why the bbc is going down the pan

[bluescreen]

It's a piss poor excuse for a WatO subject, is my point. Of course asparagus can do no such thing, any more than that poor octopus could -remember him? It baffles me that anyone can entertain such nonsense, let alone the BBC give it airtime.

Paul the Octopus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[danny la rouge]

It's a piss poor excuse for a WatO subject, is my point. Of course asparagus can do no such thing, any more than that poor octopus could -remember him? It baffles me that anyone can entertain such nonsense, let alone the BBC give it airtime.

Paul the Octopus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Indeed. We are in firm agreement.

 

[skyscraper101]

Reporter in the newsroom on the BBC News channel talking about the Southport stabbings. Kept referring to Dunblane in 1996 as one of the 'rare' incidences of mass stabbings.

But that's factually wrong isn't it? Dunblane was a gun massacre. I had to check Wiki to verify amd check I wasn't misremembering, and it makes no mention of stabbings. It bought in huge changes to gun ownership laws in the UK as a result. I'd have thought most journalists would've known this.

 

[Everything Goes]

Obviously an active legal case....

Huw Edwards charged with making indecent images of children

Former BBC presenter charged with three offences after Met police investigation

www.theguardian.com

 

[stavros]

Showing Andy Murray and The Other Bloke on both BBC1 and the Red Button last night, when I wanted to watch the swimming.

 

[emanymton]

TV junk food ads to be banned before 9pm from next year

Labour has confirmed it will implement the ban that the previous Conservative government committed to.

www.bbc.co.uk

Article about a ban on junk food advertising on TV, with an image of a takeaway burger and chips, because local takeaways advertise on TV all the time.

Side note - I now want a take away burger

 

[equationgirl]

Reporter in the newsroom on the BBC News channel talking about the Southport stabbings. Kept referring to Dunblane in 1996 as one of the 'rare' incidences of mass stabbings.

But that's factually wrong isn't it? Dunblane was a gun massacre. I had to check Wiki to verify amd check I wasn't misremembering, and it makes no mention of stabbings. It bought in huge changes to gun ownership laws in the UK as a result. I'd have thought most journalists would've known this.

Dunblane absolutely was a gun massacre.

 

[elbows]

I've always found it pretty hilarious whenever the BBC World Service is discussed by our own news organisations or the BBC themselves, and this is no exception:

BBC boss warns of Russian and Chinese propaganda after World Service cuts

The UK is losing out because of cuts to the World Service, the BBC's director general warns.

www.bbc.co.uk

Hilarious because they want to talk about other countries propaganda and the UK losing out, without explicitly acknowledging this services own function as propaganda. And these sorts of stories usually have government funding as a component. It can be an awkward balancing act to pull this sort of thinking off, and they probably only manage to do so because our media and populations are used to this stuff being in a sort of 'known but unmentionable in polite society' category, laced with euphemisms and the unequal application of standards. We are used to propaganda about our own propaganda not being called propaganda.

They can only manage to write pieces in this way at all because we arent supposed to openly think of the modern form of UK propaganda as being propaganda. Helped by the fact that this type of propaganda relies heavily on building up the credibility of the news organisation over an incredibly long period of time, of being able to claim a high degree of credibility and lack of bias, which you can then use to your advantage. In contrast to the far more vulgar forms of propaganda that we traditionally associate with the likes of the Russia.

The wikipedia article that discusses the origins of the BBC, and the general strike of 1926, offers some stuff of ongoing relevance:

Although Winston Churchill in particular wanted to commandeer the BBC to use it "to the best possible advantage", Reith wrote that Stanley Baldwin's government wanted to be able to say "that they did not commandeer [the BBC], but they know that they can trust us not to be really impartial".[28] Thus the BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the government's objectives largely in a manner of its own choosing. Supporters of the strike nicknamed the BBC the BFC for British Falsehood Company. Reith personally announced the end of the strike which he marked by reciting from Blake's "Jerusalem" signifying that England had been saved.

While the BBC tends to characterise its coverage of the general strike by emphasising the positive impression created by its balanced coverage of the views of government and strikers, Seaton has characterised the episode as the invention of "modern propaganda in its British form".[21]: 117  Reith argued that trust gained by 'authentic impartial news' could then be used. Impartial news was not necessarily an end in itself.

from BBC - Wikipedia

(Seaton being Jean Seaton, Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster and the Official Historian of the BBC)