It may be a co-incidence, or just me, but it seems like the vast majority of links in SDMB posts outside of the SDMB (I.e. not links to other SDMB threads) are to the BBC News website more than any other site. Seems strange as BBC is British and the majority of this board’s members are American.
Are there any statistics for this type of thing (commonly linked sites) published for the SDMB so I can see if my observation is correct or not? (and also for curiosity)
I don’t really mean “Most links are to the bbc news website” I mean - if there was a pie of places linked to the bbc news would be the biggest piece of the pie. The rest of the pie (‘other’) might be bigger than the bbc news’s piece, but no individual site has a bigger piece.
Maybe it’s the very fact that the Beeb isn’t American which encourages our US posters to cite it so often. But yes, the BBC is usually one of the more reliable news sources.
The Beeb does have a rather sterling reputation as an unbiased news source, so it seems natural to me that Dopers would want to link to the Beeb if they didn’t want to get tied down to a “Well, you’re source sucks, mine’s better!” battle.
The BBC always refers to Britain and the British government as a distant third party (that’s especially true of the World Service). How impartial they really are is probably open to question, but they are very conscious of their reputation. They are also constantly being criticised for disloyalty and a lack of patriotism by whichever party happens to be in government over here.
As an American growing up near the Canadian border, it was quite usual in my area to compare what the American news told us with what the CBC told us. Very interesting what each party either left in or emphasized.
I don’t live near Canada anymore, but the BBC and, when I’ve got the time and interest to wrestle with my rusty French, Le Monde provide alternative news sources for me with a different slant/bias from those of my own country. Again, what is emphasized or left out of the various publications can be quite interesting.
Gotta remember, on a certain level the Amercians don’t trust their own government or their own media.
As sources of news go, the BBC is almost certainly one of the most reliable/least biased in the world.
I remember a few years ago the bbc was celebrating its birthday (i think) and they were doing a series of snippet interviews with various important figures who talked frankly about what they thought about the bbc. (Some good, some bad)
One of them was Gorbachev who effectively said (i can’t remember his exact words) that during the final days of the Soviet Union when he was being held hostage, the BBC World Service was the only news service/information source he trusted - he refused to believe anything he was told by people or saw/heard from other news sources which he couldn’t confirm from the BBCs reports.
The BBC is a very good source of news. I read their site usually once a day (I have it set for Outside of Britain at home, and In Britain at work, even though I live in the US). One reason people might prefer it to other sources of news is that it doesn’t require registration, like the New York Times.
ruadh - of course the terms are relative - that goes without saying. I wasn’t implying that the BBC was a paragon of virtue - merely that in comparison to other media agencies its record is pretty good.
The history of the BBC certainly demonstrates that it has been guilty of “propaganda reporting” on a number of occasions. As you have pointed out Ireland is certainly one of the biggest. Others have included (obviously) the World Wars and less obviously the General Strike in the twenties and the Miners Strike in the eighties.
Compare the BBC to other agencies - such as BskyB and other elements of the Murdoch Empire, for example - and i know which one i’d rather use.
Kinda off the point but you may find it interesting if you are interested in British reporting of events in Ireland is this article -