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BBC management to unions: Dinosaurs! I am a news-junkie, so facing this morning without the Today programme on the BBC is a gruelling prospect. For BBC staff are on strike, so most live news programmes are not running today.
I was highly amused, however, that the first replacement programme on Radio 4 at six o’clock (when Today is due to start) was an In Business documentary on podcasting. Can this be entirely coincidental?
“There’s plenty of competition out there, boys. And it’s free.” Is the pretty clear message.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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May I have part or all of my tv licence fee back, then?
Just asking.
Nice touch from the Beeb’s managers.
But “Today” a source of news?
I hope to see some of the old guard come out and help present Newsnight. You know who I’m talking about — Basil Brush, Sooty and Sweep, Pinky and Perky. They’ll show the Scottish witch and the man with the horse’s head what real professionalism is.
I don’t hold the BBC in nearly as much contempt as many here affect. It is a pretty reliable news source. You just have to be alert for its cultural biases (tho’ not hugely more than with other news organisations), and be aware that it approaches “official” sources with a good deal more credulity than some (tho’ by no means all) of the rest.
Today not only reports the news, but for politics junkies it often is the news, since that’s where ministers often turn up to make pre-announcements of policy shifts.
It is not the slant of its news that outrages me, Guy, but rather than I am forced by law to pay for something I do not want that is neither an essential service nor something which cannot be done better by other people.
I have always believed that the BBC and this nation was finished when Basil Brush was taken off the airwaves, and replaced by that Chav, Roland Rat.
Personally I felt that the BBC went south when they took Tom Baker off Dr Who.
Boom Boom!
A number of years ago I joined BECTU (Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union) as a “requirement” to getting some work from a subcontractor to the Carlton TV network. My understanding then was that BECTU was not so much a trade union but more a professional workers association for those involved in the TV and movie industry in the UK, as per its name.
Following through the BBC’s link to the BECTU site I am revolted to see how dreadfully leftwhinge it has become. Far from being the earlier professional association it appears to have completely degenerated into a traditional Labour bastion of socialist worker [lack of] principle – proud of its ability to cause disruption, prevent commerce and bring down the mightiest employers in the name of ‘equality’. Check their assault on anything ITV in that link above as an example of what I mean, let alone their interfering with the BNP’s right (however distasteful the BNP is) to air its election broadcast.
One of the reasons we have a flourishing movie industry in the UK (I understand the number of major Hollywood productions being shot or developed in the UK are now more than there are studios currently available for) is because they expect little or no interference from unions, politicians, bureaucrats and other assorted state parasites, unlike the conditions producers have to endure in most of the rest of the world. We enjoy some of the easiest local filming regulations anywhere – if I needed to film in Central London in the early morning I just need a fairly basic permit which the London Film Commission can sort out for me within minutes. It is therefore a shock to see that a union like BECTU could be on the path to ruining all that with their 1970’s retro views and parochial attitudes.
Oh, and yes I have just dumped my membership …
Guy Herbert writes:
“I don’t hold the BBC in nearly as much contempt as many here affect.”
It is far from an affectation, Mr Herbert.
The BBC is a cancer at the heart of the UK, spreading malignancy into almost every sphere of life.
Like Perry de Havilland, I deeply object to being compelled to pay for it, but that is only one source of complaint.
Bias comes in many forms and the BBC knows and uses most of them, from the obvious, party political spin, to subtle editorial selectivity. Even its entertainment polices are heavily skewed to promote a Left-liberal mindset, which it drips, like poison, into the ears of listeners and viewers, most of whom are quite oblivious to what is being done.
It just soaks in, like pollution.
GCooper, do you think that the BBC is more mind-rotting than the commercial channels, then?
Has anyone here (uk residents of course) got rid of their telly so as to do away with the license fee? How much badgering do you get from the license money extorting agency?
zmollusc
I kept the tv and simply stopped paying for a licence 4 or 5 years ago.
In all they must have sent me 20-30 reminders ranging from the gentle to the blood curdling. Now they hardly bother. I must have last had one 6 months ago. The trick is simply not to respond. Don’t write to them, call them, email them. Drop letters in the bin and get on with what you were doing.
Their ‘strongest’ letters told me that my road will be visited by detector vans. I know that this is bullshit and those vans don’t exist, but it is this kind of pressure which they use to ‘persuade’ people to submit to extortion. Like any extortion racket, bullying lies at the heart of it.
As we’ve said on here in the past, the BBC prosecutes the unemployed, single mothers, the less wealthy, council estate tenants, those who will be more likely to submit. If they think you’re the type to slam the door on them they don’t bother with you.
Imagine for a moment there is a religion. Imagine for a moment that a central tenet of this religion is attacking non-believers. Let us call it Leftism. Imagine for a moment that its dogmas have been the cause of more death, suffering, and destruction, than any religion in recorded history. Imagine for a moment that you live in a country with a vast media organisation that sought to persuade you of the virtues of this religion 24 hours a day. Imagine a country in which non-believers in this religion, under threat of imprisonment, are required to fund this organisation. Now imagine for a moment that you are a non-believer.
It is not the slant of its news that outrages me, Guy […]
Others have enough outrage about content for us both Mr Editor, sir.
Having worked in the book business for 20 years, I may be inured to institutional Leftism, or too weak with boredom to muster much outrage.
A good (and politically sympathetic) friend of mine was (is?) a BECTU member and so I gather that it became a typical union when it lost most of its power. Formerly its members were in relative terms so highly paid that political unionism was rather beside the point.
Whereas the young man outside the local Beeb office this morning couldn’t understand that I don’t have a position on the present dispute. That “jobs” were threatened seemed to him sufficient justification for a member of the public to petition. Supplicants not strikers, by the look of it.
zmollusc asks:
“do you think that the BBC is more mind-rotting than the commercial channels, then?”
It’s a different variety of mind-rot. ITV is just opium for the masses, but what the BBC pumps out is taken more seriously, so does a great deal more damage.
It also has a gigantic market share due to the sheer size of the operation, its former monopoly status and massive funding.
Hmm… I must have the cart before the horse. When I hear the BBC I just think “well, that’s what you get when a bunch of lefty sociology student types are running the show”. I don’t think “Lousy Beeb! They are producing a new generation of lefty sociology student types”. Maybe I should start.
When I am exposed to commercial broadcasting, i think “I wish that fricken asteroid would hurry up and put us out of our misery”.
Oh and thanks, Pete. I was thinking of responding to the licensing letters by charging an admin fee for responding. “I don’t have a telly, that’s another £5 you owe me!”. Just for the laugh. I wonder what their response would be.
zmollusc
I’d bet that their response would be “We don’t believe you.”
Many who have stopped watching tv have told of the BBC keeping up the harrassment long after being informed that there is no longer a tv in the home.
The BBC assumes that everyone has one and everyone must therefore pay. Usually only a visit from an Inspektor assuages their demands. If I got rid of my tv I’d not bother telling them.
zmollusc writes:
“Hmm… I must have the cart before the horse. When I hear the BBC I just think “well, that’s what you get when a bunch of lefty sociology student types are running the show”. I don’t think “Lousy Beeb! They are producing a new generation of lefty sociology student types”. Maybe I should start.”
If advertising and propaganda didn’t work, why would corporations and governments spend such vast sums of money on them?
Any organisation that can turn something called ‘The Food Programme’ into a constant stream of eco-Leftist propaganda isn’t doing this by accident. They’re doing it because they’re on a mission to persuade.
It’s true that there probably wasn’t a plan drawn up in some dingy Dzerzhinsky Square basement one wet Wednesday in the 1940s, when it was decided to subvert the United Kingdom by taking over its media and educational system (although, in sense, there was) but surely, no one believes that a constant diet of “Right on” views and opinions won’t have an effect on the society exposed to it?
Because they think it works? Because they are paying someone on the assumption that it does work, and anything you are paying for must work otherwise why would you be paying for it?
You know, sometimes people just do something because they believe in it. There does not need to be some gigantic conspiracy to subvert the ancient liberties of the noble Briton.
EG
Euan Gray writes:
“There does not need to be some gigantic conspiracy to subvert the ancient liberties of the noble Briton.”
It depends how you define a conspiracy.
Of the conscious variety (as I have suggested) there isn’t a great deal of evidence (though Israeli academics might not agree). However, of the unconscious variety, which was what I was referring to, only the deaf and blind could believe that there is not a consistent attempt to promote and inculcate a Leftist worldview throughout the vast majority of the UK’s media – most notably in the broadcast sectors.
There doesn’t need to be a masterplan or a secret society for a conspiracy to exist.
G Cooper – “It’s true that there probably wasn’t a plan drawn up in some dingy Dzerzhinsky Square basement one wet Wednesday in the 1940s, when it was decided to subvert the United Kingdom by taking over its media and educational system …”.
Great atmosphere! I was wishing it would go on to describe the grey-cardiganned Alexei Reith, his pallour deriving from years of heavy smoking and plotting in damp basements. The silent, nervous Natasha Smolensk, impatient to begin the revolution and move to a dingy basement in Russell Square … Sascha, whose contributions always focus on detailed explorations of ways to introduce sex education as a means of diverting children from academic pursuits …
Just as there is a consistent attempt to promote and inculcate a Rightist worldview through organs like the Telegraph, etc. It is not a conspiracy:
Most broadcast media is biased left to some extent or another, not least because broadcast media by its very nature attracts people of an artsy persuasion, who tend to be left-liberal humanists/humanitarians and have been throughout much recorded history. It seems to come with the territory. If we had a communist government, the same people would moan about that too because it wouldn’t be inclusive, tolerant or touchy-feely. Hardly a conspiracy, just a fact of human nature
Indeed. And just because one is paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get one, hmm?
Sometimes there is no conspiracy. In general, the simplest rational explanation is usually the accurate one. The natural predominance of left-leaning decision makers in a field which by its nature attracts left-leaning people is a far more rational and simple explanation than the existence of some tacit conspiracy.
The metric system, the European Union, decimal currency, the BBC and the growth of state employment under a centre-left government are NOT conspiracies, Gramscian or otherwise.
EG
EG writes: “Most broadcast media is biased left to some extent or another, not least because broadcast media by its very nature attracts people of an artsy persuasion, who tend to be left-liberal humanists/humanitarians and have been throughout much recorded history.”
Throughout much, indeed most, of recorded history, there have been no broadcast media.
“Just as there is a consistent attempt to promote and inculcate a Rightist worldview through organs like the Telegraph, etc. It is not a conspiracy:…”
Missed by a mile. The Telegraph is a single, privately owned newspaper. The BBC isn’t. The Telegraph is available only to those who wish to buy it. The BBC is almost unavoidable to radio and TV users, who have to pay for it, regardless.
As a single newspaper, the Telegraph is incapable of conspiracy because it lacks the requisite breadth of influence. The BBC does not.
Robert Aitken, who has a career’s worth of experience of life within the BBC , is about to publish a book on the very subject. No doubt you would dispute his account.
A conspiracy? That a near-monopoly broadcaster routinely suppresses dissenting opinions in favour of a Leftist worldview? Don’t be daft. Of course it is.
Verity writes:
“I was wishing it would go on to describe the grey-cardiganned Alexei Reith, his pallour deriving from years of heavy smoking and plotting in damp basements. The silent, nervous Natasha Smolensk……”
You are Frederick Forsyth’s granddaughter and I claim my five roubles!
Of course, there is more than just a grain of truth buried here, as the Soviet Union most certainly did work extremely hard to infiltrate the British intelligentsia and did a damn fine job of it.
Given that, for many years, Cambridge taught the Marxist interpretation of history and substantial figures within the BBC were avowed Marxists, only a fool would deny that the plan worked rather well in terms of spreading the infection.
The BBC and the educational establishment – the two barrels of the gun that did so much to degrade civil society in Britain.
Remember that posturing old lefty Alastair Cooke, who was held in such awe? (A propos of nothing. Just that he was an acceptable face of leftyism and sounded so reasonable because he had a transAtlantic accent. Actually, if you ever listened to any of his letters, they were excruciatingly boring.)
Verity writes:
“Remember that posturing old lefty Alastair Cooke, who was held in such awe?….”
The strange thing is that, on his death, there were many on the Left scrambling to denounce him as an old Right-wing reactionary.
As Mrs. T said: “Funny, old world”.
G Cooper – That’s because he spoke in a patrician voice. The denouncers may not have remembered that he was a Manchester Guardian lefty.
Actually, G Cooper, you raise an interesting point. Alastair Cooke was indisputably lefty, but during the 60 years or so that he was broadcasting, the “centre” has shifted so far to the port side, that Alastair Cooke, a hero of the left a few generations before, could be criticised for being too far right.
What is interesting is, the right has allowed the lefties to tug the centre far over into their own territory. How did this loss of will come about? Or loss of belief in their own ideas? Obviously, sheer brutish bullying, qv Tony Blair/Alastair Campbell and the dead Trots in the cabinet, played a large part. But what of it? Why did the right lose its appetite for a good fight?
Come, Verity, you know more about the language than to make such an elementary mistake! The subject of the clause “and have been throughout much recorded history” was “people of an artsy persuasion” and not “broadcast media.” The cunning placement of commas, not to mention the use of perfectly normal sentence structure, is a bit of a giveaway.
Or is it a conspiracy? Perhaps the mind-control rays are still working despite my tinfoil nightcap.
EG
Verity writes:
“Why did the right lose its appetite for a good fight?”
At risk of confirming the stereotype of the dedicated BBC-hater (oh, all right, I’ll cop to that one), I believe this is due to the change in the prevailing climate during the past 20 years and that the societal “tone”, as it were, is set by the media.
If programmes from soap operas to documentaries peddle a single worldview, if even advertising is carefully slanted (I recently heard a high-up in the advertising business proudly boast how racial mixes were deliberately manipulated in UK advertising to portray “inclusiveness”), then any dissenting view seems progressively more “extreme” as the culture is shifted.
You can see this at work by watching any of those interminable Ch 4 ‘100 best’ programmes. Attitudes that were perfectly conventional even 20 years ago strike one as outrageous today. How could such and such a character in a comedy series have made that remark about women/blacks/Asians/Germans or gays?
Leaving aside whether these changes are good or bad (that isn’t the point), it is the mechanism whereby the change has been wrought that matters and I maintain that it can only be due to the constant pressure of the media. What else changes the opinions of the man in the street? Certainly not political parties.
It’s instructive to watch the sorry progression of ideas from the lunatic fringes of education, through to their status as social norms (eco-drivel is the latest). It confirms my belief that the Leftist hegemony in education and broadcasting is constantly shifting what is perceived as the centre ground to the Left, rendering any dissenting view unacceptable in the process.
Personally, then, I don’t see this as a failure on the Right or libertarian sides, so much as a squeezing out of those opinions by the MSM. This, given the early adoption of blogs, the web in general and talk radio, explains why the USA has less of a problem than we, in the UK, who have been slow to fight back.
Mostly I’m with EG in this argument. In fact I’d go slightly further: usually there is no conspiracies.
However:
The metric system, the European Union, decimal currency, the BBC and the growth of state employment under a centre-left government are NOT conspiracies, Gramscian or otherwise.
Metric system: No.
EU: Yes. Not one but several, however. Sometimes conflicting.
Decimal currency: No.
BBC: No.
State employment growth: Not a cultural conspiracy but a structural interest strategy.
I do think cultural hegemonies reinforce power, and that sometimes they are cultivated deliberately. But more often there is unselfconscious reproduction. That’s where I part company with Verity, and (I suspect, tho’ its hard to tell) Gramsci.
Actually, Guy, I would agree with you that a lot of it is unselfconscious reproduction. But the people who made the template knew what they were doing.
G Cooper, I noticed during my brief spell in England a few years ago, that almost every ad and every commercial contained a black person. Or a black couple. Or a white and black couple. This is not a reflection on the racial makeup in Britain and is done deliberately to mould public opinion “for our own good”. It was manipulative in the crudest sense and I made certain I never patronised any of the products advertisely thusly. Yes, genuine opinion and genuine debate has been squeezed out of Britain in a manner which would not be tolerated in the United States, which has such a vigorous talk radio tradition.
Although the times I have mentioned Singapore here, in any context, have always motivated sneers from the “free” British, actually the climate of mental control in today’s Britain is very similar to Singapore’s. There are things you simply do not say. The self-monitoring is identical. On American talk radio, there is absolutely nothing you can’t say – and what’s more, other people will call in and agree with you. You are right when you say the MSM has squeezed dissenting opinion in Britain.
I think what we’re arguing about here is how one defines a conspiracy.
If you refer to the R.C. Dean’s excellent recent post linking to Theodore Dalrymple’s article, there’s a very telling passage in which the good doctor tells how stories submitted to the BBC by “Tom Dale” were rebuffed (rather rudely, one gathers), while the same material from “Rahila Khan” were received with great enthusiasm.
Now, you could contend that this isn’t evidence of a conspiracy, because there is no controlling authority insisting that material submitted by Asian females is given preference over that from, presumably, white males (though, come to think of it, I wouldn’t be so sure this isn’t the case at the BBC).
I, on the other hand, maintain that it is still a conspiracy – and no less a conspiracy – because it is a self-reinforcing, self-perpetuating campaign to exclude voices which dissent from the Left-liberal opinion it almost exclusively promotes.
Verity writes:
“I noticed during my brief spell in England a few years ago, that almost every ad and every commercial contained a black person. Or a black couple. Or a white and black couple. This is not a reflection on the racial makeup in Britain and is done deliberately to mould public opinion “for our own good”.”
Absolutely right. What surprised me was hearing a senior advertising goon not just admit to it, but admit to it publicly and proudly. We all know they are professional liars, but the extent to which they are using their clients’ money to promote an agenda which has little to do with the products in question, shows how bold the Left has become.
And, of course, they play the usual game. What executive from a client like, say, BT is going to dare pipe-up during a presentation, wondering out loud why the racial mix is being so misrepresented? If he dared utter a word, you wouldn’t hear the squeak of his chair as he fled the room, for angry cries of “racist!”.
Someone will probably accuse me of it now, for having dared raise the subject. And thus is the Left-liberals’ work accomplished.
G Cooper – D’accord! What infuriated me in Britain was, private (or publicly owned) companies were engaged in the promotion of government propaganda, probably to curry favour with government departments, using their clients’ funds. Advertising agencies, unless retained by the government, have no business spending their clients’ money promoting government lies.
The town I lived in had a Chinese family who owned one of the chippies and an Indian family who owned newsagents’ and … uh … oh, I sometimes used to see a black woman pushing a pram. This town had 40,000 people.
There must be enormous demand for black actors who want advertising work.
Incidentally, I have noticed that on The Bill, a soapified police series that gets sent over here, all the usual minorities and their trials are wildly over-represented. Blacks, gays, lesbians, the works. At the moment they even have a black AND gay cop – don’t they think this is becoming a little overblown? And his whole character revolves around the fact that he’s black and/or gay. I’m waiting for the transgender, Maori, quadraplegic, speech-impaired, blind, deaf, drug addicted police officer who’s no doubt going to be cast as Chief Constable or something. Got to be inclusive, you know!
I believe these contrived depictions of minorities are condescending. Every productive black or gay person I have ever met wants their physical characteristics to be irrelevant in a professional or societal setting. Their nightmare is a situation where everyone tells them they’re “recognised” and “valid” and “equal” but constantly sets them apart by singling them out for special treatment or highlighting their presence for no other reason than their skin colour, sexuality, etc.
Quite easily. Self-selecting behaviour is not a conspiracy.
EG
The Bill unfortunately takes its lead from Scotland Yard as to its content and its portrayal of police officers, thus anything they show now is essentially geared towards gays and ethnic minorities. Part of this is due to the police seeing The Bill as a recruiting ground yet at the expense of both entertainment and fact. The earlier episodes were far better done, when real officers were encouraged to submit ideas directly to Thames for scripting – ideas which now have to be submitted via some bureaucratic office before being politically sanitized.
Suffering says: I’m waiting for the transgender, Maori, quadraplegic, speech-impaired, blind, deaf, drug addicted police officer who’s no doubt going to be cast as Chief Constable …
Well new Met chief isn’t a Maori that I know of and he seems ambulatory ….
And yes, apart from painting a lying picture of the real Britain, which is my chief concern, it does patronise minorities as they keep getting featured as though they’re freaks. Also, in any photos used in the press, the black person is always placed in the middle with 10 or 12 indigenes framing him/her.
The worst offender by far, and I’ve commented on this before, is the Bliar Broadcasting Company, which never, ever, EVER publishes a photo of a white person on its site unless that person is actually named. As in, if it’s our lovely, gracious chief of the Met, the other Bliar, they will post a real photo of him. Or Nicole Kidman. Or Fred Doakes who had a ruined holiday wherever.
But a story about schools or education? Every single child pictured will be black. Oh, sometimes, the odd whitey child in the back row, thrown in as a sop to the minority race in these islands. A story about the police? Magically, every police officer in Britain is black, even if they have to tight crop all the white people out! If any story can be utilised to pretend that the BBC’s wet dream that Britain is a majority black country with a tiny, rag tag band of defeated surviving whiteys, the BBC will manage it.