Posted on 07/27/2003 2:02:15 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Even amid the sadness surrounding the tragic death of Dr Kelly, some people in and around the Government have seen fit to place the governors of the BBC under public attack in the past few days. The dogged independence of the board in the face of intense pressure has driven some political figures close to distraction, such has been their determination to influence the editorial decisions of Britain's most trusted provider of news and current affairs. Threats, veiled and not so veiled, from "government sources" to take revenge on the BBC by reducing its funding, removing its director-general, and changing its charter have been reported frequently in the media. All this amply demonstrates why Britain still needs the tried and tested system of BBC governance to stand up to storms of this kind.
The governors of the BBC are appointed, in effect, by the Culture Secretary, following a public appointments procedure under the Nolan rules. Tessa Jowell has now appointed or re-appointed 10 of the 12 governors, including the chairman and vice-chairman. Oddly, some of the Government's friends appear to have lost confidence in the judgment and honesty of these appointees. Our integrity is under attack, and we are chastised for taking a different view on editorial matters from that of the Government and its supporters. Because we have had the temerity to do this, it is hinted that a system that has protected the BBC for 80 years should be swept away and replaced by an external regulator that will "bring the BBC to heel".
I trust that wiser heads in the Government will prevail. There is only one reason why the BBC has been able to build the trust of its audiences over so many years, and that is because it is emphatically not the voice of the state. Everyone in politics says that they would never wish to make it so, but sometimes their actions belie this. When that happens, the BBC needs its board of governors to stand up and say halt.
All of the individuals who emerge from the governors' highly competitive public appointments process have distinguished records in their fields. Although they emanate from many parts of the political spectrum, and from none, they are all aware that they must deposit their political opinions, along with their coats, outside the Governors' Council Chamber in Broadcasting House. They have many different roles in the BBC, but prime among them is to place an unshakable barrier between the BBC's editorial processes and political bullying. There is no alternative mechanism which could perform this function anything like as well as the Board of Governors.
This has been more than amply demonstrated in recent weeks. During the war in Iraq, BBC News was under constant attack from politicians for running a news agenda which they believed was opposed to the Government's case for war. But the BBC Charter says that BBC News must at all times reflect every significant strand of opinion in the UK. Just as we had an absolute responsibility to give voice to those who favoured the war, those who were opposed had to be recognised somewhere on the national broadcaster. Further, the BBC's responsibility to examine and scrutinise information from all sources remained paramount. Many found this uncomfortable, but the circumstances of war were no reason to compromise the BBC's news values.
The governors came to the view, during and after the war, that the BBC had upheld its traditional attachment to impartiality and the truth under almost intolerable pressures. I am proud of the news professionals who were responsible for this. Of course there were some individual errors along the way, but our audiences recognised that the trust they have always placed in the BBC would not be betrayed. They flocked to BBC News in overwhelming numbers, and the evidence clearly shows they trusted the BBC far more than any other information source.
Alastair Campbell's recent attack on the BBC was not mainly about Andrew Gilligan's story on the Today programme, but amounted to a full-frontal assault on the motivation, skill and professionalism of the entire news operation. Coming from where it did, the governors could not simply let this attack pass unchallenged. The main purpose of what we did in our special governors' meeting on July 6 was to repudiate Mr Campbell's central charge that the entire BBC was running a campaign against him, the Government and the war. I am very gratified that Mr Campbell now seems to have withdrawn these wider charges.
The governors also said that the management's decisions to broadcast the stories by Andrew Gilligan and other journalists about the Government's intelligence dossiers were in the public interest, based on the information that BBC News had available at the time. On receipt of information of first-rate national importance, obtained from a reliable and credible source (whom we now know was almost uniquely qualified to speak about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq), it would have been profoundly wrong for BBC journalists to have suppressed their stories. The governors decided it was right to broadcast, and we were surely justified in reaching this judgment. Of course, more evidence on these reports may emerge during the Hutton inquiry, and we will keep the matter under review.
The governors have been criticised for jumping the gun, by giving a verdict ahead of the report of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee the next day. But we already suspected that that report would be inconclusive, as indeed it was. We also stand accused of being nothing more than the stooges of management in rejecting Alastair Campbell's assault on the ethos of BBC News. But the immense strength of the BBC's system of governance is that the 12 individuals on the board are beholden to no one. Not to management, not to competitors, not to Government. They are not doing the job for the money, or to climb the greasy pole. They are doing it simply because they believe in the independence of a great institution. That is why they guard that independence so jealously, and always will.
Is anyone buying this?
Nope. Not even for a dollar (or a pound).
The BBC stands only for the (Leftist) Biased Broadcasting Corporation.
-Jay
But this only applies to them. No one else is allowed to move on reliable information.
But of course. The Left only strives to set standards that are applicable to everyone save themselves. This is why rabid anti-gunners see nothing wrong with packing heat or having an armed entourage.
Their credo is consistently summed up as, "[You name it] for me, but not for thee!"
-Jay
Because Bill Clinton "cares," he is the vital connection to the power they need to accomplish the redemption. Because the keys to the state are within Clinton's grasp, he becomes in their eyes the only prospect for advancing the progressive cause. Therefore, they will sacrifice anything and everything-principle, friends, country-to make him succeed.
But Bill Clinton is not like those who worship him, corrupting himself and others for a higher cause. Unlike them, he betrays principles because he has none. He will even betray his country, but without the slightest need to betray it for something else-for an idea, a party, or a cause.* He is a narcissist who sacrifices principle for power because his vision is so filled with himself that he cannot tell the difference.
But the idealists who serve him-the Stephanopoulos's, the Ickes's, the feminists, the progressives and Hillary Clinton-can tell the difference. Their cynicism flows from the very perception they have of right and wrong. They do it for higher ends. They do it for the progressive faith. They do it because they see themselves as having the power to redeem the world from evil. It is that terrifyingly exalted ambition that fuels their spiritual arrogance and justifies their sordid and, if necessary, criminal means.
And that is why they hate conservatives. They hate you because you are killers of their dream. Because you are defenders of a Constitution that thwarts their cause. They hate you because your "reactionary" commitment to individual rights, to a single standard and to a neutral and limited state obstructs their progressive designs. They hate you because you are believers in property and its rights as the cornerstones of prosperity and human freedom; because you do not see the market economy as a mere instrument for acquiring personal wealth and political war chests, to be overcome in the end by bureaucratic schemes.
Conservatives who think progressives are misinformed idealists will forever be blind-sided by the malice of the left-by the cynicism of those who pride themselves on principle, by the viciousness of those who champion sensitivity, by the intolerance of those who call themselves liberal, and by the ruthless disregard for the well-being of the downtrodden by those who preen themselves as social saints.
Conservatives are caught by surprise because they see progressives as merely misguided, when in fact they are fundamentally misdirected. They are the messianists of a religious faith. But it is a false faith and a self-serving religion. Since the redeemed future that justifies their existence and rationalizes their hypocrisy can never be realized, what really motivates progressives is a modern idolatry: their limitless passion for the continuance of Them.***
Excuse me while I go into the other room and laugh my ass off...
Originators of the "America had it coming" point of view on September 11th. Now it's the BBC that has it coming.
There is no one, repeat no one, that is highly sucessful in any field that doesn't belong to one of the many parts of the political spectrum. If you should find such an animal, please do not put him in a highly political job inside of the Governors' Council Chamber in Broadcasting House because he is useless when it comes to forming an opinion or making a decision!
The funny thing is, that this creep actually thinks that people can shed their political baggage on command. I have seen zero examples of this in the history of mankind.
This is what happens when an organization is funded by taxpayers who have to pay for a license or else they are prosecuted. If the funding was voluntary the BBC wouldn't last the year.
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