A marvellous article by Antony Jay in today’s Daily Telegraph confirms what has been obvious for some time to anyone reading political blogs and pundits – the BBC is biased. And not only that, it has its own ideology that Antony Jay calls ‘media liberal ideology’. His article analyses impact of technology, history and perspectives on individual and institutions that defined the BBC and with it the chattering classes. A must read as it provides a solid backbone to our rants against the BBC politics. Here are a few morsels that should give you a taste of the piece.
Of people working at the BBC and particularly on Newsnight, which he produced for several years.
…we were not just anti-Macmillan; we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit, anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-Empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, you name it, we were anti it.
I disagree with the final sentence of the following quote. There is never too much freedom or too much variety, nevertheless the distinction is brilliant. Saying that there is too much freedom is like saying that there are too many notes in Mozart’s music… which ones would you like to remove? But I digress:
…there have always been two principal ways of misunderstanding a society: by looking down on it from above, and by looking up at it from below. In other words, by identifying with institutions or by identifying with individuals.
To look down on society from above, from the point of view of the ruling groups, the institutions, is to see the dangers of the organism splitting apart, the individual components shooting off in different directions, until everything dissolves into anarchy. Those who see society in this way are preoccupied with the need for order, discipline, control, authority and organisation.
To look up at society from below, from the point of view of the lowest group, the governed, is to see the dangers of the organism growing ever more rigid and oppressive until it fossilises into a monolithic tyranny. Those who see society in this way are preoccupied with the need for liberty, equality, self-expression, representation, freedom of speech and action and worship, and the rights of the individual. The reason for the popularity of these misunderstandings is that both views are correct, as far as they go, and both sets of dangers are real but there is no “right” point of view. The most you can ever say is that sometimes society is in danger from too much authority and uniformity and sometimes from too much freedom and variety.
A brutal description of the media elite’s views and attitudes and how they got there:
The second factor which shaped our media liberal attitudes was a sense of exclusion. We saw ourselves as part of the intellectual élite, full of ideas about how the country should be run, and yet with no involvement in the process or power to do anything about it. Being naïve in the way institutions actually work, yet having good arts degrees from reputable universities, we were convinced that Britain’s problems were the result of the stupidity of the people in charge. We ignored the tedious practicalities of getting institutions to adopt and implement ideas.
This ignorance of the realities of government and management enabled us to occupy the moral high ground. We saw ourselves as clever people in a stupid world, upright people in a corrupt world, compassionate people in a brutal world, libertarian people in an authoritarian world. We were not Marxists but accepted a lot of Marxist social analysis. Some people called us arrogant; looking back, I am afraid I cannot dispute the epithet.
And here he spells out their anti-market bias:
We also had an almost complete ignorance of market economics. That ignorance is still there. Say ”Tesco” to a media liberal and the patellar reflex says, “Exploiting African farmers and driving out small shopkeepers”. The achievement of providing the range of goods, the competitive prices, the food quality, the speed of service and the ease of parking that attract millions of shoppers every day does not show up on the media liberal radar.
It’s an ideology!
For a time it puzzled me that after 50 years of tumultuous change the media liberal attitudes could remain almost identical to those I shared in the 1950s. Then it gradually dawned on me: my BBC media liberalism was not a political philosophy, even less a political programme. It was an ideology based not on observation and deduction but on faith and doctrine. We were rather weak on facts and figures, on causes and consequences, and shied away from arguments about practicalities. If defeated on one point we just retreated to another; we did not change our beliefs. We were, of course, believers in democracy. The trouble was that our understanding of it was structurally simplistic and politically naïve. It did not go much further than one-adult-one-vote.
We ignored the whole truth, namely that modern Western civilisation stands on four pillars, and elected governments is only one of them. Equally important is the rule of law. The other two are economic: the right to own private property and the right to buy and sell your property, goods, services and labour. (Freedom of speech, worship, and association derive from them; with an elected government and the rule of law a nation can choose how much it wants of each). We never got this far with our analysis. The two economic freedoms led straight to the heresy of free enterprise capitalism – and yet without them any meaningful freedom is impossible.
But analysis was irrelevant to us. Ultimately, it was not a question of whether a policy worked but whether it was right or wrong when judged by our media liberal moral standards. There was no argument about whether, say, capital punishment worked. If retentionists came up with statistics showing that abolition increased the number of murders we simply rejected them.
And the damning conclusion:
It is not so much that their ideas and arguments are harebrained and impracticable: some of their causes are in fact admirable. The trouble – you might even say the tragedy – is that their implementation by governments eager for media approval has progressively damaged our institutions. Media liberal pressure has prompted a stream of laws, regulations and directives to champion the criminal against the police, the child against the school, the patient against the hospital, the employee against the company, the soldier against the army, the borrower against the bank, the convict against the prison – there is a new case in the papers almost every day, and each victory is a small erosion of the efficiency and effectiveness of the institution.
I can now see that my old BBC media liberalism was not a basis for government. It was an ideology of opposition, valuable for restraining the excesses of institutions and campaigning against the abuses of authority but it was not a way of actually running anything. It serves a vital function when government is dictatorial and oppressive, but when government is ineffective and over-permissive it is hopelessly inappropriate.
I can’t deny that my perceptions have come through the experience of leaving the BBC. Suppose I had stayed. Would I have remained a devotee of the metropolitan media liberal ideology that I once absorbed so readily? I have an awful fear that the answer is yes.
I may not agree with everything Antony Jay says and believes but that does not detract from the value of his, well, confession. Aptly, the article is an abridged extract from ‘Confessions of a Reformed BBC Producer’ to be published tomorrow by CPS.
The first step to dealing with a problem is to recognise you have one.
The second step is to define it.
This is the second step.
Personally? I think a large component is Woodward and Bernstein syndrome.
You’re right, the article is marvelous. Your “I disagree with the final sentence … there is never too much freedom or too much variety” is a surprising statement. If you really mean that I think you misinterpreted his point. He wasn’t suggesting eliminating any of the notes, just that there are times when Mozart doesn’t fit.
Though I have a great deal of time for Antony Jay usually, I read the same article and thought his theory was completely wrong, not just the last sentence.
The BBC/media-liberal culture just isn’t opposed to authority and to institutions. It is very much in favour of them, and consistently grants experts of all kinds respect when they bring forth plans to manage society through new institutions. What it attacked – and continues to attack, though it scarcely exists any more – was the conservative bourgeois establishment of the early 20th century.
But such attacks and those on more contemporary institutions, are not attacking institutions because they are institutions. They are driven by the failure of institutions to conform to certain axiomatic criteria of the good society current in antinomian leftist systems for many years: an authentic, unalienated life for all; a communal society free of reciprocity; decisions to be made and understanding to be gained by direct intuitive apprehension of the world – by faith accessible to all – not logical analysis and intellectual effort building on established evidence; the feeble and simple morally superior to the strong and sophisticated; intensity of feeling prefered to fact and probability; consequence to context; means subordinated to ends.
Which is to say: He’s right it is an ideology. He’s right about the symptoms. But he is wrong about the essential nature of it.
good arts degrees from reputable universities
… surely the root of all evil?
One of the most striking thing about their prejudice is that frequently “the balance” is provided by someone who is centrist (esp: BBC News 24). There is no representation whatever from anyone that could be called right-of-centre.
One of the most striking thing about their prejudice is that frequently “the balance” is provided by someone who is centrist (esp: BBC News 24). There is no representation whatever from anyone that could be called right-of-centre.
Guy Herbert makes an excellent point.
In any event, the BBC has misrepresented the Queen, The new PM, It looks set to produce a dubious semi autobiographical work dragging Paula Yates into fictitious situations. How can we trust it’s reporting when it does this?
Then there is the controller of BBC1, Peter Fincham. Apparently being supported by the BBC hierarchy. There was something quite unpleasant in the way he stoked things in the false reporting relating to the Queen, smugly suggesting that the Queen had “lost it” and walked out in a “huff”. Not his fault though – Oh No!
The BBC is staffed by people who are largely unrepresentative of the country as a whole. The staff having a profile that is more urban, left wing, younger and does not match the mix of the population it serves racially either. This would not really be desirable in a private broadcasting company. It is unacceptable in a publicly funded one.
The BBC’s standards, in many respects, have fallen from what we would expect of such an organisation
The BBC is supported by a special Tax Televisions called the licence fee.
The only justification the BBC ever had was the Reithian public service ethic that educated and provided honest, objective and unbiased news reporting. The BBC used to have a worldwide reputation for doing that. It has largely lost it.
If the BBC can not get it’s own house in order – and it looks very much as if it can, or will, not then the government needs to step in and reshape it, root and branch.
That – or stop forcing the population to subsidise this cuckoo in the nest through taxation.
The B.B.C. has been leftist since at least the early 1960’s – “That Was The Week That Was” with David Frost (now with Head Hacker T.V. – at least last time I heard) and the rest – all attacking conservatives (policial and social) and all the institutions of civil society.
Guy is on to something when he says that the B.B.C. are not anti authority rebels. They are anti traditional authority (moral authority – such as the loyality people have to their parents, or to their local clubs and societies, to the villages or areas of town or cities, and to traditional institutions such as the Church or the Crown).
But they are very PRO “progressive” authority. The vast administrative structure and its allies in the “education system” and the progressive parts of the media classes.
It is rather like a peaceful version of the French Jacobins.
They do NOT want anarchy – they just want the state (broadly understood) to be the only source of “fraternity”.
Something like the B.B.C. can not be reformed.
The television tax must be ended.
I’ve read the article three times now and Mr. Herbert’s comments many times more, and am finally reduced to the old saying that ‘institutions are opposed by radical ideas which become institutions opposed by radical ideas.”
Are you sure he is completely wrong about the essential nature? Hasn’t giving every student a head full of “the axiomatic criteria of the good life current in antinomian leftist systems” been the goal of formal education programs for the past 50 years? I could only afford the state run liberal arts college education but remember picking up all of those attitudes and opinions he delineates during my quest to becoming an outstanding graduate. With age I finally lost the surety of my own cleverness, but my reflexive tendency to exhibit contempt for whatever I might view as other generated stupidity, is still as fresh as the day I earned it.
“Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we’re not him. “
What the Metropolitan liberal elite as Jay puts it is all about is POWER.
Pure POWER.
The care not about individuals. See their acceptance/celebration of: female genital mutilation, forced marriages, honor killings, anti-semitism and so on. Muslims object to the teaching of the Holocaust? Stop it. The thought police forbid the use of Muslim and Islam in discussing terrorism.
And above all they hate and fear the people. Whom might reasonably provide competition for them. Hence the support of lots of illegal immigrants to transform the nation into something resembling Morocco. Lots of very poor people and a few rich elites.
This is in the US as well.
I have disagreed with Guy at times in the past, but here he nails it down.
There is no form of progressive collectivist nonsense for which the media and academic elites cannot find ways to apologize and cover.
The fundamental mindset of the chattering classes is an undying antipathy to capitalism and individual initiative.
They are, indeed, trapped in an early 20th century intellectual and moral “time capsule” that somehow ignores everything that has happened in the name of socialism over the last century, in a relentless belief that everything can be planned out to perfection if the “right” people are just given another chance, and, of course, enough power is relegated to the state.
Far from being champions of individual rights and personal liberty, as the author’s self-serving mythology obviously teaches, these uninformed and utterly close minded elites pose the deadliest of dangers to those very aspects of life.
I just finished reading the wonderfully evocative book of Roger Scruton entitled “England: An Elegy.” As a U.S. born and bred son of English (father) and Scottish (mother’s family) blood, proud of his ancestory, it was a painful but eloquent read. His comment about the BBC is particularly apt here: “The present day BBC is a laughable caricature of [its founding principles]… [It is a reminder that] the high culture of the English… is no longer available to the ordinary person.” [And] may soon be remembered and honoured only in private… [by those who will be] regarded by the majority only as cranks.” I cannot understand how the English have allowed a tax payer funded organization to become the instrument for the destruction of their own history and culture. Or perhaps it’s not as bad as it appears from afar.
You just swept away a large part of the detritus and revealed that the central issue is probably not complex. All static cultural concepts not only risk, but ultimately will become, laughable caricatures within the dynamics of the universe. Look at how ridiculous the 1962 Cadillac appeared from 1980, or the beehive hairdo, or the space-age lifestyles we looked forward to as children. Who really cares why, but analysis of any of those won’t unearth anything except that for mainly unexplained reasons, we became familiar with the styles, then our tastes and opinions changed. Were they evil? No. But we didn’t want them any more and would have objected financially and vocally if cadillac hadn’t lost the shark fins or if beauty shops had refused to do anything but beehives. Maybe this is just that simple – we as a public became familiar with something, and now we are objecting when we didn’t in the past. Why? Our tastes and opinions have changed but the fixed style of the institution can’t and it is still pushing the same product.
Also, is “chattering” the best word to use when referring to the cognitive abilities of a mass of people who have learned to read? That likely set much of the collapse in play.
I’m not a fan of beehives.
But they should never have stopped making cars look like fighter-planes. Because now we’ve got fighter planes looking like cars. What is a young lad suppossed to aspire towards these days – doing Reiki healing!
Just look at a Typhoon and then look at a Republic Thunderchief with that coke-bottle (area-ruled) fuselage and those rakishly swept forward inlets. The YF-23 was sexy. The F-22 looks like somebody pimped an F-15, badly. If you want really cool planes you’ve gotta go back to the 50s.
Nick darling, is that you?
We should remember that the “private” stations are not much better in the United Kingdom.
Not just C4 (which is government owed – and funded partly be a levy on the commercial television stations), buy the commercial people also.
Government control of broadcasting (and our version of the “fairness doctrine”) mean that even news broadcasts on something like “Classic F.M.” (a commercial music station) are no different from the B.B.C., and the political attitudes of their general staff (to judge by comments in film music shows and so on) are the same as B.B.C. people.
Forget Fox (with all it flaws and virtues) – even someone like A.B.C.’s John Stossel would not be tolerated here – the powers that be would not allow it.
A lot of British newspapers are still better than the vast majority of American ones (which mix knee jerk leftist attitudes with total boringness), but they are getting worse.
The modern university types are taking over what we used to call “Fleet Street”.
Unlike the journalists of my youth (such as Frank Johnson) who had little formal education and checked every fact themselves. The modern journalist thinks he or she “knows” various things – and the things they think they know turns out to be standard leftist boiler plate that they were taught in school or university.
This is why even conservative newspapers (such as the Daily and Sunday Telegraph) are full of leftist assumptions (especially in the cultural sections) and “facts” that just are not correct.
So even if we could get rid of all tax support for broadcasting and get rid of all the regulations (the agencies like the “I.B.A.” and so on) it would still be a hard slog to get broadcasting stations that did not have a leftist slant, and one or two newspapers that were worth buying.
Alisa,
Yeah it was.
If I’m not careful then the form calls me “n” not “Nick M”.
I do though have one thing in favour of beehives. During medieval siege warfare they were frequently flung at the defenders from a trebuchet. I can think of few things more low-down evil than hurling a beehive at the enemy. Ohh, the middle-ages – we had a larf didn’t we?
Coolest 50s plane ever?
Possibly the Handley-Page Victor.
The Victor?
Hardly, the Vulcan was much swoopier. (If that’s not a word, it ought to be.)
Maybe that’s because I’m speaking as a recovering aerodynamicist; when I look at a Victor from the front, I always go “how the hell does that work?”
Great article Adriana, thanks for the heads up. Socialism does to a balanced society what Turkey Twizzlers do to a balanced diet.