The national broadcaster, paid for by the taxpayer through the license fee, is part of the problem that dominates the UK. The hierarchy of ideas based on elitism and condescending nonsense has infected every single part of the BBC from its news and current affairs programmes to comedy. Every single part of its remit seems to have no limit in terms of its perceived reason-for-being; to show a ‘better view’ of the world.
So many programmes are now unwatchable or difficult to listen. From the Today programme hosted by Nick Robinson, to the News Quiz; a topical comedy panel show on BBC Radio 4, the editorial is anything but ‘balanced. The regulars laugh at the ideas and policies seen as beneath them and throw bile on to those who disagree in the most staged way possible.
The BBC is a Soviet-style publication.
The role of the BBC is to provide balanced in-opinionated news, facts and evidence and to be a platform of ideas and thoughts and to scrutinise those in the public eye in order to give the public a more well-informed view of what is either on offer or what might be entertaining without being sycophantic. ‘Due impartiality’, ‘reasoned views’, all of these really important aspects to a national broadcaster are things the BBC is relied upon to uphold. There is no doubt, especially after this election, that they are doing just that.
The BBC is just as frightened of alternative views to the liberal consensus they eulogise as the politicians who gatekeep general discourse on things from the economy to culture. The BBC do not reflect any part of the wider UK. They do not select audiences reflective of the national views. The BBC do not select panelists in any balanced sense to provide an adequate balance of views from notable people with time to make those points. The BBC chooses to airbrush the national debate, to airbrush the arguments and to airbrush the choices in front of us, especially at this election. Avoiding all notable leaders aside from Sunak and Starmer, paying Question Time audiences to turn up and to do what they want, to plant BBC personnel in the audience to hurl abuse where necessary, avoiding key debate son things like Net Zero, the national debt or Russian aggression, the BBC have done all they can to manufacture the election to favour a narrative that has been so solid for the past 20-odd years.
The BBC might just be out of luck now.
Social media has hammered away at the pillars holding up TV and broadcast media. Social media, hardly desired by any means by those wishing for grown-up discussion and polite debate on the topics of the day, has overtaken traditional media in influencing or rather hardening political views, especially those ignored by the media. The age of bowing down to the perceived consensus on TV and radio is well and truly gone.
Where did the BBC begin to wobble existentially off its pedestal? COVID. The BBC presented a unified view that COVID was going to kill us all and fear was the best course of action to get the masses in line. 2 years down the line and a growing majority of the country believe that the fear and unified voice of death and destruction COVID would reap was at least unnecessary and at most an evil desire to coerce the masses to obey authority under pain of arrest. The break between the BBC and the public started in earnest then and it has only carried on now. Viewing figures are down; BBC Question Time is a shadow of its former self. People just don’t seem to be listening any more. Their almost-juvenile reporting is as laughable as their lacklustre staff who seem to be filled with activists hell-bent on educating the masses rather than doing their job.
Consider Gary Linekar. £1.3m per year of our money to sit in a studio talking about football for 10 accumulative minutes a week. He never has to be right about his analysis. It’s mostly snide comments. Paid a boat-loud by all of us. Says some abusive things about the government and about the public desire to end illegal immigration. He is paid so much more money from sponsors and others too. A symbol of corruption. Nothing is done about it. Nothing.
Looking into the make-up of the BBC, minorities make-up 29% of all employees. The Percentage of minorities in the UK is around 8-13% nationally. The BBC discriminates against white people if we go by these numbers.
Not paying the license fee can land you either a heavy fine or time in prison.
Let’s not get into the nitty-gritty about who makes up the BBC elsewhere, but there have been so many editorial standards slipping from abusive or inappropriate comments from newsreaders or blantant rail-roading in interviews. It’s juvenile. It’s calculated. It’s frustrating.
People are switching off.
The BBC needs root-and-branch reform along with the civil service who see themselves as safeguarding views they find reasonable. They have chosen what is centre, right and far right (yet struggling to identify what a terrorist organisation is or the meaning of the ‘far left’ or ‘hard left). Their presuppositions of ideas and arguments and the awful “some say___” (which is just code for ‘this is what i think’), are revolting and only ever in one direction. What they choose to ommit is now the prevailing view in the UK. Social media will have to do the rest and that could cause more problems than it solves.
For the rest of the election the BBC could improve but it is seeing itself more as a ‘force for good’, but IT has chosen what that good is, rather than reacting to what the nation wants to hear and see.
If you want to keep up to date with the election and to maintain credibility in finding out what’s going on in this election for the rest of the election time, switch off the BBC, don’t turn over to ITV or Channel 4. Read the manifestos with an open mind and heart. Make your own mind up relative to your personal values and experiences and then go out to vote accordingly. Don’t go on social media, you’ll go down a rabbit hole to your very own unhealthy echo chamber. The BBC has let you down. Don’t be lazy and let it do the thinking for you.
Start thinking, or start thinking more.
This article first appeared on the TDL Times. For more information, articles and more please visit www.thetdltimes.com.
Comments