6 May 2010

Bitchy Boys' Balls

Flogging a dead bitch, I know, but the following is the standard BBC response to complaints about its flagrant bias in all things political and most things economic and social, followed by a deconstruction:
It isn't always possible or practical to reflect all the different opinions on a subject within individual programmes [1]. Editors are charged to ensure that over a reasonable period [2] they reflect the range of significant [3] views, opinions and trends in their subject area. The BBC doesn't seek to denigrate any view or to promote any view [4]. It seeks rather to identify all significant [3] views, and to test them rigorously and fairly [5] on behalf of the audience [6]. Among other evidence [7], audience research [8] indicates widespread confidence in the impartiality of the BBC's reporting.
  1. This is an assertion of the right to be selective. Impartial = all opinions, unweighted.
  2. Who defines 'a reasonable period'?
  3. Who defines what is 'significant'?
  4. This is an outright lie. Management dictates a corporate line on many issues.
  5. There cannot be anything 'rigorous and fair' in a situation where a single entity can define the law, control the evidence, and be the judge and jury of its own cause.
  6. An audience that has been declining for years, while the BBC poll tax has risen sharply. 
  7. What evidence? Collected by whom?
  8. It is to be expected that the small percentage of the population that watches BBC reporting will believe it is impartial - people are always comforted by the affirmation of what they already believe.        

2 comments:

  1. ergo: We are ruled by an 'Invisible Hand,'or, alternatively, one might describe it as "The Case of the Disappearing Berlusconi." One might ask, "Are we ready for an Italian form of Democracy?" Or perhaps that is what we have(had) already! Taken together with the recent (and still ongoing) election of a non-government, does this mean that the British people are not yet ready for self-government. If America were not just as bad, I would be tempted to recommend a fifty-first statehood.

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