This is getting tiresome. I have seen far too many posts and heard too many people say that the BBC is a mouthpiece for the government, that they don’t report everything of note and that they are partial. It’s made worse by comments from those who say that they get all their news from ‘Russia Today’ or online from the likes of YouTube, Fox News or even GB News!
Let’s get one thing straight. The BBC is run by people, fallible, well intentioned people capable of getting out of bed on the wrong side, having a bad day, only half hearing what’s been said and prone to many of the inbuilt and unrealised prejudices that we all, and that means YOU as well have.
BUT and this is a very big BUT, they have protocols where everything is cross checked and verified as far as possible to make sure that more than one witness can provide back up. When they cannot and it is a burning issue they will comment that so far these reports are unverified.
They jump through hoops backwards to establish facts and are very much aware that in any war, the first casualty is the truth. (If you don’t believe me then go back through published British, US, German, Japanese and Russian accounts of major battles and the progress of the war to see the truth for yourselves of that statement.)
In common with the better established and highly professional news agencies & networks with a reputation to protect (ITN, Reuters, AP, CNN, CBS, NBC, Al Jazeera, ZDF etc) they are well aware of how every government wants to feed them propaganda and you would be very surprised to learn how much they cooperate with each other to validate sources.
If any agency is proprietor owned or state funded then they have a serious problem with pressure from above or even advertisers who have other agendas.
Much has been made of how the BBC receives a licence fee, gets government money indirectly, yet refuses to be partial even going so far as to avoid the words ‘The Enemy’ or even ‘Terrorist Organisation’ with a couple of lapses during World War 2. The intention is to state the facts in the hopes of finding an intelligent audience capable of making up their own minds
Successive governments of all colours hate this and periodically try to threaten the withdrawal of the licence fee or install their favourite party donors into senior governance positions. Somehow, the BBC has avoided dancing to anyone’s tune and frequently comes in for a lot of stick from all sides.
They encourage satire through such programmes as ‘Have I Got News For You’ and serious listener criticism through the likes of Radio 4’s ‘Feedback’ as a safety valve and a learning process. Other programmes such as ‘The Thick of It’ and its spinoffs which are extremely critical of media and government interaction, often ridiculing specific names. They only rarely put the brakes on stand up comedians when they cross boundaries in terms of good taste and language, particularly before the so called 9pm watershed.
Their online presence is vast highlighting international, national and local issues that never make it into the broadcast bulletins and excellent programmes such as R4’s ‘From our Own Correspondent’ ad a personal dimension to the vicissitudes of reporting in often hostile environments.
Talkj to journalists from many other countries (which I have) and correspondents from an earlier age (Such as my late English grandfather who was a Reuters War Correspondent during WW2) and you will learn how much the postwar to current batch of BBC, ITN and other journalists and news editors are admired for the strenuous efforts they make to get at the facts and not the emotion of an event. They report partisan politicians in a dispassionate light, sometimes at serious risk to their own safety.
Don’t be lazy tuning in only to those viewpoints that support your existing prejudices or current world view. We all need challenge and the use of our God given sense of free will and critical thinking (If you’re a theist of any colour) or dispassionate development of secular philosophy, (If you regard yourself as an unfettered free thinker.)
Nothing in life is easy and ignorance is a very deadly sin indeed. Don’t be lazy, keep an open mind, research and don’t look for so called facts to shore up your existing thinking. Use the BBC as a tool for further proper in depth research, cross check by all means with other reputable sources of information. Don’t be afraid to question who benefits from ‘Alternative Facts.’ There is no such thing. It’s either a fact or a lie! There’s nothing inbetween.
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