The BBC | Tim Davie resigns as Director General over Trump documentary edit (p 187)

Well said. But I don’t buy the incompetent journalism line and don’t anyone really believes that. I’m sure Davie was unaware but that’s the price of leadership I’m afraid.
 
Metal Biker said:
In an age of streaming services where people choose which entertainment they wish to absorb, somethng like a 'licence fee' is so archaic.

We're not forced to pay for Amazon Prime if we want to watch Disney+. We're not forced to pay for Netflix if we want to watch Sky.

We are forced to pay for the BBC, if we want to watch any other content. People think the BBC is great and delivers great content. Good for you boo, a lot of us don't watch the Beeb or rate their programming. So why should we be forced to pay for content we don't want, to gain access to the content that we do?
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If they concentrated on making content for the TV and radio people would be happier, but fuck me they are shit now.

But..but they do good documentaries just isn't good enough.

Kill it and bury it forever :)
 
BlueHammer85 said:
well said, BBC is the best service by far . such a shame this fucking edit plays right into the hands of Trump and Farage who will be determind to bring it down so we get are news from Gbeebies and Musks social media.
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Such a shame ? The BBC has fucked up over this whole issue and has no one to blame but itself for all the fall out. Their board doing nothing about the spliced Trump speech until Prescott's leaked memo forced a very belated apology and the resignation of Davie and Turness. Knowing about something and doing nothing until forced to is unacceptable for a publicly funded broadcaster.
 
hampshireblue said:
I agree. I wonder why this has all kicked off now. The programme was broadcast over a year ago and attracted absolutely no complaints when it was broadcast so clearly someone did some digging to make this an issue now. Robbie Gibb is my suspect. A member of the board and Teresa May's ex comms guru-not exactly balanced there either.
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So the board are all ex-Tories are they ? Or are the rest so weak that they allow themselves to be swayed by one right wing member ?
 
Palerider said:
I think this is true. The BBC are trying to square a circle with their 'unbiased' coverage and tend to do it reasonably well. The Trump error is either utter incompetent journalism or a malicious attempt to manipulate opinion. The mistake made by the BBC leadership was in not calling out the error immediately which made it look like they condone it.

Once you bring opinions into news coverage then you are bound to have biased reporting. A reporters bias is no more relevant than your or mine opinion. The BBC should stick to facts and cut down on the opinion.
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The stories that see the light of day are chosen by editors based on their read of what will attract readership. Sometimes their charge is breadth, other times consistency of subscriber base, other times growing the subscriber base, other times (most times given most content is targeted) niche-y dependent on publication. But the way historically opinion was divided from presentation of evidence/truth in print publications was through the editorial/opinion page, though obviously dependent on audience, WHAT and HOW the stories were presented could be influenced by bias which in turn was dependent on the target. That’s a little harder to do in mass broadcast media . . . and when it flops as this did, there are consequences.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Did you know every human is biased or did that somehow escape your notice for as long as you’ve lived on the planet?
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Obviously outside your own experience as a very biased person ,but in a work environment ,especially the public one it is the duty of the employee to act in a
unbiased manner . To be impartial.

I suppose I am lucky as an intelligent person with decades of life experience including bias, that I put that Intelligenc into practice by not being a biased person, even if that is not normal in your experience.

Bias is a choice for the intelligent, I choose impartiality.
 
stan bowles said:
Such a shame ? The BBC has fucked up over this whole issue and has no one to blame but itself for all the fall out. Their board doing nothing about the spliced Trump speech until Prescott's leaked memo forced a very belated apology and the resignation of Davie and Turness. Knowing about something and doing nothing until forced to is unacceptable for a publicly funded broadcaster.
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meh! a few seconds spliced speech, probably just a editing mistake by an off branch company, BBC employs over 21,000 people, they have news and service channels running 24/7, mistakes are going to happen, fuck ups are going to happen. almost a daily basis on GB News and Trump himself. but hey, lets burn the BBC at stake and get rid of one our longest running institutions, how dare we upset the fat orange ****.
 
asahartford1 said:
Obviously outside your own experience as a very biased person ,but in a work environment ,especially the public one it is the duty of the employee to act in a
unbiased manner . To be impartial.

I suppose I am lucky as an intelligent person with decades of life experience including bias, that I put that Intelligenc into practice by not being a biased person, even if that is not normal in your experience.

Bias is a choice for the intelligent, I choose impartiality.
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I assure you . . . you are not unbiased and bias is not a choice, though you may work hard at behaving in an unbiased fashion as often as you can, which is of course a great thing.
 
mexico1970 said:
If they concentrated on making content for the TV and radio people would be happier, but fuck me they are shit now.

But..but they do good documentaries just isn't good enough.

Kill it and bury it forever :)
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Not sure about that, bbc news is still where most people get their news from, the website is still way ahead of any others in readership.

If they could get it right, I think a good BBC news is needed more now than ever tbh, Trumps press secretary saying everyone should be watching GBNews being a clear case in point why.
 
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Things on the BBC I have watched recently:

American Fiction (great movie)

An old Arena documentary about Francis Bacon the painter

Confessions of a Brain Surgeon - a superlative profile of Henry Marsh

Floyd on France

That Sumo wrestling tournament

First couple of episodes of the old Ken Hom series about Chinese cookery - a bit clunky but have already learned a lot

Match of the Day - us stuffing the dippers

Will probably watch the Bryan Magee series The Great Philosophers next.

Just really posting this to as a gentle reminder to people that the BBC isn’t just a news/politics channel.

As for Trump, according to the distinguished historian Timothy Snyder, last time around he made 1,628 false or misleading claims (plus 24 more in an early interview that only lasted 30 minutes) during his first 298 days in office.

So the BBC probably have a lot of catching up to do to compete with his habitual mendacity.

And yes, if it went subscription only, I would pay.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
The stories that see the light of day are chosen by editors based on their read of what will attract readership. Sometimes their charge is breadth, other times consistency of subscriber base, other times growing the subscriber base, other times (most times given most content is targeted) niche-y dependent on publication. But the way historically opinion was divided from presentation of evidence/truth in print publications was through the editorial/opinion page, though obviously dependent on audience, WHAT and HOW the stories were presented could be influenced by bias which in turn was dependent on the target. That’s a little harder to do in mass broadcast media . . . and when it flops as this did, there are consequences.
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Well yes, but the BBC does not need to make a profit so it should not be about pleasing any audience. It should be about providing hard facts and then let the viewer/listener/reader make up their own mind. In theory that should be easy. The problem may well be that their intake of employees are still stuck in "University Protest" mode rather than "Journalistic Rigour" mode. i.e they are letting the tail wag the dog. There's an article today in the Times from an ex editor basically saying how the Pro Trans lobby at the BBC ran the roost and anti Trans stories were neglected. Now clearly no unbiased news organisation should ever be in a position where that is allowed. Poor and probably weak leadership.
 
asahartford1 said:
Obviously outside your own experience as a very biased person ,but in a work environment ,especially the public one it is the duty of the employee to act in a
unbiased manner . To be impartial.

I suppose I am lucky as an intelligent person with decades of life experience including bias, that I put that Intelligenc into practice by not being a biased person, even if that is not normal in your experience.

Bias is a choice for the intelligent, I choose impartiality.
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If you have the time google the 'Cognitive Bias Codex' it's fascinating and if you have some more time a bit of a dive into a few of them is often a bit of an eye opener. We're learning more about how the brain works each day and one of the things we've learnt is that incredible things though they are, they generally don't function as rationally as we might like to think.
 
meltonblue said:
Not sure about that, bbc news is still where most people get their news from, the website is still way ahead of any others in readership.

If they could get it right, I think a good BBC news is needed more now than ever tbh, Trumps press secretary saying everyone should be watching GBNews being a clear case in point why.
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They are obviously manufacturing news now so they've shit in their own well
 
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