in revenue.

Hmmm…Okay…So Google is worthless then?  Wikipedia is essentially an information service, an electronic book…Google provides a mechanism, a product, to search the internet amongst other things….it makes a lot of money…..only two days ago…

Google shares jump as profits handily beat expectations

Google shares jumped Thursday after the company reported quarterly profit that easily topped analysts’ expectations, helped by growth in advertising revenue.

The stock climbed more than 11 percent in extended trading after the Internet and technology giant posted adjusted second-quarter earnings of $6.99 per share on $17.73 billion in revenue. Sales were up from $15.96 billion.

Yep, they just can’t find a way to put a price on information and information technology….Google being completely unresponsive to the dictates of the market.

Here is the heart of his theory, what a postcapitalist™ economy will  look like…

Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Parallel currencies, time banks, cooperatives and self-managed spaces have proliferated, barely noticed by the economics profession, and often as a direct result of the shattering of the old structures in the post-2008 crisis….New forms of ownership, new forms of lending, new legal contracts: a whole business subculture has emerged over the past 10 years, which the media has dubbed the “sharing economy”. ….To mainstream economics such things seem barely to qualify as economic activity – but that’s the point. They exist because they trade, however haltingly and inefficiently, in the currency of postcapitalism: free time, networked activity and free stuff. It seems a meagre and unofficial and even dangerous thing from which to craft an entire alternative to a global system, but so did money and credit in the age of Edward III.

Such sub-economic structures and mechanisms have always existed, there have always been ‘sharing economies’, credit unions, co-operatives and even parallel currencies.  People have always ‘down-sized’, dropped out of the ratrace and gone to live in communes to live the Good Life.   To claim this is the start of a global economic revolution is a sign of just how desperate Mason is to see the Revolution rolling having been prematurely pronouncing its birth for the past 7 years.

Here he is dreaming of his postcapitalist™ utopia…

I believe it offers an escape route – but only if these micro-level projects are nurtured, promoted and protected by a fundamental change in what governments do. And this must be driven by a change in our thinking – about technology, ownership and work.

We need a project based on reason, evidence and testable designs, that cuts with the grain of history and is sustainable by the planet. And we need to get on with it.

All sounds rather complicated and as if we will need many committee meetings of the comrades to execute the plans….it may take 5 years but it’ll be worth it.  I have an unfailing faith that Mason and his Pinko mates can work out just how many tractors we will need and just when the wife is supposed to turn up at the coal mine for her shift.

Up the workers!

Being a revolutionary looks like fun…..

….man the barricades!

Jeremy Corbyn is running for the Labour leadership and at the moment looks like having a chance to take on the mantle….much as one Ed Miliband did when he stabbed his brother in the back and stole the leadership from him.   That turned out well.

However we know he isn’t too keen on interviews, or at least ones in which anybody actually asks any questions.

After his debacle on C4 it looks like he’s decided that the best policy is to say nothing and dodge interviews that might prove difficult.

According to Nick Cohen Corbyn was due to have the thumbscrews applied by Andrew Neil but has declined the opportunity to make his case…

I hear that he has cancelled a planned interview with Andrew Neil, the toughest British broadcaster, rather than endure more profane questions.

Can’t imagine why.

Would he have dodged Evan Davis or Justin Webb or even John Humphrys?  I doubt it.

Andrew Neil proves that it is possible to do good journalism at the BBC.

If only there were more of him.

I laughed when I read Craig at Is the BBC biased? (Yes it is) saying he didn’t trust the cherry-picking Cardiff Uni-style mass of distorting quirks…..I had just been reading some of their work and one of the august journals that gives them a platform to spread their particular brand of bunk….The Conversation.

This is what ‘The Conversation’ says about itself….

The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public.

Access to independent, high quality, authenticated, explanatory journalism underpins a functioning democracy. Our aim is to allow for better understanding of current affairs and complex issues. And hopefully allow for a better quality of public discourse and conversations.

We aim to help rebuild trust in journalism.

They are different from other, less trustworthy media organisations because…

The Conversation provides readers with a free high-grade and trusted information service.

We are quite different to anything else in the media for the following reasons:

In a world of misinformation and spin, The Conversation contributes to healthy democratic discourse by injecting facts and evidence into the public arena.

Who said that?  Stephen Khan, Editor.

That’ll be Stephen Khan from the Guardian, Observer and the lefty Independent.  Thank heavens he, and his team of inky superhero’s in search of truth and justice, are there to protect us from all that Murdochian misinformation and spin!

When ‘The Conversation’ looks at The controversial business of researching BBC impartiality   who does it go to for its research?…..

1. Mike Berry
3. Justin Lewis

   Professor of Communication at Cardiff University

4. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen

   Professor; Director of Research Development and Environment, School of Journalism at Cardiff University

5. Kerry Moore

   Lecturer of journalism, media and cultural studies at Cardiff University

6. Richard Sambrook

   Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University

7. Richard Tait

   Professor of Journalism at Cardiff Universi

Let’s think...Mike Berry…pro-BBC but likes to spin it that the BBC is right-wing…his famous conclusion…’So the evidence from the research is clear. The BBC tends to reproduce a Conservative, Eurosceptic, pro-business version of the world, not a left-wing, anti-business agenda.‘, and he is of course an anti-Israeli lefty; Sambrook, ex-BBC; Tait, ex-BBC; Moore, Hmmm…her choice of subject matter...’Kerry Moore’s research explores media and political discourses surrounding migration, racism and cultural identity. Her most recent publications explore asylum and refugee issues in journalism and government policy, ‘crisis’ narratives in media representations of migration and cultural difference, media constructions of young black men, and Islam in the news.’ ;  and  Karin Wahl-Jorgensen who has very close ties to the EU and their purse strings….just one example...’she has been Principal UK Investigator on a €4 million European Commission funded project on the European Public Sphere.’….and she also writes for the far left rag Red Pepper.

And of course the omnipresent Justin Lewis, also from Cardfiff Uni, who has long, long had a thing for the BBC. and is clear that…‘  the accusation of BBC anti-war bias fails to stand up to any serious or sustained analysis. ‘  He also peddles the usual line about the BBC’s critics…’ Leading the charge are conservative media owners and their press outlets.’  He is also the author of this….‘A monster threatens UK broadcasting? It’s Sky, not the BBC.’

Hardly independent of the BBC nor of the values of the BBC and its favourite hobby horses.  It seems unlikely, and has proven so in fact, that they will criticise the BBC in any meaningful way.

For example here is Richard Sambrook giving us his recent appraisal of the BBC’s future…

Now is the time to decide: what kind of BBC do you want?

There is now a clear choice following the publication of the British government’s green paper into the future of the BBC.

A good start….seems like he is giving us a choice.

You’d be wrong.

We get a long homily to the glory of the BBC and its benefits to society…

[One view of the BBC] believes there is an increasing role for a trusted voice in the increasingly crowded digital market – one that is accountable, focused on the public – as opposed to commercial or political – interests; that seeks to bind the country together through shared experience and national debate; that seeks to offer a diversity of views to challenge the homophily of our other media habits; that contributes to supporting and developing the creative sector in the UK and which ties the UK together to the rest of the world through international programming and services. It recognises the BBC as the UK’s only global media brand – and one which has to have the resource and remit to continue to innovate in a dynamic, international marketplace.

And ‘In the other corner is a view’ that hands over the media sphere to the commercial companies...’ it doesn’t believe the BBC can or should try to compete with the global behemoths starting to dominate our media consumption.’  That sums up Sambrook’s idea of the other view…essentially Murdoch, the enemy, will emerge triumphant…oh no!!!

He paints one side as negative the other as positive…

One view is inclusive and outward focused, recognising a UK role in a global market.

The other is driven by more insular concerns about the UK market and exclusive in its approach to programming.

Here’s a less than subtle criticism of the Charter review panel….

Whittingdale [is] assisted by an expert panel of largely commercial media experts most of whom have been critical of some aspect of the current arrangements.

Then there’s this…

And of course this follows a licence fee deal once again rushed through behind closed doors with significant extra costs imposed on the BBC under the threat of worse if it didn’t agree.

It’s the way governments hobble public broadcasters the world over.

Back to the ideological or political rather than just good housekeeping when restructuring the BBC and the government isn’t here to improve the BBC but to do a hatchet job on it.

Here he is even more blatant in suggesting this is political…

In Australia, a government-sponsored efficiency review has led to significant cuts in the budget of the ABC following politicians’ complaints about bias and insufficient support “for the home team”.

Now in Britain a similar assault is underway.

According to Sambrook it’s ‘right-wing politicians and newspapers, ideologically opposed to large public intervention in the market, that fuel discontent about the BBC.’

What he is saying of course is that any criticism of the BBC is unjustified and purely driven by right-wing ideology and prejudice….which is a comment that is somewhat prejudiced and ill-informed itself….and all the more funny when you read a following sentence...’Most discussion is governed by a triumph of opinion over fact.’  Well yes, certainly when concerned with any ‘facts’ and ‘research’ we get from Cardiff.

Oh and that choice he was keen to offer us in his position as impartial observer at an academic institution?

As a senior manager there [at the BBC] I used to tell staff who felt under siege with wave after wave of newspaper and political criticism that it meant we still mattered. And that is the point. Its critics, for ideological or commercial reasons [that old chestnut yet again], want it diminished and to matter less.

If the people of Britain do not want to see the erosion and dismantling of one of the country’s most successful public institutions, they need to make it unambiguously clear now. So what kind of BBC do you want?

I guess he’s not that impartial after all.

The Sun’s latest scoop…recently found video shows that Father Ted was a Nazi…

This is some interesting stuff from the BBC archives concerning reaction to Germany’s Lord Haw Haw broadcasts….relevant now because they were the internet broadcasts of the day.

Over 9 million Brits listened to these broadcasts every day according to BBC research at the time…the most likely to listen were young males, ‘politically’ minded, from better off families…sound familiar?

In this letter the then BBC Director General wrote to Government that…

‘The Haw-Haw question is of great importance – we here have never regarded it as
the joke which it is supposed to be by some – and I hope that you will forgive a
fairly lengthy letter about it. That Haw-Haw should be countered is of course
agreed entirely; the only problem concerns the methods.’

‘There is, first, the question of the size and the nature of Haw-Haw’s public. It
is undeniable that he is widely listened to at present: what is more doubtful is
how listeners react to him.’

The BBC did some research in 1940 to find out who was listening to Haw Haw and why….

THE EFFECT OF HAMBURG PROPAGANDA IN GREAT BRITAIN

The British people weren’t so easily fooled then it seems…

‘There is general recognition that Haw-Haw is a liar, and, though many concede
that his broadcasts contain grains of truth, we have not yet come across a single
listener who accepts his word as “gospel”.’

‘All the evidence supports the view that Haw-Haw is listened to as an entertainment and virtually never as a source of news. His undeniably great success as an entertainer arises largely, we believe, from his success in appealing, both with the audacious naughtiness of his comments and with his barefaced lies, to the latent schoolboy in each of us.’

However he was still considered a risk…and

A British Army major writes to Home Intelligence at the BBC highlighting concerns about Haw-Haw’s propaganda. He advises that these broadcasts should not be countered directly with analysis and corrections, as this would enable Haw-Haw to improve and in turn command bigger audiences. Neither should there be a veto on listening to him. Instead, the only solution lies with the BBC……

‘The Only Real Remedy Lies with the BBC’

One aspect of broadcasting is becoming very important. There is more or less consistent listening to Hamburg in the B.E.F., in Officers’ messes, men’s canteens and estaminets. The D.M.I. considers that this is a grave danger to morale and may be in the future a very definite penetration point for enemy propaganda.

“Haw Haw”, or his successor, is at present treated as a joke but by the free publicity given to him in every possible way, both out here and at home, not only has his general listening public been increased but the widespread discussion of his outstanding faults has enabled German propaganda experts to correct those faults and to make his broadcasts more palatable to British listeners.

The phrases “Of course he does bring out a lot of good points, you know” and “Let’s hear what Hamburg’s got to say about it” are still frequently heard. The danger is not serious at the moment but should any series of reverses at sea, on land or in the air take place there is no doubt that alarmist reports from Hamburg would find a large military audience ready to receive them, and ready to accept some proportion as being true.

Just a shame that the BBC doesn’t think countering the Jihadi narrative is equally important today…in fact the BBC fed into it with its attacks on the Iraq War, which also had an effect on British troops fighting that war, and still feeds into that narrative…Nicky Campbell in the past couple of weeks has made several references to the Iraq War being to blame for what is happening in the Middle East now…and it’s not just Campbell on the BBC who makes that claim amongst many others that pillory British history in the region in a very one-sided and deliberately simplistic way such as saying the British ‘carved up the Middle East’….and then there’s the BBC’s demonisation of Israel and the censoring of those who raise the issue of the conflict between fundamentalist Islam and Western ideals.

Muzzling the critics of conservative Islam and its propagandists is not conducive to social cohesion nor a free world.