Where does Web 2.0 leave the BBC?

BBC who

How many people still get their news via the BBC? I so rarely watch terrestrial that if you want to discuss what is relevant then you need to cut the head off this beast and not the hands.

I'm all in favour of investigative journalism and the issue of impartiality online isn't one that concerns me that much because if you can post it, we (the unwashed masses) can comment on it. If you say "this is how it is" on TV we don't have that option so let's do away with most of the news. I KNOW there's a war on.. stop telling me, I'll read about it on the news, have my say and go home to great BBC drama. Oh wait.. yeah.. tell you what.. scrap that.. let's have MORE NEWS so we don't notice all the repeats and lack of anything worth watching.

<cough>

I'm waiting for Web 3 where websites will tell you what you want to hear and show you what you want to see based on secure government held information about you. Or someone else depending if they lost your data that week or not.

@Colin Millar

I don't agree. No-one is going to get it right 100% of the time, but compare the BBC with UK newspapers, or with US news channels.

I do have a problem with the BBCs news reporting, but it isn't one of bias: it's a problem of what news actually *IS*, so I'm pleased to see that they are thinking about that. For me, when BBC News 24 shows 20 minutes of footage from a news conference, that's not news - just cop-out. (Even more so when they show 10 minutes of waiting-for-someone-to-turn-up...) News isn't what's happening as it happens -- its an objective report that makes *sense* of what is happening.

So, for example, when BBC News online did a page on "what to expect" in regard to the recent HMRC data loss, and it turned out to consist entirely of quotes from Alistair Darling, I thought that that was a bit poor -- but what it wasn't was biased, because the page was full of "Alistair Darling said".

the bbc...

.... sucks. I have and always will object to being FORCED to pay for this load of rubbish just because I was born in this country.

Roll on the day a proper set to box arrives where I can OPT-OUT of this "service" instead of having to pay because they believe I use them just because I can.

I recently discovered they also can charge you if you have a mobile phone (presumably because if BBCi WAP). no aspect of modern life if safe from this rip-off!

BBC and news

The BBC's definition of news has always been somewhat suspect. When I was working there in the early 80s the BBC newsroom was essentially driven by stories off the wire service teletypes. The definition of truth was simple: if more than one wire service reported a story, it MUST be true. Of course this ignored the point that in far-flung parts of the world some stringers had retainers from more than one wire service....

The BBC has always been too parochial for my taste, reaching some sort of nadir when, during an Olympics, it reported that a Brit was 3rd in some track event but omitted to say who was first and second. Its a little better now.

Personally, I despise all TV news and most TV current affairs programs. They are all far more concerned with pretty camera angles than with the story. Radio 4 does news & current affairs so much better.

Bias: I'd far rather have news or analysis from a knowledgable but biased source than the usual wishy-washy "balanced views" PROVIDED THAT the author's viewpoint is given as part of the credits. Hearing Tony Benn and Enoch Powell discussing the British constitution was much better than listening to a pair of dry academics would ever have been.

My news sources: I get most of my news from BBC Radio 4, which gives more and better coverage than TV ever has. Apart from that I get my science and technology from New Scientist while my IT and security/privacy come from El Reg.

people in the UK

seem to have little grasp of the respect with which the BBC is viewed in other countries.

Of course, they are typically much more aware of mainstream Beeb 1 or 2, than say World Service, which is a lifeline of information in many places.

For sure, the Beeb has its fair share of excesses and corporate lunacy, and there are also concerns that impartiality of reporting has taken a downturn in recent years. Even so, if you want to see the consequences of scrapping the license fee and making the media a purely commercial concern, take a look at CNN or Fox in the US. No comment.

"Surely the BBC’s most valuable role lies in sticking to its Enlightenment guns, presenting us with facts and information, then being judged on the professionalism of its journalism. Bloggers and amateur reporters actually benefit from credible shared reference points."

This is well put, and makes a good point. But unfortunately, the Beeb absolutely needs a guaranteed source of funding which cannot be easily meddled with by politicians, in order to achieve it. That was the point of the royal charter, and its original 50 year duration helped greatly. Of course, it is now a 10 year one ...

BBC obsessives.

The BBC is OK for occasional Dr. Who episodes, but if it was a subscription-service I wouldn't pay for it.

They seem to fret obsessively about things like "climate-change" and "wealth inequality" while never giving serious attention to business matters. I'll happily pay for a Bloomberg feed... but if the Beeb ever went subscription, well - sorry, no - you're not in my league.

Re: Don't knock the BBC

Anyone who whines about the BBC licence fee should be made to watch American television for two solid weeks.

Then, if they have any shred of sanity left from the constant exposure to inane, shouty commercials, appalling chat shows and the drivel that passes for news coverage on *any* of the major channels (with the notable exception of PBS, the only non-commercial channel), they might re-consider their opinion of the BBC and realise that a tenner a month is actually rather good value.

Basically

The BBC has to decide if people are stupid or intelligent.

If the former, then embedded reporters will continue to be interviewed in politically correct terms by talking heads about unverified snippets from dubious sources while spilling the beans in selective fashion, and people will use the internet to find the other side of the coin.

If the latter, then it has to get out of the way and allow disparate points of view to be put by those who hold them, and their narratives aired sufficiently fully so people don't have to use the internet to make up their minds. Since some narratives are more complex and/or harder to put across, it has to jettison its specious simulacrum of a concept of "balance" - which in any case would be irrelevant. (The question of when to pull the broadcasting plug on a narrative might be settled in various ways. One would be to see when it degenerates into tedium, repetition, blatant adversariality, tendentiousness, ad hominem attacks, personality cult, etc).

Mumbling about science, rationality or the postmodern is irrelevant.

Science is no seamless tapestry - discordant theories can be found wherever you look with an unprejudiced eye, and there are also facts which require hand-waving to be performed. Science does not even apparently require logical consistency, since you cannot believe in both quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity and be correct. Neither can it explain why one atom in a lump of uranium underwent decay just now, rather than a different one.

As for rationality, if this is to mean something more than how mental processes proceed in different tribes and tribal areas, it really needs an intellectual overhaul which does not leave reason itself as the privilege of a select few tribes or as a mode of life which one tribe can seek to impose on another. In other words, as Kant saw, but more modern (quotes optional) thinkers (quotes optional) prefer not to, either we all are capable of reasoning in one and same way, or none of us are.

I suspect this premise of the debate is obscured is because it could reveal who the censors of the present really are.

Where can I get that report?

I would like to read it in more detail.

For me, the BBC is the only independant mouthpiece of the truth - I know plenty don't agree, but for me it is. The funny thing is, that outside the UK the BBC is universally respected and held up as the way it should be done - see the earlier posters comments about TV in the US, or France. It is only in the UK that we routinely like to criticise what we have when in reality it isn't deserved....

Except for England last night, who were truly rubbish :-)

Anyone who thinks the Beeb sucks

should eff off to a country where they have a better state broadcasting organisation.....

<tumbleweed blows past>

Still here?

Thought so.

I'd like the BBC to show a little more spine over the Islamofascists, and the whole "let's doff our caps and tip toe carefully round all religious types" issue, however.

How about giving Pat Condell his own slot, say 15 minutes each night, right after the news, for a brief blast of common sense?

R-BBC?

Where would the register be without the BBC website? let's face it half the stories we've already read on bbc.co.uk? :)

ex-bbc

So because I don't like or watch the BBC and have something deconstructive to say on the issue I should leave the country? Oh please.. the BBC isn't foreign policy or immigration policy or nuclear policy or any REAL reason to leave the country. It isn't something to get teary eyed and patriotic about, it's an outdated institution funded by tax payers money.

Look at other stations that survive without my licence money.

And for those who say "you should watch American TV" - yeah I mostly do. I flick between hundreds of channels searching for something to watch and it ends up mostly being those "safe humour whilst eating tea with the family" that come from.. oh wait.. America.

You want satirical comedy later on? American. Can't really bring myself to class Little Britain as true satire, too much rings true. Full marks to BBC Documentaries that have gone on to be sold as DVDs and franchised to other countries. My licence money isn't propping them up. Full marks to classic BBC Comedy and Drama that is sold as DVDs and etc...

The problem is, it's a Great British Institution. Like gas and electric and mining used to be. Like public transport used to be. I'd like to see the BBC run privately because I bet they couldn't do it. Then I'd like to see it go back to its roots with a celebrity bypass and fulfil its original charter. Or go out with a bang and do a serious of really biased, offensive documentaries. Brass Eye with Balls.