Here's Charlie Brooker in fine fettle in his Guardian screenwipe coloumn this week.(the bit that gets published in the tv/media/culture guide on a Saturday in the print version)
Full article is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
I've not got much to add to this, Mr. Brooker, as usual, hits the nail on the head, and I'm sure even Kossacks uninterested in the rivarly between the BBC and the Murdoch empire will find this an enjoyable read.
Here's a taste:
Damien Thorn, offspring of Satan, was educated at Yale before inheriting a global business conglomerate at a shockingly young age and using it to hypnotise millions in a demonic bid to hasten Armageddon. James Murdoch's story is quite different. He went to Harvard.
I hope it goes without saying that if Murdoch's spawn thinks that attacking Auntie Beeb is good public relations, or that many Britons are salivating for a Fox Noize of our own then he's a few sandwhiches, a dozen jam tarts, half a dozen scones, a plastic cutlery set, a wicker baskets, a gignham blanket, some paper plates and a flask of tea short of a picnic.
We do have the Murdoch press here, in the form of The Sun newspaper and Sky news, and actually, they aren't TOO bad, in the great scheme of things. Certainly a good deal more moderate and considered than FOX. Yep, even The Sun has some real news inside its pages once you've got past the page 3 soft porn, the horoscopes and the celebrity gossip.
The reason for this is simple; British viewers have the BBC available as a comparison. We have a consistently good (if sometimes flawed-see also NHS) benchmark of newsmedia which takes great pains to steer a path of non-partisan, just get the facts, journalism. We have an expectation that our TV and radio news, unlike rethuglican FOX or yes, liberal MSNBC, should be news NOT propaganda.
Now I know comparing MSNBC to FOX isn't entirely fair, one is a heck of a lot more based in reality than the other. But the point is I think a valid one, much of its output has a clear slant towards the liberal-democratic P.O.V (you could well argue that this is because it's the sensible, sane P.O.V. What's that old chestnut about reality having a liberal bias?)
Our newspapers ARE openly partisan, showing that this journalistic integrity is by no means a natural emergent characteristic of British media. But rather, it is a direct consequence of the role of the BBC.
If the BBC were to be judged untrustworthy its audience has a myriad of commerical alternatives to choose from; some like Channel 4 news are VERY good. As it is, the UK public TRUSTS the BBC as the ICM poll from just this week shows:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Asked if the BBC is trustworthy, 69% now say yes, against 60% in 2004. Only 26% disagree.
There are genuine issues to be addressed in terms of the BBC's proper place in newsmedia. What relationship it should have with small local commerical newspapers and radio stations in order to preserve a variety of news sources on a local level for example.
The idea of scrapping the BBC or scaling down its output in order to open up the British Media Market for Murdoch's evil empire. Is not what I'd call a genuine issue.
I think the best way I can put my feelings about this is as follows:
'Mr. Murdoch and son, you can F*ck right off.'
Bonus video:
Here's a clip from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe TV series from earlier this year comparing British and American Newsanchors (watch from 4 minutes 30 seconds in for his take on Beck, O'Reilly etc)
http://www.youtube.com/...