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| Here's Jonny! |
Today's The World This Weekend began with Brexit, and Jonny Dymond's introduction struck me as being exactly the kind of thing that the BBC's Newswatch programme was on about a week or so ago: the sense viewers have that BBC reporting "is constantly knocking British negotiators, looking for failure".
Please see what you make of Jonny's framing of the issue:
The clock was set running last Friday. 10 days, said the European Union Council President, for Britain to make progress on all issues if it wanted to get on with the trade talks bit of the Brexit negotiations. Ireland got an especial mention, just in case it had slipped the memory of the British government that the Republic and its border with Northern Ireland were one of the big 3 issues of the pre-trade negotiations stage. Both sides insist they don't want a resurrection of any kind of border but Britain says that Northern Ireland must, as a constituent part of the UK, follow England, Scotland and Wales out of the Single Market and the Customs Union. That, says nearly everyone except Britain, means a border - certainly not Cold War style, probably not in the way it was during the Troubles, but a border nonetheless. That the Irish government does not wish to see. Suggestions waft over from Irish politicians only to be met with silence from the British government.
Now, I must admit that I heard the bits in bold after thinking, 'So the EU sets a clock running and we're just meant to jump, are we Jonny?'. Then came the bits I've highlighted in bold.
Both struck me as "knocking British negotiators".
Am I right about that? Should I put in a complaint about it to the BBC?
1. 'Knocking British negotiators.' - Yes, you're right.
ReplyDelete2. Should you complain? - Yes, but...
Decided on a carrot and stick approach with Rob, this week.
ReplyDeleteSadly carrot's turn, so despite the rather 'skewed' Brexit balance again on Marr that was picked up by some, I teased gently on those he did decide to engage with. Almost all outraged Andy was clearly a fascist Leaver.
Oddly, editorial integrity appeared to leave him again with little time to address any of a more rational view.
Of these few he strayed from the more stable ground of factual mockery to less tangible wooooo-hoooooo tinfoil taunts if replying at all.
Dymond has form...doing his Fake News made-up weekly skits on Trump. That's not proper reporting. That's a (poor) comedy routine.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of re-engaging the BBC on the matter of complaints, I have decided to test the waters with a top down approach.
ReplyDeleteNow clearly even with OFCOM now at the head of the greasy pole, and staffed with ex-lcolleagues, the prevailing dismissal avenue of 'belief' will doubtless be deployed with extra enthusiasm to shut anything down still.
Hence any complaint is likely worth structuring as much as possible away from anything subjective, and best fitted into boxes they have created:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/section-five-due-impartiality-accuracy
Interesting isn't it that it's always also presented by the Beeb that somehow the UK wants a border with Eire. No, UK wants free trade and no border just like now. The EU don't want free trade, unless impossible oodles of cash are received for their corrupt and corrupting coffers.
ReplyDeleteIf any border is put up it will be by the EU.
But Johnny and co too busy warming themselves making cheap jibes to think.
Quite. You've hit on a new category of bias: mirror bias (no, not the Mirror newspaper though that's bad enough)...mirror bias is basically accuse you of wanting to something they or the people they support are doing. Examples include:
Delete1. Antifa going on the streets to use violence to stifle free speech and then accusing the people (more often NOT fascists) they oppose of doing that.
2. BBC accusing social media of peddling Fake News, when it is peddling Fake News - including completely made up stories that they want to believe (e.g. that most of the 2015 migrant wave were families or thrusting young individuals bringing a huge array of much-needed skills to Western Europe - complete lies).
There are many more!
I've read elsewhere it's a well-known Alinsky-type propaganda tactic.
DeleteIn respopnse to Monkey Brains, the EU do not want and never did work for free trade. Their game is and always was a customs union. That is managed trade within a controlled space.
DeleteAs to complaints (article) what is the point? It may give a sense of doing one';s duty, of expressing one's feelings but it is inevitably followed by a brush off and the added anger that follows.
It seems to me that once Brexit is concluded (which Remainers seem to be pushing towards 29 March 2019, with no deal beyond some administrative issues), a Conservative administration worth the namne (is it?) would deal with all institutions and all public funded Quango-ists, etc who have caused such large losses and distress.
A break up of the BBC ought to be the minumum outcome as far as the media is concerned.
The Conservatives seem frightened of public opinion on the BBC, as though it were in the NHS category. But for a lot of young people, who watch Netflix and other sources of visual entertainment, the BBC has a marginal influence in their lives, although - ironically - they do often have the BBC News app on their phones.
DeleteI personally think it would be a mistake to simply axe the BBC. I would favour stepped reform:
1. Licence fee payers given the right to vote in the BBC Senior Management Board, on the model of Trade Unions and Building Societies.
2. External appointment boards dominated by non-BBC individuals for all senior appointments above a certain pay point - say £100,000.
3. BBC local radio to be rebranded and handed over to control of local boards made up of representatives of local newspapers, local arts and community groups and other local representatives.
4. Management reform - essentially cutting senior management posts to be introduced.
5. BBC TV and BBC Radio to be separated.
6. BBC News Website to be sold off.
7. Licence fee to be reduced by 5% per annum for ten years.
8. After 10 years, BBC TV to be moved to subscription service basis (opt out), with a small direct government grant to enable it to remain ad-free, and BBC Radio to be almost fully funded by government out of general taxation.