[tjwmason]

They were investigated because they are paid by the government. Better that the Brits should cut off their funding then that we should follow their example.

Not quite, there is a licence fee payable by each household with a television, a de facto hypothecated tax. I support the basic system, it worked wonderfully for many years after the foundation of the B.B.C. The problem has been that the corporation is now staffed by left-wing journalists who allow bias to pervade their reports; don't throw the baby out with the bath-water, and don't diss television without the incessant bother of adverts until you've tried it.

Secondly, I cannot conceive of anyother media organisation which would allow its staff to report itself as has been happening recently. The B.B.C. News reporters have been knifing the corporation more generally and almost as veciferously as anybody. The B.B.C. does posses independence, all that it needs is for the independence to be balanced.

[the Real fifi]

Perhaps decades ago before there were commerical broadcasters that system of funding made sense. It doesn't now. Any more than public funding of NPR and PBS does. The inevitable consequence of that kind of funding is arrogance and unaccountability and leftist claptrap.