Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

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BBC Poll

1 :clap: I'm British. The BBC is the best broadcaster in the world and is very fair, impartial and great value for money. I cannot fault it and have no complaints.
11
24%
2 :angel: I'm British. The BBC isn't as good or representative of my tastes as it used to be and needs to be reformed, but I still willingly pay its licence fee without question.
13
28%
3 :sad: I'm British. I enjoy watching live TV, but I do not watch the BBC, but I'm FORCED to pay its unfair mandatory licence fee because the law says I have to. TV Detector Vans might be real, although I've never seen one. Ever!
11
24%
4 :ugeek: I'm British. I do not need to pay a TV Licence Fee, as I do not watch live broadcast television and only watch online streamed pre-recorded videos instead (excluding BBC I-Player).
7
15%
5 :twisted: I'm British. I watch all live television (including the BBC) without a licence fee, free and illegally. I am not afraid of prison food and communal showers. Heh heh.
0
No votes
6 :yawn: I'm not British, I don't live in the UK. I don't have access to the BBC anyway.
2
4%
7 :mrgreen: I'm not British, I don't live in the UK. But I can watch the BBC for free. Muahahahaa!
2
4%
 
Total votes: 46

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SKB
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by SKB »

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^ The former BBC Television Centre today, at Wood Lane, White City, London W12 7RJ (or W12 8QT). Tel: 020-7811-8055 (or 01-811-8055)

I don't know if its by coincidence that the BBC became "a bit shit" and less entertaining ever since it moved out of its former Television Centre hq in 2013.

It dispersed itself into a much less concentrated area that it had enjoyed since 1960, from where it had made some very good telly for about 50 years.

Only three of the original studios now remain (TC1, TC2, TC3), the others demolished, while the rest of the main building ring was converted into flats.

Not everyone was fond of BBC Television Centre, the IRA hated the BBC's bias so much, they tried blowing it up on 4th March 2001 (six months before 9/11!).


RetroSicotte
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by RetroSicotte »

Clearly a very unbiased set of options in the 'poll'.

Where's the 'I'm British, and the BBC may have faults that deserve attention and to be taken care of, but ultimately is one of the better reporters with less hysterical agenda attachment that remains something the UK can be proud of.'

When both the left and right are calling you biased at the same time, you're doing something right.

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RichardIC
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by RichardIC »

I work with BBC journalists virtually every day of the week - and they sometimes frustrate the hell out of me. But not because they're biased, but because they take the easiest and most obvious editorial line. But that's pressure of work and we all do what's easiest to get the job finished.

SKB has obviously got a massive bee in his Brexit-bonnet because he perceives there is some BBC bias. Actually the one thing that unites the entire political spectrum is that they all claim the BBC is biased against them.

The BBC has the most stringent editorial guidelines.

https://www.bbc.com/editorialguidelines/guidelines/

People who complain most about the BBC are generally those who live in echo chambers where they surround themselves with people who share the same opinions as them and can't possibly perceive that any other opinion has validity. Social media has amplified this tenfold. We are now living in a post-truth world, which makes objective reporting more difficult than ever.

The BBC's job is to explore issues from as many perspectives as possible and this is what it tries to do - it doesn't always get it right. But good journalism isn't an exact science. It's a damn site harder than it looks and, like being a football manager, every bugger has an opinion and thinks they could do the job better than the people who are actually doing it.

And the BBC has to stand up to intense political pressure from all sides. The Labour Party and the SNP have been particularly sinister about this with Corbyn's "Change is coming" threats to the media, and the SNP physically blockading the Glasgow HQ of BBC Scotland. But the Tories and Faragists aren't, quite frankly, much better.

People in Britain actually have no idea how respected the corporation is globally. Even though the UK is a small island in the North Atlantic the BBC is one of the most trusted sources of information on the planet and its reach is enormous. We should be proud of it but not uncritical.

And I'm not even in the south, let alone London.

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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by RetroSicotte »

It spoke to me in a big way when I realised most of my European and American friends used BBC as their English news site of choice. Especially the ones from the States.

JFKvsNixon
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by JFKvsNixon »

Today my Facebook feed is full of people complaining that the BBC is biased against Labour, usually it's full of Brexiteers complaining that the BBC is a lefty organisation biased against them. That tells me that they're doing something right.

It seems to me that the actual complaint is that the BBC doesn't share the same prejudices of those who are complaining.

On to the future of the BBC:

We need to keep the BBC's way of operating as far away from other media organisations as possible. Take ITV for example. ITV's business isn't entertaining the public, or making quality TV shows, their core business is based upon is selling advertising space. Is that what we really want the future of the BBC to be?

Personally, I believe that we need to keep the BBC as far away as possible from being being solely interested in chasing after viewing figures.

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SKB
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by SKB »

The BBC and Channel 4 have both had EU funding and loans in their history. Under this funding, the broadcasters are contractually obliged by the EU to not report the EU in any negative way. Channel 4 has an even worse bias than the BBC with its extreme leftwing 7pm Channel 4 News programme. Channel 4 is the commercial version of the BBC (Channel 4 is state owned like the BBC), and is definately no model to base a possible commercialised BBC on.

How is taking funding from the EU and being ordered not to be nasty to the EU "impartial" ?

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RichardIC
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by RichardIC »

SKB wrote:The BBC and Channel 4 have both had EU funding and loans in their history. Under this funding, the broadcasters are contractually obliged to not report the EU in any negative way. Channel 4 has an even worse bias than the BBC with its extreme leftwing 7pm Channel 4 News programme. Channel 4 is the commercial version of the BBC (Channel 4 is state owned like the BBC), and is definately no model to base a possible commercialised BBC upon.

How is taking funding from the EU and being ordered not to be nasty to the EU "impartial" ?
Evidence? Put it up.

Didn't watch Panorama last night then hey?


Defiance
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by Defiance »

You need to check your facts about where the money went, the structure of the BBC and what it was given for (or rather, applied for).

JFKvsNixon
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by JFKvsNixon »

SKB wrote:One of the first things Tony Bliar's 1997 Labour government did was to sell off all the BBC's sports deals to Sky, the Conservatives had locked all the major ones to free to view channels under John Major's Conservative government.

Some sports events are still locked to freeview, such as the World Cup, Olympics, Wimbledon and the University Boat Race. But not much else.
I thought that Sky started to show Premier League football in the early 1990s, way before Blair even became the leader of Labour. So I'm not sure how you can pin that one on the Labour party, although it's telling that you try to.

Also, wasn't it the sports administrators that were responsible for selling TV rights, and they did it with the aim of bring in much needed funds to their sport.

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SKB
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by SKB »

The then "FA Premiership" (Premier League) broke away from the established Football League in 1992, reducing it from four to three divisions, which have all been renamed several times.

JFKvsNixon
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by JFKvsNixon »

Could you point it out where in your links does is say that the BBC is contractually obliged to not report the EU in any negative way.

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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by JFKvsNixon »

SKB wrote:The then "FA Premiership" (Premier League) broke away from the established Football League in 1992, reducing it from four to three divisions.
And how is this Blair's fault?

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SKB
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by SKB »

I didn't say the formation of the Premier League was Tony Blairs fault, it didn't even occur during Blair's 1997-2007 administration. You're putting words in my mouth. I was replying to when the Premier League was formed.

JFKvsNixon
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by JFKvsNixon »

My question was in the context of this post:
SKB wrote:One of the first things Tony Bliar's 1997 Labour government did was to sell off all the BBC's sports deals to Sky, the Conservatives had locked all the major ones to free to view channels under John Major's Conservative government.

Some sports events are still locked to freeview, such as the World Cup, Olympics, Wimbledon and the University Boat Race. But not much else.

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SKB
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by SKB »

The BBC didn't have a live Premier League deal, so top flight football was not part of the John Major's freeview policy.

The FA, the 22 breakaway old Footbal League Division One clubs and Sky were partners in creating the 1992 Premier League live tv deal exclusively for Sky satellite broadcast, with some highlights licenced to the BBC's terrestrial freeview Match Of The Day show.

This new breakaway league was specifically formed to break free of the low funding that the BBC had been paying to broadcast Division One football.

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RichardIC
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by RichardIC »

SKB wrote:https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ ... e.pdf.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... u-funding/
https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-mot ... of-the-bbc

etc... (do your own digging)
Been beaten to it.

But you were asked for evidence to back your claim the BBC was, "contractually obliged by the EU to not report the EU in any negative way".

And you've come up with:
A nine year old FOI which confirms receipt of £2 million for specific projects over a period of a decade
A snarky article from the Telegraph about £5 million
An Early Day Motion that's 11 years old signed by a whole 11 MPs, one of whom is the swivel-eyed Ann Widdecombe and the primary signatory is a convicted fraudster

For context, the BBC has an annual budget of £5bn. You claim they've sold their editorial integrity but haven't provided a jot of evidence to back it up.

Then you top it off with "Do your own digging"?

I'm not going to do any digging because I'm not a conspiracy theorist.

Jake1992
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by Jake1992 »

RichardIC wrote:
SKB wrote:https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ ... e.pdf.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... u-funding/
https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-mot ... of-the-bbc

etc... (do your own digging)
Been beaten to it.

But you were asked for evidence to back your claim the BBC was, "contractually obliged by the EU to not report the EU in any negative way".

And you've come up with:
A nine year old FOI which confirms receipt of £2 million for specific projects over a period of a decade
A snarky article from the Telegraph about £5 million
An Early Day Motion that's 11 years old signed by a whole 11 MPs, one of whom is the swivel-eyed Ann Widdecombe and the primary signatory is a convicted fraudster

For context, the BBC has an annual budget of £5bn and you claim they've sold their editorial integrity but haven't provided a jot of evidence to back it up.

Then you top it off with "Do your own digging"?

I'm not going to do any digging because I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
My problem with this is that the BBC shouldn’t be taking any money from any out side political force, if the word EU were replaced with Russia or the USA most wouldn’t be happy nor if it was replaced with Con or Lab Party.

No financial influence should be made on it from any political source no matter how small or where from, not while it is funded by the public and has to hold impartiality to the highest order. As we see that impartiality gets called in to question other wise.

IMO though it shouldn’t be publicly funded at all via the licence fee, it should become commercial and made to stand on its own two feet. I believe the guaranty of income via the licence fee has made the BBC lazy and content.

Defiance
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by Defiance »

The section of the BBC that took, nay, applied for EU funding (BBC Media Action) is an independent charity and entirely funded by external and/or voluntary contributions. They've recently got a DFID grant for provide their services due to their charitable and developmental work, rather than actual journalism.

People conflating this organisation with the rest of the BBC are either being deliberately misleading or just plain ignorant.

Knowledge is power; https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction/about

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Cooper
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by Cooper »

Brexit has forced people to 'choose a side' and the BBC is mostly staffed by the perfect representation of the stereotypical remainer...Middle class, University educated and living in London.

...If you took a poll of staff members in the BBC newsroom in London amongst its editorial staff/ journalists, I would be astonished if less than 80% were remainers and were appalled at the whole idea of leaving the EU, and this is clearly reflected in their reporting of Brexit, whether consciously or unconsciously.

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RichardIC
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by RichardIC »

Cooper wrote:Brexit has forced people to 'choose a side' and the BBC is mostly staffed by the perfect representation of the stereotypical remainer...Middle class, University educated and living in London.

...If you took a poll of staff members in the BBC newsroom in London amongst its editorial staff/ journalists, I would be astonished if less than 80% were remainers and were appalled at the whole idea of leaving the EU, and this is clearly reflected in their reporting of Brexit, whether consciously or unconsciously.
The BBC is headquartered at MediaCity, Salford. Most of its staff work outside London. It has over 40 regional radio stations and a regional TV network.

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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by Scimitar54 »

Ha Ha Ha. Then why does the BBC proclaim that Broadcating House in London is it's Headquarters? :mrgreen:

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RichardIC
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by RichardIC »

Scimitar54 wrote:Ha Ha Ha. Then why does the BBC proclaim that Broadcating House in London is it's Headquarters?
You're right, MediaCity isn't HQ. Fact remains the BBC have moved around 3,000 posts to Salford and has a policy of relocating staff away from London to the regions. Most are now regionally based.

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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

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SKB
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Re: Biased Brainwashing Corporation (BBC)

Post by SKB »

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The BBC's Red Button tv-based teletext service is to end on 30th January 2020.

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