Showing posts with label 2014. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2014. Show all posts

Thursday, 1 May 2014

Chagrined at the BBC




People who get frustrated with the BBC news and end up ranting at their television screens will know how I feel today. TV news has the capacity to cause exasperation, anger, sympathy, solidarity - a whole spectrum of human emotions.

So, when the BBC announced that they were holding a public consultation about their news and current affairs output I thought this would be a great opportunity to rant directly at the BBC and (naive as I am), that someone would actually listen.

I was one of over 9000 respondents to the survey and one of probably very few who waded through the resulting reports. Yes, that's right dear reader, I read this stuff so that you don't have to waste your life on it!

Firstly, I can report, that I felt chagrined after reading the published reports. I felt chagrined partly because I like the word chagrined and you should always have favourite words. But partly it was because none of my carefully thought out and valid concerns (rants) were acknowledged.

For example, I complained that the BBC is far too linked with Government and that other countries effectively saw it as a kind of propaganda. Nothing in the report about that. Before you write me off as an eccentric, I have to say that I did have other, perhaps more valid, complaints.

For example I thought it may make a difference to state that much of the news output I saw was too negative. There is a happy history of people complaining that news output is obsessed with negativity. So I thought I would join the bandwagon (a bandwagon which may or may not have fallen off a cliff edge some time ago). And guess what? The BBC chose this one moment to look for the positive when writing up their report! They said there really is no consensus among viewers on the things they are doing wrong and that in general people felt very positive and trusting of the BBC news output. Way to go BBC - now you see the positive! Does the BBC's fabled objectivity have a blind spot?

To quote the recurring theme of the reports: "The BBC is seen as a very high-quality news provider 
The audience’s overall impression of BBC News is high."

Chagrined I tell you!

Anyway, as everyone keeps telling me, 'it's not about you'. There were special consultations to the following organisations:

  • Campaign Against Arms Trade
  • International Broadcasting Trust
  • Jews for Justice for Palestinians
  • Keep our NHS public
  • Newsnight Cymru/Newsnight Wales Campaign
  • RadioCentre
  • Stonewall
  • UK Changing Union
  • UK Metric Association
  • UTV Media
  • Voice of the Listener and Viewer
These organisations seemed to want to complain too. But the report didn't seem to contain much about their own 'rants'. Campaign Against the Arms Trade seemed similarly chagrined that much of the reporting on the arms trade was superficial and uncritical. Jews for Justice for Palestinians were chagrined that the coverage of the situation within Israel was inaccurate and misleading of all sides

Basically everyone was chagrined for one reason or another. But our diverse rants didn't seem to make the BBC want to change significantly.

To be fair (do I have to?), the reports also stated some areas of improvement based on the consultation. Attempting to find any consensus in their confused, fragmented viewers, the BBC eventually decided that people had complained that the BBC news tends to feel 'distant' from some viewers. This sense of alienation from the news output will be solved by employing a more diverse workforce. Which is fair enough and is a continuation of the BBC's existing policy.

And, in an attempt to be objective myself, it seemed that the other respondents really didn't feel as negative towards the BBC as I did. I have given up asking questions. So they will increase diversity, continue to expand to new digital arenas (while maintaining TV news as their core output). They may or may not play around with the license fee. Depends how they feel on the day I suppose.

I just feel that sometimes institutions don't listen at all. And it isn't just me. It's simply that there are agendas and economic considerations which prevent huge organisations (including the BBC) from making radical, conscientious changes. 

So, that's basically the general gist of the reports. No major change for us viewers. A million and one occasionally chagrined people expressing various emotions towards their TV screens (much of it valid, yet unheard). And the result?

To quote from another of the long, tedious, reports:
"Sustaining citizenship and civil society - 
The BBC generally delivers its commitments in this area well."

Think happy thoughts citizen!






Friday, 18 April 2014

An Easter parable for David Cameron

The palace of the king
The palace of the king


Once upon a time there was a powerful king who ruled a land filled with all kinds of people. Some of the people were concerned about the land and they had asked the previous king if things would get better for them all. They had also asked this old king what he had thought about God (because it was an important question for many of the people).

"We don't do God," said the old king, but he assured the people that he was one of 'them'.

Some of the other people then began to blame 'them' when the old king went off to march to war (or at least sent his people off to war (because his legs ached when he marched)). Some of 'them' were horrified that he had said he was one of 'them' and had then gone to war (because 'them there people' didn't like war on the whole).

The new king was only a little different (as kings often are). The new king presided over a court who believed that the people in his land would be a lot happier if they learned to stand on their own two feet and stop complaining about their lot. He believed that these people needed to quit complaining and get on with his Big Plan. Some of the people in the country were unhappy because they didn't have their basic needs, but the king was adamant that they had made the decision to be unhappy themselves and they needed to learn to take responsibility (because responsibility never belongs to kings) and to pull themselves up by their bootstrings and count their blessings (because he liked to point out people who were worse off. 'Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London...' he may have said (except he liked to keep himself to himself and not mix with the hoi polloi)). If only the people would support him and carry out his Big Plan then things could go on as usual and he could stay king, he thought.

When some of the people asked this new king what he thought about God, the king said, "We do do God and I am one of 'them' too." He went on to talk about how God was on his side in his Big Plan and that he was just carrying out God's own plan from way, way back, many centuries ago.

Again, some of the people were horrified that this new king had told all the people that he was one of 'them' because the other people always took this as a bad sign (that was partly because of the previous king and because it was simply not cool to be 'one of them'). Cool was always as cool looked, not as cool did. Kings were not cool and 'they' were not cool.

So the king waited for a huge festival that 'they' liked (just a little while before the people would decide if he could remain king). And then he said that the poor people in the land would have to work ever so much harder because they were not carrying out the Big Plan. And besides that, he said, God was with him so anyone who disagreed was really disagreeing against God. Well, he left that conclusion to their imaginations. He said that he hadn't said these words so that the people would keep him as their king... no, not at all, nosiree (after all there are those who say all kings are the same).

So the people, all kinds of people, waited and looked for some kind of hope for the future. But they feared that all kings really were the same. And when kings said they were one of 'them', it was the 'them' who got the blame (even though 'they' were not the enemy).

So all that could be hoped was that things would get better and the kings would have a change of heart. And if they really did do God and really did have a Big Plan for a 'broken land' (which may or may not have been misdiagnosed (but who can argue with God?)), then one day things would change for the better and they would not march off to war or make things worse in the land again.

But kings are kings.


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