Tag: BBC

BBC’s response to Trump must be ‘We fight…We fight like hell’

It was as obvious as hair dye and fake tan: Donald Trump was always going to sue the BBC, irrespective of whether the broadcaster made a grovelling apology for its astonishingly stupid video editing of a speech delivered shortly before the Capitol was stormed.

Even a plausible offer of compensation – had it been made – would have been insufficient to stay the hand of the man who has already caused immense harm to the public broadcasters of his own country and who has sued American media for billions. The opportunity to strike what he hopes is an existential blow against the progenitor of public broadcasting was irresistible.

There was, therefore, no surprise in his announcement on Saturday that he will sue the BBC for between $US1 billion and $US 5 billion over the clip in a 2024 Panorama programme. I doubt it is a coincidence that $US5 billion almost matches the income the BBC will receive this financial year from public licence fees (the bulk of its annual income) or that $1 billion is the annual corporate cost of running the public broadcaster. Continue reading “BBC’s response to Trump must be ‘We fight…We fight like hell’” →

Public media at the mercy of grubby political paws

If John Reith had not been cremated and his ashes scattered in the ruins of a Scottish church, the father of public service broadcasting would be spinning in his grave.

The BBC’s first director-general saw it as a way to support an inclusive, participatory and enlightened democracy. He has since been dismissed by some as a moralistic, authoritarian Scottish Presbyterian but his principles defined public service media and remain at their core today.

Lord Reith’s broadcasting vision was to bring together different classes and regional populations. Its role was to reinforce social integration. That ideal was – and still is – the antithesis of partisanship and socio-economic superiority.

If he were alive today, he would not simply be annoyed. He was annoyed when he saw a BBC announcer kissing a secretary. He would be more than angry. Anger was something he felt when he spoiled a new battle tunic by getting himself shot by a sniper in the First World War. He would be incensed. He would be enraged at the way those who hold the purse strings have politicised the process of public media funding.

A concept that seeks to serve the interests and needs of a nation as a whole finds itself, in the 21st century, at the mercy of political idealogues and elected manipulators. The right-wing members of these groups accuse public media of being left-wing – in spite of little evidence to support the claim. Indeed, organisations that measure bias tend to put public media in the centre zone.

‘Left-wing bias’ is more likely to be code for confirmation bias that requires media to reflect a person’s (or a party’s) view of the world. No doubt it will be applied by some in the reading of this column.

An excellent example of confirmation bias can be found in the title given to a US House of Representatives sub-committee hearing on the Trump Administration’s proposed cuts to public media: “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable”. Continue reading “Public media at the mercy of grubby political paws” →

Can CNN’s Mark Thompson cure my obsessive compulsive disorder?

I am a rippler. Don’t worry: Your confusion is understandable.

I am neither a person who removes seeds from hemp with a ripple, nor do I suffer from a particular disease that is possibly of venereal origin. I have invented a new meaning for the word.

A rippler, according to the Knightly Views Dictionary, is a person who ripples up and down through the news feeds on Sky while waiting for the morning paper to be delivered. Rippling may be defined as moving from news channel to news channel trying to find something other than opinionated talking heads.

There was a time when the channel selector stayed on CNN, seldom giving the BBC, Sky News or Al Jazeera a look in, so to speak. Fox News never made the list because it made me fall off the right side of my chair and, in addition, age has made screaming skulls harder and harder to endure.

CNN seemed to fill my international news needs very well. Its coverage was wide, and sometimes deep. It concentrated on reportage, and its commentators often gave their contextualised views from the field. It was, of course, the world’s first 24-hour news channel.

Yet in recent times it lost its distinctiveness. Too often, when I tuned in, it was screening yet another opinion from an eminently qualified academic or former whatever. Too often, when I began rippling, it was screening the same topic as everyone else. Well, not quite everyone. I found Al Jazeera’s news values different to the western nexus ­– CNN, Sky News and the BBC – whose news values and international news judgements were disarmingly similar. Its scope, however, was not as wide-reaching.

I had reconciled myself to life as a rippler. Then I saw a story in the Wall Street Journal that led me to hope – perhaps irrationally, and certainly prematurely – that help for my obsessive compulsive disorder may be on its way. Continue reading “Can CNN’s Mark Thompson cure my obsessive compulsive disorder?” →

Media employees’ right to voice personal opinions

The BBC’s suspension of Gary Lineker over a social media comment raises a question that is wider than the shambles it created: Do people in the media have a right to voice a personal opinion?

Last Tuesday Lineker, the BBC’s highest paid star and presenter of Match of the Day, posted a tweet about the UK Conservative government’s plan to stop refugees crossing the English Channel. He described it as “an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s.”

By Friday an extraordinary meltdown had occurred, with the corporation announcing Lineker would “step back” from Match of the Day. In plain English, the director-general Tim Davie had suspended him because ‘a red line has been crossed’ on BBC neutrality. Several colleagues walked out in support of the former professional footballer. There was no Match of the Day last weekend and football coverage on the BBC was reduced to a pallid 20-minute substitute.

The Times reported Davie taking the moral high ground on Friday: “(as) editor in chief of the BBC, I think one of our founding principles is impartiality and that’s what I’m delivering on.” However, over the weekend, support within the corporation rank-and-file seemed to move toward Lineker. Davie, who had been in Washington, flew back to London for crisis meetings to head off what was rapidly becoming an internal revolt. Continue reading “Media employees’ right to voice personal opinions” →