UK - Who can save the BBC?

Earlier I posted about the BBC's latest ratings which showed the BBC has sunk to its lowest level ever. One look at the case against the BBC and you'll see why.

Now, more and more people are turning to blogs who are exposing the lying left wing media, like the BBC.

Here is one readers take left in the comments section on the blog Biased BBC.

The agenda-setting is tedious for those who don't share their world-view, but where it's accompanied by the hard slog of good journalism - Channel 4 News for example - you agree to disagree and wish them well on their way.

The problem with the BBC is not just that they're agenda-pushing, but that it daily undermines their journalistic practice. As anyone who has worked as a journo can tell you, it's either one of the easiest jobs in the world, or one of the hardest. If you're content merely to push your agenda day in, day out, it's dead easy - the (same) stories write themselves day after day, helped along the way by fellow agenda-pushers (all those NGOs and lobbyists are more than willing to write your news for you). Soon enough, you end up with the Today programme.

The majority of stories (as opposed to attitudes) complained of here are, I believe, the result of an abandonment of journalistic standards (and effort), which are itself an expression of the comprehensiveness with which the "correct" agenda is understood by everyone involved.

Real reporting is hard: how much more work does it take to be Paul Reynolds digging out the facts than John Simpson spinning fantasies and speculation, do you think?

Ultimately, the fish starts to stink from the head: the poor junior staffers of the BBC will pretty quickly have to absorb the agenda and habits of their seniors, or get another job. And why do the seniors - the John Humphreys, the silent Kevin Marsh (head of new journalism college, yet to lower himself to explain why he invited al Sadr's man on the Today program to push, unchallenged, the slur that the Americans were responsible for the Golden Mosque bomb) do it? As so often, it's the "why does a dog lick its balls" question: because they can.

And they can because, absent the market, there's absolutely nothing to discipline these people - they are answerable to no-one or nothing. Oh, sorry, they are answerable to the complaints procedure (yup, that's the one that brought you "Complaint upheld, no action recommended"), and the governors.

And who are the governors? You haven't a clue, have you? Well, they are:

Michael Grade – TV lifer; Anthony Salz – lawyer; Deborah Bull - former principal dancer with Royal Ballet; Andrew Burns – career diplomat Ruth Deech – lawyer, don; Dermot Gleeson – industrialist; Merfyn Jones – Welsh academic; Fabian Monds – Northern Ireland academic; Jeremy Peat - Civil servant turned banker; Angela Sarkis – charity worker, on the House of Lords Appointments Commission; Ranjit Sondhi – race relations activist (that's a bit harsh, he's probably a good egg); Richard Tait – BBC lifer.

That's right, good establishment chaps all, but a life swaddled in the British establishment is no grounding for overseeing the BBC. And, of course, not a journalist among them: not one. Worse, looking at the list, you get the feeling they'd feel pretty chuffed personally if Dimbleby, Paxman, Humphreys et al nodded to them in the lift.

Who believes these are the people to save the BBC?

Not me.

Here is the search results of my blog for John Simpson. Now you see why the commenter took a swipe at Simpson.
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