The BBC is a very strange organisation. It recruits mainly via adverts in a newspaper called The Guardian, which is very left-wing and politically correct. That’s the newspaper that asked its readers to send letters to US voters in a swing state to persuade them to vote for Kerry so that Bush wouldn’t be re-elected. The BBC is funded by the licence fee, which effectively forces people to fund it whether they require its services or not. It is not accountable to the national authority that regulates all other broadcasters on matters of decency, bias, suitable screening times for programs etc. Its board of governors run it, and they are appointed by politicians. Would you be happy to be forced to pay for a TV company like this?
Check this article out. It says something about the BBC’s anti Republican party bias.
The Guardian is the main newspaper for all media recruitment, not just the BBC. The main newspaper for arts recruitment is the Telegraph, the most rightwing of the serious British papers. Both these traditions have grown up over time, and have nothing to do with editorial leanings.
Wrong. They asked readers to write, but they didn’t say which candidate to support.
Wrong on two out of three - Ofcom now regulates the BBC for decency and screening times. Issues of bias remain with the governors.
Wow. I don’t even know where to start picking holes in that article. I’ll restrict myself to two words: sour grapes.
The Telegraph is not the main paper for public sector arts recruitment. The Guardian is, as it is for the overwhelming majority of public sector jobs except teachers. Its job supplements are legendary for well paid jobs with such strange titles and descriptions that most people don’t understand what the job is.
If you think that Guardian readers were writing to US voters advising them to vote for Bush you must not just live on the other side of Atlantic but on a different planet altogether. Get real, as I believe at least some you Americans say.
‘The BBC is now regulated, in part, by Ofcom. BBC compliance with the programme codes is regulated by Ofcom. Issues concerning accuracy and impartiality remain the responsibility of the BBC Governors.’
So when it comes to deciding whether the BBC is politically biased or not, the BBC governors decide. Judge and jury.
Sour grapes? No. I just object to being forced to pay for something I don’t need and that I find distasteful. I suppose you can afford to be more indulgent towards the BBC than I can. It’s not you shelling out £126.50 ($220) every year for lefty propaganda and mind-numbing light entertainment you don’t want.
Forgot to answer your point about the BBC not using the word ‘terrorist’ to describe the London bombers.
Check this out -
If you can find the word ‘terrorist’ on the BBC website used to describe the London bombers, post the address here. You might find it, but if you do plenty of us Brits would like to know the address.
That’s funny. Every one of my friends that works in the arts uses the Telegraph as their first port of call.
The same could be said of the Financial Times.
No, that wasn’t the point I was disputing. You said that the Guardian encouraged its readers to write in support of Kerry. They were, at the time, very careful to not give specific encouragement to do this.
Woops. On the day the bombers were first publicly identified, BBC TV reports openly and consistently used the word to describe them. However, the BBC are fully aware that many people distrust news sources which constantly tub-thump about ‘terrorists’ at every opportunity.
If you’re complaining about the word not being used in every single sentence, then you’re simply not understanding what’s going on. ‘Bomber’ is more specific. It is used to specifically identifiy the group of terrorists that actually carried out the attack, and not the wider network of collaborators, supporters, financers etc.
“The terrorists responsible for the London bombs” does not actually simply refer to the four guys with the rucksacks of explosives. To use it as such is inaccurate.
(By the way, using something other than Torygraph articles to support anti-BBC arguments would give them more credence.)
There seems to be a conspiracy amongst some sections of US society to regard the BBC as objective. If you think it’s just me who thinks the BBC is biased you’re wrong. More and more people in the UK are realising that the BBC has its own political agenda. See this link. By the way, MP stands for member of parliament, that’s the building with Big Ben where Mr Tony Blair MP rules the roost.
if you don’t want me to. Here’s NicK Cohen writing in The Observer, the Guardian’s Sunday title, yesterday.
‘At the BBC and elsewhere, the pressure of events has pushed neutrality into euphemism and euphemism to the edge of outright falsehood’.
So I’m paying good hard cash for falsehood. But I suppose it is better than a trip to the local magistrates court for a fine and a criminal record.
Check out the whole article at
Britain isn’t all beefeaters at the tower, wonderful policemen with nice helmets and good honest broadcasting courtesy of the BBC. Like the US, it’s one of the better places to live in this troubled world, but the BBC is a sick relic that needs putting out of it well-funded misery.
That article is essentially arguing for responsible accuracy to be sacrificed on the anti-PC altar:
Actually, the latter statement presupposed Ba’athist or Al Qaeda involvement in an attack, when this is likely to be nothing more than speculation. That would be irresponsible and untrustworthy journalism.
The suggested ‘alternative’ words is laughable:
This is a mixture of more presumption of ideological motive (when often this is not known to be true), misuse of medical terminology, and thoroughly wooly meaningless terms - ‘sadists’ and ‘exortionists’ could mean just about anything.
The Cohen article is an opinion piece, not evidence and as has been shown, a poorly reasoned piece at that demanding the BBC put pandering before accuracy. News is not meant to be name calling. Although maybe you’re onto something.
I demand that blair and bush be referred to as ‘unindicted war criminals,’ all military actions that result in forseeable civilian deaths and large scale property damage as ‘state terrorism,’ all bosses of PFI companies as ‘blood-sucking parasites’, railtrack share-holders as ‘whining losers.’ etc etc.
And while we are offering Observer opinion pieces as evidence here’s one you unaccountably failed to post a concession speech over, being as columnists are now purveyors of fact ne’er to be gainsaid.
So - in short Marx won because he was and remains a profoundly influential philosopher whose insights gave us new ways of looking at society and culture, in the opinion of a handful of listeners (8400) of some inconsequential radio 4 high brow show that goes out in the middle of the day and late at night, not because of some vast left wing conspiracy.
Unless that’s what the aliens and their evil allies the space vampires want us to believe so they can keep stealing our vital fluids.
The BBC doesn’t seem to have any problems getting enough people to spring to its defence, or to claim that it is impartial despite what anyone else might say. Why then doesn’t it go independent and charge willing customers for its services? Oh no, you must pay, you will pay, we are excellent and impartial and therefore you should be glad to pay for us,and if you don’t you’ll get fined. Reminds me of those countries where Marx was in vogue with the despotic rulers. You were allowed to vote, but you were told who to vote for. All for your own good of course. Leave me alone BBC. Let me spend my money how I want. How would a freeborn American respond to a letter like this demanding he fund an organistion he wants nothing to do with?
Pardon me, painter, but you’ll need a much stronger example than that to convince anybody here that The Guardian is left-wing!
You’ll have to make allowances for some skepticism from Americans on this point, painter. We’re accustomed to shrill and mindless accusations of “liberal bias” on the part of CNN, of all things! :rolleyes: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=314634
Oh, well, painter’s arguments have descended into the “don’t tell me how to spend my money” Daily Mail rant so typical of ill-thought-out anti-BBC stances.
:rolleyes: Will you fucking give this license-fee issue a rest? You bring it up in practically every post, and it is is completely and utterly irrelevant to the topic of this thread.
Must be a UK thing. Then again, the UK is odd when it comes to TV. I live in the US, and while I own a TV I almost never watch it. In the UK, I couldn’t even afford to own a TV.
Still, even those 8400 listeners, with their presumably above-average educations, should know perfectly well that Marx was insignificant as a philosopher!
Marx was not insignificant as a philosopher. I don’t know what narrow definition of either term you are using. Dialectical Materialism is a philosophy and a profoundly influential one and at one time or another billions have lived under regimes who professed to be based on it. It has influenced almost every area of inquiry from art history to the philosophy of science.
You don’t have to be a Social Worker moron to find elements of Marx useful to understanding the world, especially compared to Plato’s cave and other such academic gaming with words to no practical purpose. As my previous cites show - he remains influential in many unlikely spheres, in many ways his concepts have become so pervasive they are like the air we breathe.
