Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Ally Pally birthplace of TV project on hold - but is there a silver lining?
Mind you, I am not criticizing the present council which has been supportive of the restoration, unlike previous administrations (I'm thinking of you, Lord Toby Harris) which simply wished to flog AP off. No, the real villains are the philistine art-history trained English Heritage/Historic England "experts" which egged on the the costly, unnecessary and in conservation terms, vandalistic planned demolition of the converted arches which literally forms the two studio walls .. to appease some local Muswell Hill nimbies who have always hated the building, and wished to tidy away the BBC changes to some impossible Victorian appearance.
The silver lining is that there is now a bit of time to for conservatonists to try to persuade the Council/AP to rethink
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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Chris, there is so much paranoid nonsense here that I'm not going to even try to argue against it.
One fact - restrictions on the reporting of the Falklands war operations were imposed by the Ministry of Defence,. not MI5.
" The BBC acts as censor and goes hand in hand with government wishes... "
Do you not remember that at the height of the IRA terrorist campaign The Government directed that the BBC must not allow IRA spokesmen to be seen or heard on radio and television. The BBC circumvented this by using actors with Irish accents to parrot the words of the IRA messages. Hardly complying with Government wishes.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
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I think it's very, very valuable that we challenge the consensus view precisely because it is manufactured. You are implying that it is the correct view and that contrary views are negative because they undermine the established one, but that's precisely what is needed.
Are you seriously urging we trust BBC news because it is 'owned by the nation'?
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We can trade examples (the BBC obeyed the government over the IRA - Corbyn showed what they could have done, had they not feared consequences) but I wouldn't call your view paranoid.
A central crux of my argument is why wouldn't the government manage the state broadcaster 'in the national interest'? The BBC by its very nature delivers the government message more loudly than any other - you're not saying they just report the news from a neutral standpoint are you?
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We pay via our government currently £289m/yr to maintain the BBC as the world's largest international broadcaster (to around 30 countries at present, though never in Kurdish).
Lots and lots of people are grateful and it must help promote our cultural values but I ask you, is it government controlled, or not? If yes, does that government control extend to 'sensitive' news going through MI5 hands before broadcast?
Your reference to Chomsky must mean you are fully aware of the damage the mainstream media can do and has done. To me, the BBC broadcasts propaganda. That some rate it highly is no excuse.
I had my Liverpool accent drummed out of me by Grammar School only to see the rise of the Beatles make regional accents 'cool' on the BBC and hence in the nation for the first time - doh! What an example of control - 'BBC English' (Received Pronunciation) was all that was broadcast for decades. An incredibly powerful force the government cannot resist weaponising when needed, what's the downside for them?
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Permalink Reply by Straw Cat on
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To be fair, one does not have to be an adherent of Putin's Greater Russia agenda to often find on the Russia Today channel, and others, an "interestingly" different selection of reportage and analysis to that on the British MSM, especially about the Middle East. Eg coverage of the Mosul battle. They also give airtime to academics and analysts from the US who are never heard on BBC TV news or radio 4.
Doubt everything? Well it was good enough for Descartes ...
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The concept of the state broadcaster being impartial is just not tenable. Every senior BBC Newsroom editor has an agenda - all reporters do. The idea that the BBC can sit in judgement over the world and decide what is biased and what is not is laughable - you really think the BBC is better at deciding right and wrong than anyone else, don't you? You've drunk all their kool-aid m8.
There've been almost no female radio news presenters in the entire history of the BBC - is that evidence of prejudice or not? If the BBC can be so prejudiced against women reading the news (reportedly because they were considered unable to handle tragedies without breaking down on air), where is the evidence that they lack prejudice in other important areas requiring 'sound' judgement?
The idea that a Royal Charter guarantees impartiality is silly - tell you what, let's give up the courts and let the monarch invoke their divine right to govern and execute whomsoever they will :)
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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But surely every media organisation, in print, sound or vision, has an agenda; sometime overt, sometimes subtle? Perhaps the only organ I can think of that actually gets close to printing unvarnished truth is the Financial Times as it's readership need facts rather than opinions to make investment decisions.
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@ Michael
The BBC's agenda is "to inform, educate and entertain ".
It could be argued that the priority between these three has been distorted but as long as there is Radio 3, Radio 4 and BBC 4 they're doing pretty well.
@ Chris
The BBC, btw, is not a " State Broadcaster ".
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Let's imagine for a moment that North Korea ran both a national and global broadcaster, funding it's running costs via a levy on their population, topped up by Government. Let's call it the NKBC.
Let's further fantasise that there was no direct state censorship of the output (except for extreme cases); that the state left it to the 'integrity' of a respected, 'trusted' Chief Exec to watch over what was broadcast for them. The Chief Exec would adopt a 'hands off' approach to journalists that let them more or less air what they chose - no editorial interference by those in power.
Let's assume that they would copy the BBC's popular framework and have programmes in foreign languages (eg English) directed abroad, a main nightly news aimed at their own people that often featured reaction to and analysis of governement announcements, various radio stations covering different themes eg pop for the kids, drama section etc
How would that output differ from that of the BBC? The NK journalists themselves would doubtless seek, often unconsciously, to promote the values of the state, for fear of ostracisation and because it was 'what people appreciated'. The NK state sees the USA as an enemy, that prejudice would be noticeable in the output, even if it could be proven that the government never interfered with that aspect. Journalists would win prizes for programmes that 'exposed' the calumny of the USA - great prominence would be given to news that confirmed the NK prejudice (eg mass shootings in America, gun control etc) and the implication of the USA being a 'sick' society made clear.
The North Koreans aren't stupid, they'd know that others would see NKBC as a propaganda weapon so NKBC would seek to broadcast as many incontrovertible 'facts' as possible - football results etc.
If you asked an NK journalist - 'are you a state lackey?' they'd be highly offended - their direct, personal experience over many years at the coal face was proof that the NK govt never interfered. They were trained in the best universities to think independently, they were their own people and full of integrity.
Yes, they supported NK 'values' but what was wrong with that? Some colleagues were not so strong in those values and still kept their jobs - there was even that series of shows that promoted a slightly opposite view, proving that NKBC was 'balanced'. Not to mention that famous American who was given respect despite the NK Govt's assumed opposition.
The USA have had broadcasters supported by the state for a while, as have France with France24, specifically set up to counter the US-centric view of the world promoted by CNN and the BBC.
Whilst the Beeb may not be technically a 'state' broadcaster, I guess most abroad would see it as such - I'd call it a 'light touch' state broadcaster but I guess that those who don't like the UK would see it as a propaganda arm of the UK government.
Maybe we'll hear that view of BBC emissions expressed in Europe after we leave the EU, or do you think the EU populations will still see the BBC as unbiased, only existing to 'inform, educate and entertain' Europe out of the goodness of our own heart?
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>>Being unbiased is impossible
Exactly my point - the BBC is biased.
>>Where is this holy grail of truth to be found elsewhere
Binary comparisons don't work, it's apples and pears. I think we suffer from the cultural imperialism that proves 'British values best', something buttressed by the widespread use of the English language worldwide. Europe's 'Lingua Franca' has become American English, something unlikely to change anytime soon, but we see it as an endorsement of British values, which it is not.
The blindness has been consciously aided by the BBC, shoring up their biased, white, middle class, monarchist conception of ourselves and helping perpetuate the damaging compartmentalisation of 'otherness' we ascribe to non-natives. So it's hard to objectify how good the BBC is compared to that of 'Johnny Foreigner'.
I do accept that art holds up a mirror and that many aspects of the BBC do reflect us as a nation as seen by them, but there is an incestuous complicity there. You can see it when they (and journalists generally) start quoting each other as sources of authority.
I think the Beeb has lost its chance, been knocked off its perch by the availability of choice. Huge BBC viewing figures have become a distant memory - the Beeb is no longer be able to regularly provide a mass shared experience - the output is just not compelling enough. As people have deserted the Beeb in droves the moment they were given an alternative, what does that say about how good it really is?
National radio remains a monopoly, but they don't seem to want to mess with the station I listen to (Radio 4), which seems to be fading into the 'better yesterday' nostalgic view of UKIP and the Archers to me.
What tires me, even on radio, is the paternalism. The lack of women with real power in the org is shameful still. The detachment from their audience is painful - they just don't seem to be able to involve us in what they do.
They don't seem to be the BBC any longer in the production sense, they seem to be more of a clearing-house, presumably with far too much power in the hands of the few commissioners who spend all the money on outside productions.
Although I listen carefully, I don't have a detailed overview, so could be very wrong.
The opportunity to go global is huge but I expect they'll mess iPlayer up even further and miss it, only raising a token amount via subscription in a world where users expect internet stuff to be free.
Even bigger is the chance for more people to participate in the conversation but I don't think it's in their ethos - they insist on delivery of 'their' hierarchically-handed-down values, not collaboration with ours so as to define an actual consensus.
In other words, BBC output is made for us, not with us.
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We've rather gone off the topic of the restoration of the BBC studios and I'd rather get back to that than fantasise about freedom of expression in North Korea.
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Sadly that's not the way this site runs - anyone can write anything they like, there are no 'rules'.
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