The BBC is under attack as never before. Donald Trump and his cronies have it squarely in their sights – and there are no prizes for guessing why. The BBC is the world’s number one source of trusted news, so of course snake-oil salesmen such as Trump see it as their enemy.
If your power is built on conspiracy theories and distortions of the truth, the last thing you want is respected, independent journalists exposing that and holding you to account.
Ed Davey speaks up for the BBC in a Guardian article today. Later on he says that Robbie Gibb, a former director of communications for Theresa May who was appointed to the BBC board by Boris Johnson, must have no role in the appointment of the new director general.
Well said, Ed.
Meanwhile, the silence from Keir Starmer is deafening.
All the current problems at the BBC involve the dead hand of Boris Johnson in one way or another. And now he's not paying his licence fee. Colour me surprised.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with defending the BBC on this issue is that they deliberately misled the public by copying and pasting parts of Trump's speech. No mistake or error of judgment therefore indefensible which is why starmer has probably kept quiet and rightly so. The slow demise of a once great institution is painful to watch but in the main self-inflicted
ReplyDeleteI am writing from Mar del Plata, Argentina. As one of the BBC's loyal international listening public I am distraught by the decision taken by the Corporation to cut access to BBC Sounds outside the UK. It is now not possible to tune into shows outside their release time, and most BBC radio stations are without our reach as well. I can no more get access to my beloved Radio Newcastle or listen to Through the Night on Radio 3 as I did every day. I can no longer go through listings and choose shows to enjoy. And all in the name of what? Britain's world standing is now limited but for, especially, her soft influence. The BBC is central to this influence. So, WHO made this decision and WHY?
ReplyDeleteMr Calder, I regularly turn to your page and I see you are asking for contributors to it. Well I need help. The BBC officials seem in constant denial of any bad decision they may take, and look above scrutiny. I also have not seen much discussion of this question in British media. The US has the missiles, Russia has Putin, and China numbers. The UK still has the BBC, then why lose her influence and the licence money.
Two final thoughts: the shows broadcast belong to the Corporation trustees alone, or also to all those whose industry went into their production? Will they not prefer a wider reach? And, is much money being saved? I doubt it. So WHY?
Yours Cordially,
Horace Grgin.
As a matter of curiosity, how accurate do we think the BBC's editing was of the speeches made at the Party Conferences by the Party Leaders? They all rambled on for 20 minutes or so, but were reduced to a 45 second slot on prime time news programmes. No nuance, no subtlety, no carefully explained arguments from any of them - just a brief sound bite of the better cliches, perhaps also spliced together for effect. That's how TV news works.
ReplyDeleteMy original comment got garbled. It should have read:
ReplyDelete"deliberately misled the public by copying and pasting parts of Trump's speech. No mistake or error of judgment therefore indefensible" Really? As I understand it, there was chunk 1, then about an hour of rambling, then chunk 2 and what the BBC did was to run chunk 2 straight after chunk 1. The public was told that Trump was encouraging his supporters to march on Congress. Surely Trump was indeed doing just that. Yes, doing the equivalent of omitting the "..." in a quotation was a schoolboy error. But "indefensible"? "misled the public"? Really?