A very frightening Step

It appears that the free press may become far more chained in the near future. The BBC, revered in Britain, and indeed around the world as being one of the last bastions of the truth in a media age ruled by the dollar is in the process of being gagged by the one organisation that should not be allowed to become involved in censoring the press.

Under new proposals being outlined this month the British Government is not only proposing to break up the BBC and take away an unspecified amount of the funding seen as vital in keeping the BBC impartial, by enabling it to operate without corporate backing and stock revenue, but they are talking about taking away the BBC’s ability to independently decide what is and what isn’t appropriate and hand over these reigns to a body, which in all probability, will be politically appointed and consist of men and women who not only have to look after their own business interests, but who will have to remain on the right side of the Government in order to keep their jobs.

Is it only me, or does this seems like taking away everything that has allowed the BBC to remain an almost universally trusted body?

Without a substantial source of funding that is independent of outside interests, the BBC may be forced to reduce services and to take on corporate backers, who like many large companies with interests in the cutthroat media arena, will expect favourable treatment in return. Worse is the idea of appointing an outside body for what is effectively censorship of the free press. Whoever sits on the board overseeing the BBC standards will have to look to their own interests as well as to the interests of their corporate stock options and to the interests of their business associates. It would be more than inappropriate for somebody with large oil interests to be in a position of power over the BBC should an unfavourable report be in the writing about the environmental impacts of drilling for oil in a conservation area, as would it be for a political appointee to be in power during an election year. Could somebody who relies on both the Government and industrial interests to remain in their job really be considered appropriate to monitor the BBC?

I am not a particular fan of England, and I despise its Government, but when I want to know if something is true I usually turn to the BBC (As reports from the BBC are banned in China, I usually have to ask somebody to relay the information to me), rather than any of the hundreds of other new services. Whether I wanted to know what was going on in Osaka or Oslo I know that I can trust the BBC to report without bias. If these proposals go ahead and the BBC is chained to the whim of the Government, Britain, and the world, will be loosing a great ally.

It looks likely that in the Future only ITN will be able to be trusted to give us a reliable picture. The recent war on terror has shown us that anybody touched by News International has a single corporate vision, that the entirety of CNN is a true patriot, and that Japanese, French and German media have not been able to distinguish between the 1940’s and the year 2003. Political alliances within the news industry held tight and the truth became hidden behind glory and gunpowder.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040214/wl_uk_afp/britain_politics_media_040214223216

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