BBC back presenter's 'racism' critique of Trump

BBC reverses decision on Naga Munchetty complaint

This is the NYT report of Trump's original pronouncement:

Trump Tells Congresswomen to ‘Go Back’ to the Countries They Came From

It's interesting that the BBC has backed Munchetty's critique, as they like to think they bend over backwards to be impartial on absolutely everything (there's plenty of people here in the UK who would strongly disagree with their alleged political impartiality). But anyway, I think it does send a strong message from a supposedly highly respected major international broadcaster that the President of the USA has been expressing racist views.

 

Americans don't watch foreign news, prefer to watch Fox News even though they know it is legally entertainment, and one in five insists the sun revolves around the earth, so its debatable how much impact it would have anyway. Thinking is not what Americans are famous for, nor are we famous for being sensitive and compassionate. Now, if you started writing about ways to reduce government and taxes, you could get their attention.

 

I like her. She's my morning television friend. I found her really annoying with an annoying face and I called her "nag champa" which sounds pretty racist itself but i meant it fondly and i love nag champa incense. Then i began to love to hate her and then i just liked her. she's a funny little elf. I don't think she said anything wrong.

 

I just cant take BBC seriously knowing its Big Black Cock..

 

I wasn't expecting that reply. I wonder if Lord Hall realises this?

 

Joshua

The problem with the BBC’s current affairs/news output is that it is told to be impartial and balanced but true impartiality and balanced can only come from being independent and the government likes to say it is independent but the thing is in the end the government holds the purse strings and the political party that controls the government has the ability to squeeze if the BBC shows signs of true independence.

And for the last 30 odd years the BBC also knows that neoliberals hate the BBC (as they do the NHS) because it is a successful and popular public body and in neoliberal ideology that should not exist it is complete affront to all neoliberal theories (private good public bad).

So successive neoliberal leaning governments and right wing media (owned by people that would love to get a slice of the pie if the BBC fell) have undermined it (as they have the NHS) through trying to underfund it while opening it up to internal markets forces and demanding it become more ‘efficient’ (doing the same or more for less money) in the hope this drives down quality of services (which has worked with the NHS).

The last wheeze was to force the BBC to pay for the free TV licences for pensioners from its own budget (before that it was taking on the full cost of the BBC world service that had before that been partially funded by the foreign office). If the BBC did pay it took a huge cut in money going to actual production and if it didn’t pay it was thought it would undermine its popularity with pensioners.

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So the BBC has tied itself in knots trying to be ‘balanced’ and in my view has become so cowed and fearful of criticisms that it often takes the wrong path, for example putting up climate change deniers in discussions of the subject like they had ‘equal’ validity or in this case backing Munchetty's critics.

Thing is that in both those cases the BBC ends up admitting it is wrong but in my opinion it really shouldn’t be happening in the first place

 

But I should add that even in is obsequious balance the BBC is still not totally biased to the right and so gets attacked from the right for being biased to the left, in the old adage of ‘if you are not with us then you are against us’

I heard today it been called the Brussels Broadcasting Corporation because it isn’t totally on board with leaving the EU and allows at least a small amount of remainer balance. I’ve also heard been called the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation because it only allowing a small amount of remainer balance and seems to allow Brexit falsehoods to go by unchallenged.

I fear for its future because in these tribalised times trying to not be on anyone’s sides means you are on nobodies and hated by both.

 

I also fear for its' future Balbus if Johnson wins the coming election. He's so far to the right of his party that it would be a prime target for him to privatise it, which has already been broached in Tory circles in recent years.