Why does the BBC continue with the pretence that it is a non-partisan, unbiased public service broadcaster?
It has a general bias toward the British government of the day (inevitable when it relies on them for its funding) and a natural bias toward left wing politics on account of the amount of bearded hippies and university drop-outs it employs. When you have a nominally left-wing Liebour government in power at Westminster, a nominally left-wing Plaid/Liebour coalition in Cardiff and a far left SNP government in power in Edinburgh, the BBC collectively creams itself over the number of left-leaning bandwagons it can hop onto.
The BBC has long been a proponent of a socialist federal European superstate – a natural position for an organisation that’s institutionally socialist (a far worse accusation than institutional ageism, sexism or racism for most right thinking people). But is there more to it?
A story in the Sunday Times yesterday reveals that the BBC has received £141m in loans from an EU sockpuppet, the European Investment Bank (EIB). The EIB is an EU-backed bank that gives below-commercial rate loans to qualifying borrowers. What do you have to do to qualify for one of these cheap loans? The EIB has this to say of itself:
[…] an autonomous body set up to finance capital investment furthering European integration by promoting EU policies
The loans have been made to BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s commercial arm, over a period of 6 years. BBC Worldwide isn’t responsible for public service broadcasting but is still part of the corporation.
The public service broadcasting part of the BBC – the “customer-facing” bit that’s paid for by the taxpayer – had received £1.4m in grants from the EU propaganda fund over the last 3 years.
Bizarrely, one £25m loan was taken out to buy wordwide distribution rights from itself.
Technorati Tags: BBC, Bias, Federal Europe
By socialism, do you mean:
“A political theory advocating public ownership of the means of production and the sharing of political power by the whole community.”
If so, I am not a right-thinking person.
The BBC is institutionally liberal, not socialist.
I wrote that line and thought “That’ll get Charlie going”. 😉
You don’t think the BBC is institutionally socialist? Surely their very existence is built on left-wing, socialist ideals?
“Bizarrely, one £25m loan was taken out to buy wordwide distribution rights from itself.”
Can you explain that one a bit further? Surely if it already owns the stuff it can distribute as it sees fit. What is it actually buying?
BBC Worldwide borrowed £25m to buy worldwide distribution rights from BBC. It’s a bit like EasyJet borrowing money to buy cars from EasyCar or Tesco Extra taking out a loan to buy from Tesco Homeplus. A bizarre situation.
The BBC is publicly owned but it is not democratic or even representative of public opinion: recall that all those who seriously questioned the Iraq war were forced out of the BBC.
As for being institutionally socialist, people like the poet Michael Rosen were unable to work at the Beeb because of their socialist beliefs (http://bilderberg.org/mi5bbc.htm)…
Many countries have state-owned television, not because of left wing ideas, but the necessity of having a media organisation that can pump out the government’s line.
The BBC has been useful in the past for disseminating propaganda against working people – recall during the miner’s strike when footage of the police attacking miners was altered to make it look as if the miners had attacked the police. During the General Strike of 1926 the BBC did not reflect the opinions of the millions of working people out on strike, but rather broadcasted prominently the government line.
I could go on…
Did the BBC exist during the General Strike?
Yes, it was founded in 1922.
cool, i did not think it was so old
“The BBC is publicly owned but it is not democratic or even representative of public opinion: recall that all those who seriously questioned the Iraq war were forced out of the BBC.”
Who were they, then?
“As for being institutionally socialist, people like the poet Michael Rosen were unable to work at the Beeb because of their socialist beliefs (http://bilderberg.org/mi5bbc.htm)…”
Is that the Michael Rosen who has presented weekly programmes on Radio 4 for decades?
“Many countries have state-owned television, not because of left wing ideas, but the necessity of having a media organisation that can pump out the government’s line.”
The point here being that the BBC is not state-owned.
“The BBC has been useful in the past for disseminating propaganda against working people – recall during the miner’s strike when footage of the police attacking miners was altered to make it look as if the miners had attacked the police.”
When did this happen?
“During the General Strike of 1926 the BBC did not reflect the opinions of the millions of working people out on strike, but rather broadcasted prominently the government line.”
On the contrary, the BBC under Lord Reith successfully maintained its independence from government during the General Strike, which is widely regarded as having been the first major test of that independence.
You say you could go on. If you do, will you eventually start making sense?
“The BBC is publicly owned but it is not democratic or even representative of public opinion: recall that all those who seriously questioned the Iraq war were forced out of the BBC.”
When does Publis ownership = democratic or representative of public opinion.
The BBC is constantly attacked because of its bias but that is more a factor that most of it is in London and has the Metrocentric view of the world. It is a business, that more or less works and works well and thats what it does, it provides TV and radio.
“Many countries have state-owned television, not because of left wing ideas, but the necessity of having a media organisation that can pump out the government’s line.”
The point here being that the BBC is not state-owned.
Who does own it then? Or are we down to precision semantics?
“The BBC has been useful in the past for disseminating propaganda against working people – recall during the miner’s strike when footage of the police attacking miners was altered to make it look as if the miners had attacked the police.”
When did this happen?
Standard Lefty paranoia, all that was seen on the news was stuff that non ‘sub judice’ and therefore irrelevant.
I’m sure i remember seeing Police horses charging the picket lines.
And by the way, this country is meant to be a democracy, that is run by those we voted for in parliment, not by self serving marxist oligarchs at NUM HQ. Scargill was as much to blame for the destruction of the british coal industry, he was lured into a trap that was so obvious, he deserved to be brought down.
Axel, I seem to have pissed you off.
1. Mike Rosen was unable to work for the BBC in the 70’s, during the cold war and at a time when the working class was on the offense.
2. I am not uncritical of Scargil – but what of the many thousands of miners who lost their jobs and their comminities? Did they deserve to be brought down for struggling to defend themselves?
3. The footage was edited for broadcast, it’s a matter of fact not paranoia – perhaps it was accidental, though I doubt it. I am sure you saw police charging at picket lines – but this was shown after the defensive response by miners, giving the impression that they were attacking the police and the police were acting defensively.
4. I agree with you that the BBC’s ethos is informed by its location. It provides a good service, one which would not be possible if it were a private company subject to profit-maximisation.
5. I think the BBC would better serve the public if it was more directly accountable to its employees, to parliament, and to the general public.
6. THe departures from the BBC of journalist Andrew Gilligan, Director-General Greg Dyke, and Chairman of the Board of Governors Gavyn Davies, were more related to their critical attitude to the government’s case for invading Iraq than their conduct in the David Kelly affair.
I don’t know if these are the answers you are looking for, but don’t say i didn’t give any 😉
Whoops, I now see I’ve responded to Allie and Axel – two seperate individuals, I presume. Apologies, my sight is not perfect
2) The miners were victims of both Scargills and Thatchers vanity. Their redundacies were the end results of Management\Union issues from previous decades, they were also the biggest bully on the block, so were the obvious prime target. And sadly, Scargill let them be set up. Mick McGahey saw what was going to happen but his views and strategies were ignored.
3) Oki, I’ll modify my statement to ‘all that was seen on the news was stuff that was non ’sub judice’ and therefore irrelevant.’
I dont think they could show people hitting each other as that would be evidence for a court case.
Can we meet halfway on this one?
5) How would you manage this in a practicale way?
Charlie, no, not at all, I just like to argue and now that I am in my 40s, for some reason I seem to be becoming more and more right wing 😉
“BBC Worldwide borrowed £25m to buy worldwide distribution rights from BBC. It’s a bit like EasyJet borrowing money to buy cars from EasyCar or Tesco Extra taking out a loan to buy from Tesco Homeplus. A bizarre situation.”
BBC Worldwide is a commercial operation, which although owned by the BBC as a whole, operates seperately and with relative independence. It owns and co-owns other commercial operations, who in turn sometimes own other companies, and so can’t just naturally inherit programmes to do with as they wish. I assume that such a hand-down between legally seperate companies would be against some kind of competition law.
Yes it seems a bit odd, but that’s just how the capitalist system works in this case. 🙂
3) Point is: narrative of events was reversed, giving impression police were subject to unprovoked attack.
5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_democracy
While we’re on the subject (and because I can’t be bothered to search Wonko’s voluminous archives) did anyone substantiate the claim that the BBC has been `promoting Britishness’?