The BBC and the new Culture Secretary

[kernelbogey]

I fear for the future of the BBC, the more so under the newly appointed Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries. While I would not expect the Guardian to report on her appointment with enthusiasm their overnight piece does not tilt me towards confidence on the issue.

I think there is a strong case for activism on the part of those who care about the BBC, and who want to protect its neutrality.

[antongould]

I fear for the future of the BBC, the more so under the newly appointed Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries. While I would not expect the Guardian to report on her appointment with enthusiasm their overnight piece does not tilt me towards confidence on the issue.

I think there is a strong case for activism on the part of those who care about the BBC, and who want to protect its neutrality.

I agree kb

[Stanfordian]

I agree kb

Hello kernelbogey,

What the BBC is Neutral! No way!

[DracoM]

I fear for the future of the BBC, the more so under the newly appointed Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries. While I would not expect the Guardian to report on her appointment with enthusiasm their overnight piece does not tilt me towards confidence on the issue.

I think there is a strong case for activism on the part of those who care about the BBC, and who want to protect its neutrality.

Spot on. Dark days ahead

[mikealdren]

Hello kernelbogey,

What the BBC is Neutral! No way!

The BBC gets accused of left/right bias depending on who is talking. The problem, for me, is that too many BBC voices are now prepared to make their own left/right bias more obvious. Gone are the days when Brian Redhead stopped a Today interview with Nigel Lawson until he apologised for intimating that he knew which way Brian voted.

A notable current exception is Nick Robinson who has suggested that tweeting of personal views is incompatible with working on BBC news.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The BBC gets accused of left/right bias depending on who is talking. The problem, for me, is that too many BBC voices are now prepared to make their own left/right bias more obvious. Gone are the days when Brian Redhead stopped a Today interview with Nigel Lawson until he apologised for intimating that he knew which way Brian voted.

A notable current exception is Nick Robinson who has suggested that tweeting of personal views is incompatible with working on BBC news.

That started before Nick Robinson. Victoria Derbyshire made her anti-Brexit views very clear on her Facebook page until she was was silenced, well before the appointment of NR.

[oddoneout]

The BBC gets accused of left/right bias depending on who is talking. The problem, for me, is that too many BBC voices are now prepared to make their own left/right bias more obvious. Gone are the days when Brian Redhead stopped a Today interview with Nigel Lawson until he apologised for intimating that he knew which way Brian voted.

A notable current exception is Nick Robinson who has suggested that tweeting of personal views is incompatible with working on BBC news.

There is the oft quoted cliche that if complaints about a news item or somesuch come from both sides of the spectrum then it's probably pretty well balanced! I can't help wondering if the difficulty of presenters an others personal views creeping in is the result of such people increasingly falling into the sleb grouping, where the "personal touch" (connecting with the audience etc etc) starts to take precedence over doing what the job requires - which is relaying the information for the viewer/listener to absorb and process.
I stopped watching BBC news (and never listened to the radio news in the first place apart from R3 headlines) decades ago because I got fed up with important (as I saw it) bits of information being left out and the feeling that I was thus possibly being expected to take a particular view. I didn't see it in political terms, although with hindsight perhaps that was a factor in the presentation, just regarded it as poor reporting practice. Recently I have read more of the BBC output online, but usually only after having looked at other sources as well, and more often than not as a result of links on this forum.

[teamsaint]

The BBC gets accused of left/right bias depending on who is talking. The problem, for me, is that too many BBC voices are now prepared to make their own left/right bias more obvious. Gone are the days when Brian Redhead stopped a Today interview with Nigel Lawson until he apologised for intimating that he knew which way Brian voted.

A notable current exception is Nick Robinson who has suggested that tweeting of personal views is incompatible with working on BBC news.

Nick Robinson has certainly made his own views known during his reports, regardless of this.
He made a blantatly biased report on on income tax on BBC TV a few years ago.

Despite efforts at balance on party politics, the BBC, subject to OFCOM rules I guess, has been the voice of the govt throughout the last 18 months.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Yes Dorries to deconstruct and parcel out the functions of the BBC, Raab to neutralise the Courts from top to bottom and the European Convention on Human Rights (its' got "European" in the title, see?). Informed commentators are saying that this reshuffle is about delivery of the Tory manifesto (and of course more) in the run up to a 2023 - so earlier election. These are but two aspects of the current hard right agenda (held up by Covid) under the distraction of the comedy clown/ "Boris is Boris " image that Johnson presents.

.......I stopped watching BBC news (and never listened to the radio news in the first place apart from R3 headlines) decades ago because I got fed up with important (as I saw it) bits of information being left out and the feeling that I was thus possibly being expected to take a particular view. I didn't see it in political terms, although with hindsight perhaps that was a factor in the presentation, just regarded it as poor reporting practice. Recently I have read more of the BBC output online, but usually only after having looked at other sources as well, and more often than not as a result of links on this forum.

Do you sense any particular aspect to the BBC output, having used other sources. I'd be interested on your views of the BBC in comparison.

I've read the Times, because there are so few quality news papers now and it does have content. (Its relatively easy to filter out the Tory/Johnson supporting elements; I can't abide Quentin Letts so never click in to his stuff). The FT has a reputation for objectivity but its costly and includes business info I don't need. After that, apart from Private Eye, it would be a foreign - I suppose US - newpaper. I wonder if the BBC's neutrality tends to too much accommodation to what the government machine is issuing each day / week.

I suppose current affairs reporting such as Panorama and other Radio (R4 in particular) content bear on the delivery of "news" and "issues". There was a long debate (on "Feedback", etc) about the neutral stance affording equal chance to climate change deniers when the support for the evidence of it was overwhelming as opposed to the efforts of those the deniers managed to put up.

Gone are the days when Brian Redhead stopped a Today interview with Nigel Lawson until he apologised for intimating that he knew which way Brian voted.

That was a delicious moment, still enjoyable in retrospect (I wonder if its out there on YT or something....). The BBC has really missed a trick in letting its journalists express publicly their political views. Davie the new DG is bearing down on it, far too late given these gifts to the enemies of the BBC - sticks to beat it with.

[french frank]

It looks as if the "rightward-leaning" Director General isn't that pleased either. My free Times article leads:

"The director-general of the BBC has voiced frustration at the high turnover in culture secretaries after Nadine Dorries, a strident critic of the corporation, was promoted to the cabinet.

Tim Davie said there had been ten culture secretaries in the past decade and what was needed was “a really serious, grown-up government” to deal with the creative industries, which generate £116 billion for the UK economy.

Read if you can here:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cabinet-reshuffle-bbc-chief-tim-davie-criticises-high-turnover-of-culture-secretaries-5q7rj8cxq

[Nick Armstrong]

Raab

Described by Kuenssberg today as having been “a senior lawyer” - which is true in the same sense as it’s true that Nadine Dorries was Jane Austen*


.


*

[Cockney Sparrow]

It looks as if the "rightward-leaning" Director General isn't that pleased either...........Tim Davie said there had been ten culture secretaries in the past decade and what was needed was “a really serious, grown-up government” to deal with the creative industries, which generate £116 billion for the UK economy.

Joining battle with the Johnson govt then - I suppose the government's intention and resolution is now clearer than ever .......

Apparently Raab has written or spoken (maybe PPS days, or some stop on the greasy pole) about the need to disapply the European Convention on Human Rights to implementation in UK/ English & Welsh law, presumably to the extent its application has interfered with "freedoms" important to his political philosophy. Add that to the already stated intention to push back the extent of the powers of the Supreme Court and the dire state of the Courts service and....................

[Serial_Apologist]

Hello kernelbogey,

What the BBC is Neutral! No way!

One has but the unchallenged BBC Panorama blatantly alleging institutional antisemitism in the Labour Party, without the counter-evidence of the many Jewish people and organisations inside and outside the party which have had to resort to alternative media, still sticking in the throat.

[AuntDaisy]

Gone are the days when Brian Redhead stopped a Today interview with Nigel Lawson until he apologised for intimating that he knew which way Brian voted.

That was a delicious moment, still enjoyable in retrospect (I wonder if its out there on YT or something....).

I think the clip of the much missed Brian Redhead is here on Auntie's website: (or here)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05l2dpw

"Former Chancellor Nigel Lawson incurs the wrath of Redhead. Today's Brian Redhead responds to an allegation about his political affiliations..."

[french frank]

I think the clip of the much missed Brian Redhead is here on Auntie's website: (or here)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05l2dpw

"Former Chancellor Nigel Lawson incurs the wrath of Redhead. Today's Brian Redhead responds to an allegation about his political affiliations..."

Well found, AuntDaisy. And very politely done, I'd say, rather than exhibiting 'wrath'.