The Biased Broadcasting Corporation

[MakemineVanilla]

11 hours ago, KentVillan said:

If you think tax is theft, then yes. I don't.

Tax can't be theft because the government owns everyone and any money they might earn - they "allow" people to earn an absolute minimum before they take their cut.

Governments create inflation for their own benefit and to the detriment of the population.

Hunt told us in his budget statement that he wants 50 year-olds and young people to get back in the workforce to pay more tax.

This offers insights into his party's actual policies.

History suggests that the BBC exists to legitimise the state apparatus: some see the necessity of that and others remain sceptical.

 

[bickster]

[KentVillan]

1 hour ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Tax can't be theft because the government owns everyone and any money they might earn - they "allow" people to earn an absolute minimum before they take their cut.

Governments create inflation for their own benefit and to the detriment of the population.

Hunt told us in his budget statement that he wants 50 year-olds and young people to get back in the workforce to pay more tax.

This offers insights into his party's actual policies.

History suggests that the BBC exists to legitimise the state apparatus: some see the necessity of that and others remain sceptical.

 

Ah yeah, you’re right, apologies. We should definitely close down the BBC so that people can learn about inflation from crypto YouTube

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Tax can't be theft because the government owns everyone and any money they might earn - they "allow" people to earn an absolute minimum before they take their cut.

Governments create inflation for their own benefit and to the detriment of the population.

Hunt told us in his budget statement that he wants 50 year-olds and young people to get back in the workforce to pay more tax.

This offers insights into his party's actual policies.

History suggests that the BBC exists to legitimise the state apparatus: some see the necessity of that and others remain sceptical.

 

U OK, hun? 

[VILLAMARV]

17 hours ago, KentVillan said:

So the cost arguments seem like a huge distraction......There is no real economic case for sweeping reforms, it’s just not that expensive in the grand scheme of things.

I agree with this. And I very much subscribe to the notion that sometimes there's an argument away from cutting costs because things have an intrinsic societal value, like the aforementioned libraries.

17 hours ago, KentVillan said:

The reason the BBC gets attacked is the culture war

Do you mean because of? or because they are complicit in/with?

17 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Even the arguments that the BBC is an establishment brainwashing vehicle seem pretty tenuous in a world where everyone has access to 100s of channels, YouTube, streaming services, social media, online news, etc.

Obviously I come at this from a different perspective, but I'm a bit confused as to what you're getting at really? Sorry if I'm missing the obvious.

There is certainly a lot of choice and fragmentation out there. This is the 'race to the bottom of the barrell' right? and the standard declines, murdochs influence etc. I don't understand how that counters the idea of BBC bias. Notably to the government of the day? Shouldn't the BBC, precisely because it is supposed to serve the public, be held to a higher standard of journalistic integrity than the S*n, the Torygraph, The Heil or worse? Pointing at a free market style choice of media outlets is surely akin to suggesting the two differing views put forward in counterpoint journalism amount to balance.

18 hours ago, KentVillan said:

sabotaging the BBC will fade away again if Labour get in, and we get on with being a normal country.

I wish I could share in your optimism.

Quote

"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man" - Friedrich Nietzsche

 

[VILLAMARV]

14 hours ago, bickster said:

I get where you are coming from but it then sort of crosses the line between State Broadcaster and National Broadcaster. It’s good just doing that, it’s independence needs to be written in stone and it’s impartially rules need to be changed because right now they are weaponised

Nail on the head for me bicks and it might be a few tricky conversations but couldn't be that hard to imagine that we could agree upon a definition of impartiality, of balance, set standards and implement them.

Whether that's remotely viable given whatever the media equivalent of realpolitik is, is where my personal hope for change disappears.

[VILLAMARV]

14 hours ago, fruitvilla said:

conservatives have complained about the BBC's left-leaning stuff. Today the left is complaining about the easy passage that conservative politicians get.

This is quite interesting to me and as one of the 'lefty' political news output detractors there, it really does seem to me that the 'right' (I really hate using those R/L group identities but for the ease of conversation and understanding I suppose!) generally take umbrage at diversity hires in it's drama output or scripts they dont like in programme XYZ. Which then the politicians play into by suggesting the BBC is a lefty institution which in peer reviewed studies into it's news/political output is a measurably and demostrably false statement.

but it's a real life apples v oranges thing and we're supposed to pick a team I think. It's really odd. It's not by accident.

[Chindie]

22 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

This is quite interesting to me and as one of the 'lefty' political news output detractors there, it really does seem to me that the 'right' (I really hate using those R/L group identities but for the ease of conversation and understanding I suppose!) generally take umbrage at diversity hires in it's drama output or scripts they dont like in programme XYZ. Which then the politicians play into by suggesting the BBC is a lefty institution which in peer reviewed studies into it's news/political output is a measurably and demostrably false statement.

but it's a real life apples v oranges thing and we're supposed to pick a team I think. It's really odd. It's not by accident.

The Labour party is acknowledging this with them realigning policies to be more 'anti-woke', for want of a better term. The culture war, we all lose.

[MakemineVanilla]

31 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

This is quite interesting to me and as one of the 'lefty' political news output detractors there, it really does seem to me that the 'right' (I really hate using those R/L group identities but for the ease of conversation and understanding I suppose!) generally take umbrage at diversity hires in it's drama output or scripts they dont like in programme XYZ. Which then the politicians play into by suggesting the BBC is a lefty institution which in peer reviewed studies into it's news/political output is a measurably and demostrably false statement.

but it's a real life apples v oranges thing and we're supposed to pick a team I think. It's really odd. It's not by accident.

They certainly have butchered a few classics in recent times, and what they have done to Great Expectations lately seems to take it a little too far. I was rather disconcerted a few years ago when they did a version of Wilde's An Ideal Husband, when the femme fatale broke into the Troggs' Wild Thing, at a posh reception, set in 1895.

I don't consider the BBC to be left-wing in the economic sense, as they are not known to be particularly prone to argue for justice for low-status workers.

I see them as rather Blairite - socially liberal/progressive but economically rather further to the right.

 

 

 

[StefanAVFC]

Management is right-wing

Workers are generally left-wing

[Seat68]

9 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

They certainly have butchered a few classics in recent times, and what they have done to Great Expectations lately seems to take it a little too far. I was rather disconcerted a few years ago when they did a version of Wilde's An Ideal Husband, when the femme fatale broke into the Troggs' Wild Thing, at a posh reception, set in 1895.

I don't consider the BBC to be left-wing in the economic sense, as they are not known to be particularly prone to argue for justice for low-status workers.

I see them as rather Blairite - socially liberal/progressive but economically rather further to the right.

 

 

 

Is Great Expectations out? I thought we had another week before broadcast. Perhaps one for television thread but was it much good?

[bickster]

25 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

I don't consider the BBC to be left-wing in the economic sense, as they are not known to be particularly prone to argue for justice for low-status workers.

Maybe you should watch Panorama tonight

[MakemineVanilla]

19 minutes ago, bickster said:

Maybe you should watch Panorama tonight

The labour share of GDP has been falling for longer than 15 years (Tory rule).

The percentage of GDP enjoyed by wages has been falling since the 1970s.

Quote

Labour share as % of GDP has fallen around the world, but the biggest drop is in developed economies.

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/135320/economics/labour-share-of-gdp/

Scroll down for the UK graph.

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said:

Workers are generally left-wing

Those were the days. 

[bickster]

9 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

The labour share of GDP has been falling for longer than 15 years (Tory rule).

The percentage of GDP enjoyed by wages has been falling since the 1970s.

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/135320/economics/labour-share-of-gdp/

Scroll down for the UK graph.

That's nice, it has absolutely nothing to do with the point though does it.

You said

Quote

I don't consider the BBC to be left-wing in the economic sense, as they are not known to be particularly prone to argue for justice for low-status workers.

And tonight's Panorama is on...?

The Pay Squeeze and why so many people feel so poor.

So you made a claim and it just so happens the BBC are doing just the opposite of what you claimed this very evening.

I'm not sure why you saw the need to go off on irrelevant tangents of blame that have nothing to do with this topic.

[MakemineVanilla]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

That's nice, it has absolutely nothing to do with the point though does it.

 

I just assumed that the BBC were about to give the Tories a big FU, by putting it out there, that the decline had only happened under the Tory scum.

I would also make the plea that highlighting a general statement about declining wages, is not the same as supporting low-status workers in a dispute: although nurses tend to be an exception.

But I would be rather naive to expect it.

[fruitvilla]

This is from Ad Fontes ... they rate a whole bunch of news outlets. Seems about right to me. Not sure over what time period. Each dot represents an article they have reviewed.

 

[LondonLax]

1 hour ago, fruitvilla said:

This is from Ad Fontes ... they rate a whole bunch of news outlets. Seems about right to me. Not sure over what time period. Each dot represents an article they have reviewed.

 

Of course that relies on an agreed idea of where ‘the centre’ lies, which actually seems like it’s different for different people. 

[bickster]

20 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Of course that relies on an agreed idea of where ‘the centre’ lies, which actually seems like it’s different for different people. 

And different in different countries and at different times

[bickster]

Labour on reforming the BBC

Quote

A root and branch review of the BBC’s operations – including how its chairman and board are appointed – was announced on Sunday by Labour amid growing doubts about the corporation’s political independence under the Tories, and its future as a public service broadcaster.

The move follows bruising rows over Gary Lineker’s suspension from Match of the Day for criticising language used by ministers to describe immigration policy, and the appointment by former prime minister Boris Johnson of Conservative donor and supporter Richard Sharp as the BBC’s chairman.

In recent weeks there have also been reports of the BBC having come under pressure from the government to change its coverage of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic for political reasons.

Labour’s BBC review panel, made up of leading media and business figures, will meet for the first time this week. It is being set up by Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, who said the appointment of Sharp after he had helped Johnson secure an £800,000 loan, epitomised the lack of transparency and “revolving door” culture between government and corporation that had damaged the BBC’s reputation.

“The whole appointment of Sharp stank,” she said. “We need to cherish the BBC as a great national institution at the heart of British life and that involves looking at how we secure its reputation for independence from government and its place in a rapidly changing global media landscape.”

Guardian