The Biased Broadcasting Corporation

[HanoiVillan]

49 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

bit late to the party but Breivik said ""Jeremy Clarkson heads the program Top Gear at the BBC, one of the funniest shows on TV. Since it has absolutely nothing to do with politics or religion, only with cars, it is one of the very few programmes at the Burka Broadcasting Corporation still worth seeing."

Compare that  to what Lee wrote  , then he has rather deliberately mislead , don't you think ?

In his stand up routine where Lee wishes Hammond had died in the car crash , Lee even acknowledges that he knows Clarkson is playing a role , he mocks the people that think Clarkson on Top Gear is real and telling it as it is , yet 10 years later uses it to try and link Clarkson / right wing comedy to mass murder ... Lee is no different to Clarkson in that regard 

Neither Breivik nor Stewart Lee's 'Character' are reliable narrators, which complicates matters. When Breivik claims that Top Gear is 'one of the very few programmes at the Burka Broadcasting Corporation still worth seeing' because 'it has absolutely nothing to do with politics or religion', we know that his slant is highly peculiar (no surprise). Clearly it has a lot to do with politics, and far more to do with politics, in fact, than the majority of 'the Burka Broadcasting Corporation's output. What he really means is he agrees with the politics. 

Lee is also unreliable when 'in character'. His actual politics and opinions are not the same when on and off the stage; the on-stage version is an amped-up liberal caricature. The columns are written 'in character' as well, and one of the features of the character is that he both panders to and satirises a liberal, Guardian-reading view of the world. The shift in tone between longer critical analysis of the show on-stage in the past, and using it as a punchline in the present, is a reflection of the decreasing salience of the show to liberal Britain (ie, Guardian readers used to get very angry about the show when it was a 'big deal' in the cultural conversation when it was on the BBC; now it is no more than a punchline because they made themselves irrelevant to the cultural mainstream when they went to Amazon). 

Reading that back, that's very boring. But IMO that's what's going on here - you can't trust either to be reliably honest about their intentions. 

Edited October 14, 2020 by HanoiVillan

[OutByEaster?]

53 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

bit late to the party but Breivik said ""Jeremy Clarkson heads the program Top Gear at the BBC, one of the funniest shows on TV. Since it has absolutely nothing to do with politics or religion, only with cars, it is one of the very few programmes at the Burka Broadcasting Corporation still worth seeing."

Compare that  to what Lee wrote  , then he has rather deliberately mislead , don't you think ?

In his stand up routine where Lee wishes Hammond had died in the car crash , Lee even acknowledges that he knows Clarkson is playing a role , he mocks the people that think Clarkson on Top Gear is real and telling it as it is , yet 10 years later uses it to try and link Clarkson / right wing comedy to mass murder ... Lee is no different to Clarkson in that regard 

I read this in the voice of Stewart Lee.

[Designer1]

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Lee is also unreliable when 'in character'. His actual politics and opinions are not the same when on and off the stage; the on-stage version is an amped-up liberal caricature. The columns are written 'in character' as well, and one of the features of the character is that he both panders to and satirises a liberal, Guardian-reading view of the world. The shift in tone between longer critical analysis of the show on-stage in the past, and using it as a punchline in the present, is a reflection of the decreasing salience of the show to liberal Britain (ie, Guardian readers used to get very angry about the show when it was a 'big deal' in the cultural conversation when it was on the BBC; now it is no more than a punchline because they made themselves irrelevant to the cultural mainstream when they went to Amazon). 

 

Very much this.

I've heard quite a few interviews where he's mentioned that people sometime take his persona on stage to be the real him, rather than a more 'turned up to 11' exaggeration.

[tonyh29]

50 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I read this in the voice of Stewart Lee.

[HanoiVillan]

42 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

Very much this.

I've heard quite a few interviews where he's mentioned that people sometime take his persona on stage to be the real him, rather than a more 'turned up to 11' exaggeration.

I think my explanation was needlessly over-complicated really. A simpler version would be - nobody has any trouble understanding that 'Al Murray, the Pub Landlord' is a character, not a real person. It's clear, because he wears a costume and has a fictional job. If Stewart Lee called his character 'Stewart Lee, the Liberal Comedian' and walked on-stage with a copy of the Guardian, it would also be obvious, but he doesn't wear different clothes or have a different name or a fictional job. It's just as much of a 'character' though, and as such it doesn't need to be internally consistent years apart, any more than Tim Vine needs to have actually bought a boomerang off a ghost. It's just the joke.

[tonyh29]

 

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

I think my explanation was needlessly over-complicated really. A simpler version would be - nobody has any trouble understanding that 'Al Murray, the Pub Landlord' is a character, not a real person. It's clear, because he wears a costume and has a fictional job. If Stewart Lee called his character 'Stewart Lee, the Liberal Comedian' and walked on-stage with a copy of the Guardian, it would also be obvious, but he doesn't wear different clothes or have a different name or a fictional job. It's just as much of a 'character' though, and as such it doesn't need to be internally consistent years apart, any more than Tim Vine needs to have actually bought a boomerang off a ghost. It's just the joke.

yeah i get that about Lee  ,  though I am shocked to learn Al Murray isn't a real person

It was more the selective use of a quote to meet his point that I felt was a little misleading ... I just padded my post a little to  say Clarkson is doing exactly the same thing but Lee somehow disregards that  persona , whilst linking them to mass murder through selective quoting  ..

 

[choffer]

This is what interviewing a politician should look like. Ask difficult questions, don’t let them BS you, hold them to account. Watch and learn, BBC. 
 

For context, Jami-Lee Ross is a racist, conspiracy theorist who fell out with the NZ equivalent of The Tories and jumped into bed with their equivalent of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (Billy TK). The interviewer took no prisoners. 

[Genie]

32 minutes ago, choffer said:

This is what interviewing a politician should look like. Ask difficult questions, don’t let them BS you, hold them to account. Watch and learn, BBC. 
 

For context, Jami-Lee Ross is a racist, conspiracy theorist who fell out with the NZ equivalent of The Tories and jumped into bed with their equivalent of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (Billy TK). The interviewer took no prisoners. 

Wow, she’s brilliant. Can we get her over here asking our leaders some of those questions?

[Chindie]

56 minutes ago, Genie said:

Wow, she’s brilliant. Can we get her over here asking our leaders some of those questions?

No.

You're only allowed in if you've spent your formative years in a few select schools and then gone on to membership of Oxford or Cambridge's Conservative society.

You'd need a time machine and get her into Eton and so on. And then at the end she'd be all to willing to just play the game anyway.

So no.

[bickster]

On 18/10/2020 at 15:06, Genie said:

Wow, she’s brilliant. Can we get her over here asking our leaders some of those questions?

Wouldn't make any difference, when was the last time a senior govt person was on Ch4 news?

[snowychap]

 

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, snowychap said:

 

To be honest, I think the message was less that they desperately wanted Moore - they are now talking about giving even more money to George Osborne - and instead that the position is now, and should be understand as, a Conservative party sinecure.

[HanoiVillan]

New social media rules are a laugh:

Apparently the bit about 'virtue signalling' is an exact quote.

Might start a new hobby of harrassing their complaints department any time anyone wears a poppy or promotes Children In Need.

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Apparently the bit about 'virtue signalling' is an exact quote

Get the poppies off then

[snowychap]

[HanoiVillan]

Some really quite complicated emotions on these new rules as I read more about them TBH. On the one hand, this is laughable:

'Staff were told to avoid so-called virtue signalling which the BBC defined as “retweets, likes or joining online campaigns to indicate a personal view, no matter how apparently worthy the cause”.

The BBC’s editorial standards nevertheless allow staff to wear poppies on-screen if they choose between from Saturday 31 October to Wednesday 11 November.

They must avoid being seen to support any campaigns at all, such as by using hashtags, regardless of “how much their message appears to be accepted or uncontroversial”.'

(link: https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/bbc-social-media-guidelines-ban-virtue-signalling-criticism-of-colleagues-and-breaking-stories-on-your-own-accounts/)

The second and third paragraphs are literally completely contradictory. There is no conceivable way that the logical premises on display in the third paragraph could allow the outcome stated in the second.

On the other hand, some of this is quite good:

Points 2, 3 and 4 are all Fine Actually. Just not sure if they are a price worth paying for importing the undefined and distinctly right-wing concept of 'virtue signalling' into official rules.

Edited October 29, 2020 by HanoiVillan

[Seat68]

Laura K to break the rules within a week. 

[HanoiVillan]

6 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

Laura K to break the rules within a week. 

Hope so; I want to see if they have the stones to actually enforce them against her, and other 'stars'.

[Follyfoot]

Lost patience with all the major channels and only watch TLC now and the Villa when on. Pity Darcy and Stacey not on UK yet but making do with The Family Chantelle and Dr Pimple Popper. Life is far easier

[bickster]