Originally Posted by
Chugalug2
You are surely joking GMP. The Beeb has had a political agenda to the left of centre for years. It is so ridden with dogma and PC that to say it is the voice of reason, balance and accuracy makes me wonder if you really do listen to the message that is being so relentlessly pumped out. Not just the news and current affairs progs either. Woman's Hour, that years ago was a non-political general interest prog (I remember that marvelous actress Hattie Jacques talking about Tony Hancock's Half Hour for example), has now been taken over by the Feminist Brigade, with speakers (who invariably have American accents) forever moaning about men!........The days of glory, in WW2 and the 50's, are long gone. The Beeb is now a tree hugging socialist monster and needs putting down, like all corporations that proclaim themselves British, but are in fact anything but!
Nope. Deadly serious in fact. Yes they have problems but not I think as raw as you paint them. Conservatives complained of Beeb's left leaning when they were in power and it's not that unusual to hear this lot complaining of media bias against them (notably the Today Programme, on which Blair refuses to be interviewed!) now. With both sides complaining the conclusion I draw is that they've got a broad balance - which means I don't always agree with the tone of what I hear either.
Regrettably the PC agenda is everywhere these days, not just the Beeb so it isn't fair to knock them alone for it. It is unpalatable, though, I agree and removes facts. You have only to recall the discussion on the Dambusters' film on this site for that!
However, on the central theme, for the Nimrod they got it terribly wrong - not through bias but through missing the entire point of what they are there to do and how they should behave. For that they got a direct missive of invective from me (and lots of others), for which I got a wholly inadequate response of embarrassed 'doing their best to avoid the point'.
But would I rather listen to my local radio station for quality news? I don't think so. Would abandoning the licence fee improve the quality of reporting? I doubt it. Are all journos at fault and inherently bent on distortion. No. And do I have a better solution to how it should be done? No, but I did try to get a discussion on it moving here - so chip in if you do have a workable solution because no one else seems to have.