BBC Catching Heat: Why?

[tsipple]

Yes, I understand why the BBC is getting criticism from British politicians. But what exactly did the Beeb do wrong? Can anyone help me out on that?

Incidently, it's incredible how the BBC is reporting on itself. I can't think of another news outlet that could engage in such dispassionate self-reflection. This article, for example, is just amazing. Major kudos to the BBC for its courage, and shame on Tony Blair's government for assailing the Beeb's famous independence.

I'm also waiting for the next shoe to drop, such as tape recordings Andrew Gilligan might have kept. It's hard to imagine both Gilligan and Watts would have got their stories wrong. Let's also see who leaked Kelly's name to the press.

[Maple]

1. I don't know either

I can't see that the BBC has done anything wrong. They reported what a source said, and they protected their source.

And they did so under heavy pressure from a govt that holds their purse strings.

[mrfrapp]

2. What did they do wrong?

Nothing.

All criticism is coming from a desperate government and commercial (hence, rival) news outlets.

[mjb4]

3. USA wants the Beed out and FOX in

they feel the independence of BBC is ruining their chances of ruling the world. Bushco cannot have thinking media questioning their actions. During the war, the BBC admitted on TV - the US lies about these reports, already they have reported taking Najef 8 times.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

4. BBC being victimized here...

by people like Blair and Bush. The BBC is the best news source around.

[CatholicEdHead]

5. They say things corporations do not want you to hear

As you know,

In today's country, it is profit over ethics. Show and push whatever you need to max out your advertising income. Don't let the facts get in the way of a good profit.

Since BBC is governent, not private, they have some breathing room. They respond to the people, not any investors.

Since most of the Iraq affair was smoke and mirrors pushed by many international corporations, they do not want their illusion disproven. The BBC has been the most critical, and has immense world wide reach.

Between this and the recent NY Times scandel, it seems that any outlet who even begun to speak out in the pre-war is now on a discredit campaign.

[German-Lefty]

6. Goverment Run Media seems to work better - crazy

It's amazing to me that goverment funded media like NPR, BBC, or all the wonderful stations I get here in Germany are more independent from the government than the private ones.

Perhaps the private ones could be better, if we made stricter laws about ownership say media companies have to be independently owned public or private companies. Maybe that'd help.

Germany has a bunch of state run news stations that compete with one another and the private ones. They're actually very nice. They know the only thing that keeps them alive is public support, or at least political support.

Perhaps the problem with private companies is that what keeps them alive is very short term ratings and buddies paying advertising money.

[cprise]

7. Reality check

The BBC is government-chartered but funded directly from a flat license fee paid on each television. (E.g. they have a populist revenue base.) That means the BBC are removed from commercial and government coercion about as much as possible. They are run for the public interest but are not a part of the government. Their licence goes up for review every 10 years, and that's about it.

I am used to liberal Americans going skull-numb when it comes to discussing real public media, but I never thought I'd have to explain this to a "German-Lefty". :eyes: Over here, the eyes usually glaze-over (right about now), and then they whine that the liberal bilionaires haven't started a channel for us yet. And then I say something about liberals having to be the promoters of faith in PUBLIC solutions, then the juxtaposition goes right over their head and they change the subject.

Then 5 min. later they gush at what an incredible news service the BBC has. "Why can't George Soros and Ted Turner do the same?" (Because, a charity-run news service would stab us in the back the moment a large corporate sponsor upped the ante... Comprende PBS??)

The neocons are right in that the U.S. left really has declined intellectually.

Scary thing: Bring up the BBC's public status with a right-winger and they'll know precisely what you're talking about.. and if they ever have the chance, they would dispose of the BBC in a cold minute. :scared: This has little to do with the BBC being right; It is about destroying a public institution that would question commercial and military interests.

Government-run news answers to the executive branch, acts as a propaganda tool, and speaks the absolute truth (because they say so). It is a feature of countries run by extremists, both left and right.

[German-Lefty]

9. Public Media != Goverment Run

By the way I still am American even though I may be living here and get dual citizenship. I've spent most of my life in the states.

German run stations are payed that way too. Since I have a TV I have to pay ~16.00 EUR a month for the government run stations. In exchange for this I have right to recieve those stations, no matter where I am. They also try to make the leadership of the stations fairly politically independent.

The neat thing is that the different German states have thier own stations, so even if political pressure in one area biased one the ones where the opposition is more powerful would be able to cancle it out. And then I get stations from other coutries. Here's what my dial looks like:

government sponsered:
ARD,ZDF - nation German stations
HRF,BRF,NDF,WDF ect - regional/state level stations
1 open access station for my town, where anyone that feels like it can reserve some air time.
ARTE - German-French station, you can watch it in both langages news+art
BBC - love thier documentaries
Poenix - thier's too
Euro News - seems to be a European wide station, no commercials so probably the EU pays for it

foreign government sponsered:
Turkish Station - sometime they have news in German and English too
French station - I need to learn French
Austrian News - late at night, they talk funny
Swiss News - they talk really funny, they have German subtitles for thier German! It seems a public run swiss station would be the least baised; consider thier policy on neutrality on everything.

Private stations:
N-TV - owned by AOL-Time-Warner, slightly better than CNN
VOX, RTL, N24, ect - private German stations
CNN - so I can see what Americans are being feed lately

Ok, back to your points. I think what you're saying is:
1) There is a big difference between public run media and government run media.
2) The evil right wants to destroy anything public/government to intentionaly allow the wealthy to control the press.
3) The average American doesn't get it, and wonders why there aren't rich lefty millionares to pony up the doe to bais some of the press the other dirrection. (what lefty millionares?)

I agree. I'm a recent convert with realtion to #1 and still a bit shaky. I'm amazed you can make a public institution work independently of the regular government, without seperate elections at least.

I'm just suggesting in the US, we could pass laws forcing media companies to be pure media companies and break up AOL-TIME-WARNER, MSN-Micosoft, ect. That would make these companies depend on thier viewership for survial, which is how private press should work. Don't you think that would help a little bit?

I'm starting to think the best way to make public run media answer to the public would be through a proportional represtative election. Special media parties could get air time proportional to their votes.

[AbbPoacher]

8. 'The Beebs Next War'.OFCOM media regulation effect.

This article discusses recent media regulatory legislation. Mega-Media is more than happy to back up Blairs bullying the BBC. Like media ass-kissing here in the states the Murdochs and ClearChannels are positioned to benefit from deregulation under the new control of OFCOM........"The situation in England is not exactly the same but here too a new communications "reform" bill is about to be approved, setting up a new media regulatory body. Significantly, David Currie, the head of the new regulatory body called OFCOM, recently held consultations with Powell in Washington this summer. The British government, which just coordinated its foreign policy, seems to be doing something similar with its media policy."<http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20030723&fname=bbc&sid=1>.

[Giverney]

10. BBC

The BBC is taking heat becuasde they are so heavily questioning the Blair Government.. as many British are.

However, today they decided to, "not publish the parlimentary interview of Andrew Gillian." this doesn't look good.

I agree that Blair, Bush and all the rest of them should come clean on their 'information' but the BBC has also backed out now.

arg.

their reason:

"There appears to be compassionate grounds not to publish the evidence. We're in a situation here where if we publish the evidence and something happens to Mr Gilligan we'd be in a very difficult situation"

http://www.nytimes.com/financialtimes/business/FT1058868149958.html

[the_sam]

11. Nothing

They do good, confrontational journalism (the kind that barely exists anymore in the U.S.), and politicians don't like it.