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British Goverment to Reshape BBC Governance

Posted by samzenpus on from the and-now-for-something-completely-different dept.

AtariAmarok writes "The British government recently announced plans to reshape how the BBC is governed.. The changes are said to scrap the system that has been in place for 77 years. Some are worried that the independence of the "Beeb" could be compromised, and Conservative lawmakers are worried that it does not allow for enough oversight (leaves it too independent?)."

3 of 587 comments (clear)

  1. Re:i don't think anyone outside the UK gets it. by david.given · · Score: 5, Interesting
    £120 a year is *phenomenal* value for money.

    Hell, yeah. Whenever I see the alternative I realise just how good the BBC is. Sky is dire by comparison, and US TV is just unwatchable.

    One thing people tend not to realise is that because the BBC has its own guaranteed source of income, they can't be put under pressure by their sponsors. There's an old story of a car company whose latest product had just been slammed by Top Gear, the BBC's excellent motoring programme (although less excellent than it was. Sigh). And when Top Gear doesn't like something, they're not subtle about it... the story goes is that the CEO watched the review, said, "I'll teach them to talk like that about us. Pull all our advertising from that channel. Now." And his secretary said, "Um..."

    You would not believe what a difference this makes. During the last Gulf War I watched some CNN and MSNBC. It was embarrassing. A lot of it was cultural differences, but the blatant jingoism and emotionalism made, to me, a complete mockery of the whole concept of independent journalism ---I found it hard to accept what I was watching as being anything but outright propaganda.

    (Incidentally, the BBC is not government funded, and their charter clearly makes them independent from government interference. If the government tries to pressure them, most BBC journalists shout 'Hurrah!' and it tends to make the news.)

    I don't like the heavy-handed way the license fee is collected --- they use scare tactics a lot. "This man didn't pay his license fee. Now he's bankrupt, his wife has left him, his kids are drug addicted hookers, and we shot his dog. Don't let this happen to you." They also have a lot of trouble believing that some people don't have TVs. If they'd be nicer about it, I'd be much happier paying for it.

    There's quite a good writeup on the BBC's journalism here.

  2. Told to IGNORE RATINGS by MullerMn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A lot of posts here, and so far nobody seems to have mentioned what I thought was the most encouraging part of the announcement, namely that the BBC has been told it is not to chase ratings but focus on quality programming.

    Hopefully, this means that the BBC will keep turning out more of the kind of programmes that have made its name into a badge of quality and stop it getting caught up in the race-to-the-bottom-of-the-barrel that Sky and the other commercial channels seem to be in.

  3. Re:what do you think? by anvil+{UK} · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Actually, evidence that came to light into the media at later times showed that Downing Street had, in fact, been told that the information they were basing the attack on was false.

    Not at all, they probably knew that it was 'unreliable', not that it was false.

    So, the journalist was, in truth, correct. His information and assumptions were correct.
    Yet Downing Street now expect the BBC to reform because of this political travesty of revealing to the world what was really going on

    It was terrible journalism. A single unsubstantiated source apparently made a specific false allegation. The reporter (Gilligan) went live on air with no notes, no corroboration and no evidence and stated that the Downing St press office and not 'intelligence' was the source of the dossier. The BBC deserved to be hung for that. Alistair Campbell did not draw up the dossier.

    This is not to defend the war, I don't, but reporting unattributed unsubstantiated tittle tattle on the main opinion forming news program is awful, awful journalism. The reporter was stupid, but the editorial team and the management (who publicly defended their man before they'd even talked to him) were incompetent.

    meanwhile there has been no investigation at all into why the Intelligence was so dismal and wrong. The same intelligence services will provide the justifications for house arrest that the govt wishes to introduce. This is the real scandal.