4 ms·

Well, it is something that I didn't know until a few years ago - ok, I would often disagree with bbc articles, or think them a little biased. But this is somet

Well, it is something that I didn't know until a few years ago - ok, I would often disagree with bbc articles, or think them a little biased. But this is something much worse. And I am still shocked that the bbc does this. Also, I am interested quite how the process works - who makes the decisions, how many are involved etc, what do the other bbc staff think, etc.

the-dude 6y ago
I can't speak of the BBC, I know too little about the English context. Dutch : follow the money, political alignment and if they for example would air something over-the-line regarding our royals, they will get a call from someone from our deep-state and they will pull it. But for the most part, I think they are very well in-tune in what they should and shouldn't do. They need very litte instructions.
- jjgreen 6y ago
  You cannot hope to bribe or twist (thank God!) the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to. Humbert Wolfe, "Over the Fire", in The Uncelestial City (1930).
hnlmorg 6y ago
The BBC are one of the very few impartial news services out there. If you look at how people complain about the BBC, you get people from all sides of the political spectrum moaning that the BBC is biased to the other side. But what's really happening here is that it's the readers who are biased and feel their view point is unfairly represented.
- harry8 6y ago
  Forget party politics for a moment. The BBC buried the story they had about their former 'star' and Prince Charles' friend Jimmy Saville being a mass-pedarest. It's a big place with many competing interests, styles of journalist, editor and so on. There is no /one/ bbc. They levy their own taxes(!) so are independent for funding. I am trying to recall the last time the BBC was critical of British foreign policy or their secret service. Be it in Ireland, Iraq or elsewhere. Regardless of which party had a leader who was Prime Minister at the time. I'm not coming up with much. Burying this story is exactly in keeping with my recollection of how the BBC does it. It is a /huge/ story, why is it not being run? The contrast with the amount of coverage of some ridiculous hollywood divorce which is literally of no importance to anyone whatsoever is utterly stunning, is it not? Do we put that down to incompetence? My Occam's razor is struggling with that but I guess it's at least possible "Assange isn't getting enough clicks, drop it." They don't do advertising though, do they?
  - hnlmorg 6y ago
    > Forget party politics for a moment. Why? That's a pretty significant chunk of reporting where bias is introduced. > The BBC buried the story they had about their former 'star' and Prince Charles' friend Jimmy Saville being a mass-pedarest. Everyone did though. Not just the BBC. Is it right that it was buried; no of course it isn't. But this is an exception rather than the trend and it wasn't even something that was unique to the BBC. > It's a big place with many competing interests, styles of journalist, editor and so on. There is no /one/ bbc. There's still guidelines journalists have to follow, editors that review pieces and editors themselves get reviewed. Then you have the effect where people who apply for the Beeb will be tend to be people who also believe in BBC's mission statement of impartiality, much like how Fox News attracts news casters who support the Republicans. > I am trying to recall the last time the BBC was critical of British foreign policy or their secret service. Be it in Ireland, Iraq or elsewhere. Regardless of which party had a leader who was Prime Minister at the time. I'm not coming up with much. Of course they're not going to be directly critical -- if they were then they wouldn't be impartial. Impartiality literally means they can't be critical. But what they can do is run stories about mistakes and discuss them "matter of fact" and have guests on the Radio / TV broadcasts who are critical -- all of which the BBC have done on many occasions. > Burying this story is exactly in keeping with my recollection of how the BBC does it. BBC haven't buried it though. They just haven't run as many articles as the OP would have liked. But they have still reported on it. > The contrast with the amount of coverage of some ridiculous hollywood divorce which is literally of no importance to anyone whatsoever is utterly stunning, is it not? Not really. That's just the modern state of news broadcasters these days. Sure, you wouldn't get that from broadsheets but BBC news isn't intended to be a broadsheet. It's intended to be more accessible to the masses and thus that does mean they do have a lot of entertainment content. You might prefer broadsheet style of reporting over the dumbed down and often entertainment-focused articles published by the BBC (like I do too) but that doesn't mean that the BBC is burring articles nor that it isn't impartial. As an aside, if you are after something more like a broadsheet then I highly recommend the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 (weekday mornings). On that show they do cover many of the topics you claimed the BBC normally do not. > They don't do advertising though, do they? Outside of the UK they do. They're also in the tough position that many license fee payers think the BBC should compete with popular programming (I disagree, I think the point of having a license fee is so that you can have unpopular programming that normal TV and Radio networks wouldn't fund).

the-dude 6y ago

I can't speak of the BBC, I know too little about the English context. Dutch : follow the money, political alignment and if they for example would air something over-the-line regarding our royals, they will get a call from someone from our deep-state and they will pull it. But for the most part, I think they are very well in-tune in what they should and shouldn't do. They need very litte instructions.

jjgreen 6y ago
You cannot hope to bribe or twist (thank God!) the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to. Humbert Wolfe, "Over the Fire", in The Uncelestial City (1930).

hnlmorg 6y ago

The BBC are one of the very few impartial news services out there. If you look at how people complain about the BBC, you get people from all sides of the political spectrum moaning that the BBC is biased to the other side. But what's really happening here is that it's the readers who are biased and feel their view point is unfairly represented.

harry8 6y ago
Forget party politics for a moment. The BBC buried the story they had about their former 'star' and Prince Charles' friend Jimmy Saville being a mass-pedarest. It's a big place with many competing interests, styles of journalist, editor and so on. There is no /one/ bbc. They levy their own taxes(!) so are independent for funding. I am trying to recall the last time the BBC was critical of British foreign policy or their secret service. Be it in Ireland, Iraq or elsewhere. Regardless of which party had a leader who was Prime Minister at the time. I'm not coming up with much. Burying this story is exactly in keeping with my recollection of how the BBC does it. It is a /huge/ story, why is it not being run? The contrast with the amount of coverage of some ridiculous hollywood divorce which is literally of no importance to anyone whatsoever is utterly stunning, is it not? Do we put that down to incompetence? My Occam's razor is struggling with that but I guess it's at least possible "Assange isn't getting enough clicks, drop it." They don't do advertising though, do they?
- hnlmorg 6y ago
  > Forget party politics for a moment. Why? That's a pretty significant chunk of reporting where bias is introduced. > The BBC buried the story they had about their former 'star' and Prince Charles' friend Jimmy Saville being a mass-pedarest. Everyone did though. Not just the BBC. Is it right that it was buried; no of course it isn't. But this is an exception rather than the trend and it wasn't even something that was unique to the BBC. > It's a big place with many competing interests, styles of journalist, editor and so on. There is no /one/ bbc. There's still guidelines journalists have to follow, editors that review pieces and editors themselves get reviewed. Then you have the effect where people who apply for the Beeb will be tend to be people who also believe in BBC's mission statement of impartiality, much like how Fox News attracts news casters who support the Republicans. > I am trying to recall the last time the BBC was critical of British foreign policy or their secret service. Be it in Ireland, Iraq or elsewhere. Regardless of which party had a leader who was Prime Minister at the time. I'm not coming up with much. Of course they're not going to be directly critical -- if they were then they wouldn't be impartial. Impartiality literally means they can't be critical. But what they can do is run stories about mistakes and discuss them "matter of fact" and have guests on the Radio / TV broadcasts who are critical -- all of which the BBC have done on many occasions. > Burying this story is exactly in keeping with my recollection of how the BBC does it. BBC haven't buried it though. They just haven't run as many articles as the OP would have liked. But they have still reported on it. > The contrast with the amount of coverage of some ridiculous hollywood divorce which is literally of no importance to anyone whatsoever is utterly stunning, is it not? Not really. That's just the modern state of news broadcasters these days. Sure, you wouldn't get that from broadsheets but BBC news isn't intended to be a broadsheet. It's intended to be more accessible to the masses and thus that does mean they do have a lot of entertainment content. You might prefer broadsheet style of reporting over the dumbed down and often entertainment-focused articles published by the BBC (like I do too) but that doesn't mean that the BBC is burring articles nor that it isn't impartial. As an aside, if you are after something more like a broadsheet then I highly recommend the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 (weekday mornings). On that show they do cover many of the topics you claimed the BBC normally do not. > They don't do advertising though, do they? Outside of the UK they do. They're also in the tough position that many license fee payers think the BBC should compete with popular programming (I disagree, I think the point of having a license fee is so that you can have unpopular programming that normal TV and Radio networks wouldn't fund).