Which has done more good in the world?

[abradley]

With all due respect, that's nowhere near what the most common use of "support the troops" is.

I'm not questioning what family (and anyone with ties to) troops serving abroad does. Of course they are 100% behind their people, thinking of them in their thoughts/prayers (as appropriate), etc. But used in the broader national context, that's just not what the "support the troops!" mentality is about.

It's about "Those troops are out there dying and when you question what they fight for you question their sacrifice!", a way of silencing opposition to the war by making it seem that those who oppose the war have no respect for the sacrifice of the troops.

(When in fact those who oppose the war respect the sacrifice but would much prefer the continued living of the troops)

True, a free press has the responsibility to critique government.

And Sky, the Guardian, Independent, and The Telegraph were doing that, while being critiqued by their viewers and readers. If the viewers and readers disagree they vote with their money.

But the question is, whose critiquing the BBC, if viewers aren't happy, what option do they have?

 

[Arwon]

You don't really get how independent public broadcasters work, do you.

The short version is the BBC, CBC, ABC, and equivalent broadcasters in other countries (I assume the PBS in America has similar arrangements, though it has that weird thing where it has to beg for scraps directly from the public) have charters that establish the rules under which they operate. This is pretty much like how other independent statutory authorities work too, including statistical organisations, electoral administrators, various watchdog agencies, central banks and the like. They don't simply operate as they wish, they operate independently but according to their charters which define their functions and processes. Ideally, they do this with strong security of tenure so that there's no risk of political interference in their operations.

In the case of broadcasters, there's typically some sort of press standards or ombudsman body that takes complaints about breaches of the charter and adherence to journalistic codes of conduct. In the case of the BBC it appears to be overseen by the BBC Trust which represents the interests of license holders and takes complaints.

 

[abradley]

You don't really get how independent public broadcasters work, do you.

Ain't no expert on the subject but IMO this is roughly it.

The Guardian and Telegraph are normally on opposite sides of an issue, they play to their readers, if the readers aren't happy they stop shopping at the paper's advertisers, the advertisers stop their ads and the paper is in financial straits. This happened to the NY Times.

Also goes for standard tv shows, no viewers, no advertisers.

BBC doesn't have that problem, the government collects their fees, you pay or else.

That's over simplified, but it's all a case of money, as they say 'No money, no honey.'

 

[Arwon]

Yes, that is, by definition, how a public institution work. It is funded by the public (although in many countries, such as Australia, the BBC-equivalent is funded out of general taxation, but it's functionally the same).

This is why there's governance arrangements to ensure adherence to a robust and effective charter, as I outlined above. Interlocking networks of rules and oversight is, again, is how effective public policy works. People intuitively understand this, which is why in virtually any free society, surveys show the independent public broadcaster is the most trusted media institution among the public. It's the one people flip to when there's a crisis and they don't want to hear nonsense. That's true in the UK, in Australia, even in the US people trust PBS the most. That's what you get when hardworking public-minded people take their responsibility and their independence seriously - it pays off in terms of ongoing trust.

Your depiction of an unaccountable organisation doing whatever the hell they want is simply false.

I'd also strongly dispute that the market is much of an effective check on either truth or responsible reporting. I submit as evidence: much of the commerical broadcast and print media in the world

 

[Evie]

And, quite frankly, he illustrates the problem with private medias at the same time.

Private medias have to tell the "truths" their audience want to hear. A public-owned institution has the freedom to not only challenge the government, but the public itself, by telling the public the truths they *don't* want to hear.

And that's very much a good thing.

 

[filli_noctus]

Ain't no expert on the subject but IMO this is roughly it.

The Guardian and Telegraph are normally on opposite sides of an issue, they play to their readers, if the readers aren't happy they stop shopping at the paper's advertisers, the advertisers stop their ads and the paper is in financial straits. This happened to the NY Times.

Also goes for standard tv shows, no viewers, no advertisers.

BBC doesn't have that problem, the government collects their fees, you pay or else.

That's over simplified, but it's all a case of money, as they say 'No money, no honey.'

You really don't understand. The BBC collects the licence fee itself, the only way the government gets involved in the collection process is when someone gets prosecuted for non-payment. Furthermore only broadcast television is covered by the licence fee, people can avoid it entirely by only using streaming services and that is becoming more and more common leading to a drop in the BBC's income.

 

[abradley]

Yes, that is, by definition, how a public institution work. It is funded by the public (although in many countries, such as Australia, the BBC-equivalent is funded out of general taxation, but it's functionally the same).

This is why there's governance arrangements to ensure adherence to a robust and effective charter, as I outlined above. Interlocking networks of rules and oversight is, again, is how effective public policy works. People intuitively understand this, which is why in virtually any free society, surveys show the independent public broadcaster is the most trusted media institution among the public. It's the one people flip to when there's a crisis and they don't want to hear nonsense. That's true in the UK, in Australia, even in the US people trust PBS the most. That's what you get when hardworking public-minded people take their responsibility and their independence seriously - it pays off in terms of ongoing trust.

Your depiction of an unaccountable organisation doing whatever the hell they want is simply false.

Disagree, if all these checks and balances were doing their job this wouldn't be:

In Their Own Words
When people ask for evidence of an institutional Left-wing bias at the BBC, this is the place to go for evidence. Out of the mouths of Beeboids….

The BBC is “a publicly-funded urban organisation with an abnormally large proportion of younger people, of people in ethnic minorities and almost certainly of gay people, compared with the population at large”.

All this, he said, “creates an innate liberal bias inside the BBC”.

–Andrew Marr

“It’s a bit like walking into a Sunday meeting of the Flat Earth Society. As they discuss great issues of the day, they discuss them from the point of view that the earth is flat.

“If someone says, ‘No, no, no, the earth is round!’, they think this person is an extremist. That’s what it’s like for someone with my right-of-centre views working inside the BBC.”

– Jeff Randall, former BBC business editor

By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’.

– Peter Sissons, Former BBC News and Current Affairs presenter

“In the BBC I joined 30 years ago [as a production trainee, in 1979], there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people’s personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left. The organisation did struggle then with impartiality. And journalistically, staff were quite mystified by the early years of Thatcher.

“Now it is a completely different generation. There is much less overt tribalism among the young journalists who work for the BBC. It is like the New Statesman, which used to be various shades of soft and hard left and is now more technocratic. We’re like that, too.”

– Mark Thomspon, former BBC Director General

“I do remember… the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles. I’ll always remember that”

– Jane Garvey, Radio 4 presenter, recalling Tony Blair’s election victory in 1997

I absorbed and expressed all the accepted BBC attitudes: hostility to, or at least suspicion of, America, monarchy, government, capitalism, empire, banking and the defence establishment, and in favour of the Health Service, state welfare, the social sciences, the environment and state education. But perhaps our most powerful antagonism was directed at advertising. This is not surprising; commercial television was the biggest threat the BBC had ever had to face.

– Sir Antony Jay, former BBC producer and creator, inter alia, of “Yes, (Prime) Minister”

“Liberal sceptical humanists tend to dominate television”.

The “default position in broadcasting” – when covering issues such as gay marriage and the Roman Catholic position on IVF – revolved around human rights, and that opponents should not be treated as “lunatics”.

“All I’m saying is, if you have at the centre of News an editor, he could explain why people in particular areas…are motivated, why they behave as they do and I think that would just increase understanding.”

– Roger Bolton, Radio 4 presenter and former head of Panorama and Nationwide

“And, in the tone of what we say about America, we have a tendency to scorn and deride. We don’t give America any kind of moral weight in our broadcasts.”

– Justin Webb (pg. 66), Today presenter and former BBC North America editor

“We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.”

– Ben Stephenson, BBC controller of drama commissioning
(Continued)
http://biasedbbc.org/quotes-of-shame/

Plus plenty more in the cmments.

 

[Arwon]

Yeah, it's certainly not particularly popular among cranks. We get the same thing with the ABC, brokens going on about #theirabc and whatnot. Pretty good sign it's doing it's job really.

 

[filli_noctus]

Disagree, if all these checks and balances were doing their job this wouldn't belus plenty more in the cmments.

It's amazing what you find when you go looking for confirmation. Counterpoint:

In strand one (reporting of immigration, the EU and religion), Gordon Brown outnumbered David Cameron in appearances by a ratio of less than two to one (47 vs 26) in 2007. In 2012 David Cameron outnumbered Ed Milliband by a factor of nearly four to one (53 vs 15). Labour cabinet members and ministers outnumbered Conservative shadow cabinet and ministers by approximately two to one (90 vs 46) in 2007; in 2012, Conservative cabinet members and ministers outnumbered their Labour counterparts by more than four to one (67 to 15).

In strand two (reporting of all topics) Conservative politicians were featured more than 50% more often than Labour ones (24 vs 15) across the two time periods on the BBC News at Six. So the evidence is clear that BBC does not lean to the left it actually provides more space for Conservative voices.

On BBC News at Six, business representatives outnumbered trade union spokespersons by more than five to one (11 vs 2) in 2007 and by 19 to one in 2012. On the issues of immigration and the EU in 2012, out of 806 source appearances, not one was allocated to a representative of organised labour. Considering the impact of the issues on the UK workforce, and the fact that trade unions represent the largest mass democratic organisations in civil society, such invisibility raises troubling questions for a public service broadcaster committed to impartial and balanced coverage.

[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.

Source

 

[Flying Pig]

Disagree, if all these checks and balances were doing their job this wouldn't belus plenty more in the cmments.

I'm reminded of the wise words of Stephen Colbert: reality has a well-known liberal bias.

 

[Glassfan]

Has anyone pointed out the crossover; journalists (including BBC as far back as the Falklands) imbedded with the troops.

On the one hand, they're right up front experiencing the battle, not having to rely on Official military information sources. On the other, they inevitably bond with the troops and become sympathetic.

 

[Borachio]

BBC doesn't have that problem, the government collects their fees, you pay or else.

Or else what? I don't pay... and nothing happens.

I don't have a TV so I don't need a licence. As a result my life has been phenomenally much better for the last 13 years. I occasionally watch TV in other people's houses, and I've yet to think that I need a TV of my own.

I listen to BBC radio, though. And I still don't pay.

 

[sophie]

You pay for your tv or else (you don't have a tv)
You pay for cable or else (you don't get cable)
You pay for BBC or else (you don't get BBC)

Seems pretty self explanatory to me.

 

[abradley]

You pay for your tv or else (you don't have a tv)
You pay for cable or else (you don't get cable)
You pay for BBC or else (you don't get BBC)

Seems pretty self explanatory to me.

It would be except you can't opt out of BBC if you have a tv, you can cable.

 

[sophie]

It would be except you can't opt out of BBC if you have a tv, you can cable.

You can't opt out of a tv if you have a tv.

 

[abradley]

You can't opt out of a tv if you have a tv.

Again, it's about Britain, in Britain you must pay a fee/tax to BBC if you own a tv, you only pay cable if you subscribe, don't know about broadcast tv.

In the US we pay only for cable.

It's as if there is a law that everybody who owns a tv must pay NPR a yearly fee or face charges, am sure NPR would be happy, would you?

 

[sophie]

Again, it's about Britain, in Britain you must pay a fee/tax to BBC if you own a tv, you only pay cable if you subscribe, don't know about broadcast tv.

In the US we pay only for cable.

It's as if there is a law that everybody who owns a tv must pay NPR a yearly fee or face charges, am sure NPR would be happy, would you?

Two things: you can't have a tv if you don't pay for a tv. The tv tax is just a cost associated with having a tv in Britain. If you don't like it, don't buy a tv. Likewise having car insurance is a mandatory cost associated with owning a car - if you don't want to pay for car insurance then don't buy a car.

Thing 2: we DO have the same thing in the US. Because when you get cable in the US you can't choose channels à la carte. I don't watch History Channel. Ever. In fact I am morally opposed to the history channel and would prefer my money not subsidize their wwii bukkake and aliens-templars-masons-illuminati-cabal conspiracy-mongering, but if I want cable I HAVE to get History Channel because it's part of every cable package. That channel costs $2.00 a month. That's $2 that I am not only throwing down the drain, but actively, unwillingly contributing to something I despise. Sound familiar? Likewise if Jim Schmo hates sports but likes cable then guess what, he's still paying that extra $15-a month for ESPN, ESPN2, FS1, TNT that are mandatory for any cable package and cost $5 a month each because of the multi-billion rights deals they signed with sports associations. He is in essence paying a tax to subsidize my sports viewing. Thanks Jim!

If I was able to choose cable channels à la carte I would pay somewhere around $10-15 a month for the literally 4 channels I watch off of a standard cable package. But you can't buy à la carte. You have to buy all 250 channels in the standard package at $50-$60 a month. I don't like it, so I don't pay for cable. I don't even have a tv. BBC is exactly the same.

 

[abradley]

Two things: you can't have a tv if you don't pay for a tv. The tv tax is just a cost associated with having a tv in Britain. If you don't like it, don't buy a tv. Likewise having car insurance is a mandatory cost associated with owning a car - if you don't want to pay for car insurance then don't buy a car.

Thing 2: we DO have the same thing in the US. Because when you get cable in the US you can't choose channels à la carte. I don't watch History Channel. Ever. In fact I am morally opposed to the history channel and would prefer my money not subsidize their wwii bukkake and aliens-templars-masons-illuminati-cabal conspiracy-mongering, but if I want cable I HAVE to get History Channel because it's part of every cable package. That channel costs $2.00 a month. That's $2 that I am not only throwing down the drain, but actively, unwillingly contributing to something I despise. Sound familiar? Likewise if Jim Schmo hates sports but likes cable then guess what, he's paying that extra $15-a month for ESPN, ESPN2, FS1, TNT that are mandatory for any cable package and cost $5 a month each because of the multi-billion rights deals they signed with sports associations. He is in essence paying a tax to subsidize my sports viewing. Thanks Jim!

If I was able to choose cable channels à la carte I would pay somewhere around $10-15 a month for the literally 4 channels I watch off of a standard cable package. But you can't buy à la carte. You have to buy all 250 channels in the standard package at $50-$60 a month. I don't like it, so I don't pay for cable. I don't even have a tv. BBC is exactly the same.

I think we are passing each other on different planes.

Merry Christmas.

 

[sophie]

I think we are passing each other on different planes.

Merry Christmas.

Nope. You're just refusing to comprehend the answer.

The answer to the NPR question, btw is: I wouldn't really care if NPR started charging for their radio service. Because I don't listen to radio. I don't own a radio. They suddenly deciding to charge for their radio broadcast wouldn't affect me in the slightest.