It’s been hard to avoid comment about the Beeb’s bias in the national press lately, but this article by novelist DJ Taylor on the Beeb’s US election coverage is worth flagging up:
While everybody in the room – party cheerleaders excepted – clearly wanted Obama to win, those in charge were doing a very good impression of studied neutrality. It was all a far cry from recent British general elections, where the anti-Conservative bias of certain BBC pundits… has been so flagrant as to make you wonder exactly how they got away with it… There is no great mystery, of course, behind this sudden excess of timidity. In the wake of the Brand/Ross disaster the corporation is simply terrified of offending anybody.
Worth mentioning, too, that Taylor’s a member of the Labour party, and this is from the left-leaning Independent.
And, sticking with leftist newspapers sticking it to the Beeb over the last couple of days, here’s Sue Carroll in the Mirror on Ed Stourton’s description of the Queen mother as a “ghastly old bigot”:
When the Queen Mother died, Ed Stourton condemned a tabloid newspaper for publishing details of her last moments, claiming the publication was “quite comfortable in the gutter”… Would his book about political correctness have made news without him shopping the nation’s favourite gran? In a word No.
Welcome to the gutter, Ed.
My concern is that the BBC will paper over the cracks just enough to survive a Tory government.
It doesn’t deserve to survive at all in my opinion but I’m not convinced that Cameron really wants to act. He needs to understand that the BBC’s influence is insidious and extends beyond party politics into wider cultural issues.
Cameron probebly doesn’t want to get rid of the BBC because when he gains power he will just turn it into a Conservative propaganda machine by clearing out all the liberal types. It’s a very useful tool for any Governement and they will use it to it’s full potential.
Change the whole BBC from left to right? I think Mussolini would have baulked at that idea.
However, maybe we would have a half-decent broadcaster, for a brief period, halfway through the process.
Every extract which i’ve read of stourton’s book suggests that he completely misses the point about PC. I’ve read a couple of extracts where he strenuously tries to prove that a some of the innoculous phrases which council jobsworths have suffered ridicule in tried to ban might actually be offensive after all.
But surely the point is that everyone should have the right to offend people provided in law they’re not libelling them and practically speaking they’re prepared to take some back. Anyone who is continually offensive will suffer from it because they’ll lose all respect, be socially ostracised and be subject to a load of retaliatory abuse and possibly physical violence, but that’s their decision. Any organisation letting their staff be offensive will suffer because they’ll lose custom. The only organisations who need to have strict structures in place are publically funded ones because people are forced to pay for them but those considerations should include taxpayers offended by the spending of their cash on “diversity training” and on bad haired pricks abusing retired actors.
And a private conversation shouldn’t be shared with the nation. If stourton was really offended by the Queen Mum he should’ve called her a pissed up coffin-dodger to her face and got all his spanish, italian and german mates to chuck empty champers bottles at her at ascot, not grassed her up in the sunday times.
She was a ghastly old bigot though – shat’s wrong with that? John Hutton on toady said we should celebrate Armistice day? Odd type of word – knob.
It would be impossible for an incoming Conservative government to change the BBC by “clearing out all the liberal types.” That would mean removing virtually the entire editorial staff. Furthermore, any replacements would become the usual leftist public-sector parasites within a few months.
When he was at Cambridge, Ed Stourton was a quiet, socially-conservative student, with a line in ancestral tweed jackets. He went on to become a journalist in the private sector for several years, but since joining the BBC, he has “gone native”. The same applies to Nick Robinson, who was originally hired by the BBC as a token Conservative, and has subsequently followed the same path.
The only solution to the problem of the BBC is abolition.
Memo to beeboids involved in the country comedy show, ‘Farming Today’. If you wish to be considered as even remotely impartial when ‘reporting ‘ on field sports, it would help if you would point out to your friendly anti, that it is completely irrelevant to compare setting captive animals on each other, to hunting a free running quarry. ( Further you might like to point out that it was largely politicians from the landed interest, involved in hunting, who were responsible for banning what they regarded as the ‘cockney’ pursuit of bear baiting.
My question to anyone that knows is – What are the real chances of the BBC being abolished? Are the bookies taking bets on it ? or is it so powerful and has the political left made everyone so dependant on public sector spendiing that too many of the population inside and outside the BBC know where their bread is buttered.
I would love to see the BBC closed down, but if that is not going to happen (David Cameron said he is a fan of the BBC in his Sun interview),
another alternative would be to have more competition from other radio stations. We need something like http://www.foxnews.com/radio. Unfortunately for independent radio stations, there is Ofcom, set up by the government, which will be used to ‘monitor’ what they can broadcast. Eg James Whale got sacked from Talksport 1089 MW late night chat show recently for saying listeners should vote for Boris Johnson. There is one speck of bias on one side and a sacking occurs. Meanwhile there is a boulder on the other side in the BBC and no-one notices.
Jon Gaunt (Talksport most mornings) says the money currently handed out to the BBC should be available to other broadcasting organisations.
A Tory government could do one thing, force the BBC to become an investigative organisation, not one chasing the scoop.
Leave scoops to those parts of the media that have to make money to stay in business…force the bbc to look and report the story behind the scoop.
Oh, and get rid of all the blogs which are used by morons to propogate their opinion (since opinions themselves are very rarely impartial).
Mailman
Dumb Beeboids!
http://www.order-order.com/2008/11/bbc-reefer-madness.html
As long as the ghastly monarchy exists in our benighted land, the unelected beeboids will also reign supreme.
For all those who, in the wake of the ghastly Jonathan Ross episode, have felt affronted that the BBC seems to be institutionally incapable of sacking anyone, here is someone who was just sacked.
A presenter I’d never heard of, called a taxi company for a cab for her 14 year old daughter and requested a non-Asian driver. As far as I can see, if she’s the customer, she can request anything she likes, but the BBC doesn’t see it that way and sacked her.
http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?swf=http%3A//s.ytimg.com/yt/swf/cps-vfl62967.swf&video_id=xWX8qRTK_lI&rel=1&showsearch=1&eurl=http%3A//littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/&iurl=http%3A//i1.ytimg.com/vi/xWX8qRTK_lI/hqdefault.jpg&sk=CRYRnX8voCm3_-4YmQzR91XcqnG5PK5CC&use_get_video_info=1&load_modules=1 (Sorry, I don’t know how to do Tiny Url.)
Verity
My mum used to teach in a predominantly Asian school and it is accurate to state that mysogeny is a cultural trait of south Asian males. FFS – heaven fordend that a mum cares about protecting her kid.
Verity:
Had a black BBC employee called a taxi firm and asked for a white driver, they’d probably have been promoted.
Mind you, being black and employed at the BBC would probably have meant going from toilet cleaning to floor washing.
This morning’s rant by John Humphries on Today against BAA and then Cameron was a master class in how not to interview people and how to show over the top bias when doing so.
It is obvious this man has lost it, and considers himself far too valuable to bbc to be sacked etc. in spite of the lesson of Ross.
(Sorry, I don’t know how to do Tiny Url.)
What you do is go to tinyurl.com, enter your link into the little box doohickey, click on ‘Make TinyURL!’ and bingo-bango! a small URL.
Thanks, Robert S McNamara. You’re a gentleman and a scholar!
Verity
Your link seems to be to the wrong vid (it’s Sarah Palin).
Fewqwer – Apologies! Now I can’t remember where I got the other link so will have to let it drop.