Posted on 08/11/2007 5:23:40 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Confessions of a BBC liberal The BBC has finally come clean about its bias, says a former editor, who wrote Yes, Minister Antony Jay
In the past four weeks there have been two remarkable changes in the public attitude to the BBC. The first and most newsworthy one was precipitated by the faked trailer of the Queen walking out of a photographic portrait session with Annie Leibovitz.
It was especially damaging because the licence fee is based on a public belief that the BBC offers a degree of integrity and impartiality which its commercial competitors cannot achieve.
But in the longer term I believe that the second change is even more significant. It started with the BBC’s own report on impartiality that effectively admitted to an institutional “liberal” bias among programme makers. Previously these accusations had been dismissed as a right-wing rant, but since the report was published even the BBC’s allies seem to accept it.
It has been on parade again these past few weeks on the Radio 4 programme The Crime of Our Lives. It included (of course) the ritual demoni-sation of Margaret Thatcher (uninterested in crime . . . surprisingly did not take a closer interest), a swipe at Conservative magistrates and their friends in the golf club and occasional quotes from Douglas Hurd to preserve the illusion of impartiality, but the whole tenor of the programme was liberal/ progressive/ reformist.
The series even included a strong suggestion that Thatcher’s economic policies were the cause of rising crime. So presumably she shouldn’t have done what she did?
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
I can clearly recall the Falklands War, and the media jockeying.
The Argentine Official State Peoples’ News Agency (whatever they called it) woudl post wild casualty reports, manic accusations of atrocities, and lies worthy of Baghdad Bob.
Then, on came the BBC correspondent, who simply read the report in a polished Cambridge accent, his delivery dripping with utter integrity, and contempt for the enemy screed.
How they have fallen. I am totally dissapointed in them.
I’d want a refund, were I a Brit.
There is no logical reason for the BBC to change. None. They STILL get fees from taxpayers. When their livelihood is threatened, then MAYBE they will get enlightenment. Not before. They will give lip service and go right back to same old same old. Pardon me, maybe they’ll get a bit better about covering it up is all. Its what you publish and what you don’t publish as much as how you say what you do. For example, we continue to get “reporting” about how bad the US economy is. BS, this is about as good as it gets, folks. Even with the recent excitement on Wall Street. Same in the UK.
The BBC is Britain’s NY Times...the supposedly respectable news establishment that’s destroying their country more every day, and proud of it.
They wake to their impending extinction. Feh.
Jeez, hasn't been impartial for decades, they just don't try and hide it any more.
The BBC is Britain’s NPR.
As a Brit who on occasion posts on FR once said [paraphrasing]: “The BBC is so far left that even Karl Marx yells beyond the grave “Okay lads, come back!” Their reporting during last year’s Israel-Lebanon conflict is evident. The BBC reporters treated Hezbollah as if it were Mother Teresa and then treated Olmert as if he were Eichmann (the irony...)
Nope. They're all starting to chant "what's so great about being impartial?" All of the dinosaur media is starting to make noises about how having a "point of view" (never a bias) is required of reporters.
Self justification for their acts is part of their delusion.
Quite.But how different is it here in the US, where people listen to National Public Radio and think that they are being told the whole truth?
The reality is that here we talk the king's english, but the "king" is Big Journalism and its version of english is a form of Newspeak. In that language, journalists are objective journalists - meaning that they toe the comfortable establishment line that second guessing is legitimate because actual performance "in the arena" is in no way superior to journalism's criticism thereof.
In that language those who toe the line that journalists' criticism is the important thing, but who themselves are not (presently) employed as journalists, are good guys who are called "liberals," or "progressives," or "moderates." They can have any label they want, except "objective," which is reserved to working journalists and not just those (such as Walter Cronkite) whose attitudes are indistinguishable from those of working journalists.
In that language those who oppose the line that journalists' criticism is more important than performance and that second guessing is legitimate are objects of calumny. The only labels applicable to them are negative, such as "right wing," or "extreme," or - even though they prefer innovators to innovation-inhibiting bureaucrats - "conservative."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.