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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   38791 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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Is the BBC state sponsored media? N. S. Lyons says yes

And while the BBC claims it can operate with nearly three-quarters of its funding coming from the government (whoops, I mean "the public”) and still remain independent in its coverage, this is clearly nonsense. Any organization that relies overwhelming on a patron for its continued financial existence will do what that patron wants. Obviously. And thanks to leaked emails and WhatsApp messages we can peruse a real time record of how the government leveraged this deference during the pandemic, with, for example, an “IMPORTANT ADVISORY” email sent from senior BBC editors to reporters informing them that Downing Street was “asking” if they could please avoid using the word “lockdown” to describe shutting people in up in their homes – and thus only “curbs” and “restrictions” appeared in BBC headlines the next day. This has hardly been limited to pandemic exceptions. As one BBC inside source told The Guardian: “Particularly on the website, our headlines have been determined by calls from Downing Street on a very regular basis.”

Edit: Paging @SSCReader per this earlier discussion

Any organization that relies overwhelming on a patron for its continued financial existence will do what that patron wants. Obviously

Asserted but not proved. Here is my actual experience, it was easier to get ITV to agree to a change than it was the BBC, because the BBC is very prideful about it's Royal Charter and independence.

That doesn't mean the government can't pull strings of course, just that the BBC is really no more accepting of this than private media sources, which is the point. The UK government can squash any story any UK media based platform, the BBC included.

But if you want to know from someone who has been in the role of trying to manipulate the media while in politics, the BBC is more independent than some others that are not publicly funded.

All media organizations are vulnerable to government pressure because in order to exist and run the government must not ban them and allow them to use broadcasting bandwidths and get important interviews and stories and so on. See how ITV reacted after getting a word in their ear about their presenters going off script on Covid conspiracy theories.

The BBC is again in my direct experience no more vulnerable than non-public funded media to that and indeed I would say less vulnerable because of it's position. It does however still have it's own internal biases (pro establishment etc.) that are not linked to its funding status but because of who and where it recruits from.

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