Why do we generally trust the BBC more than most other news networks

[Lobotomy]

... when part of it is funded by the UK government?


Unlike the other departments of the BBC, BBC World Service is funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, more commonly known as the Foreign Office or the FCO, is the British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom abroad.

^ From wikipedia

I know that most leftists wouldn't be so naive as to completely trust the BBC, but in general I feel that most consider it more reliable than, say, CNN or MSNBC. Why? I read the BBC often but I take it with a grain of salt the same way I would with any other network.

Am I just missing something and asking a hugely ignorant question?

[caramelpence]

Comforting middle-class university-educated British accents.

Not joking. It creates an air of authority, refinement, and objectivity.

[RedSunRising]

Comforting middle-class university-educated British accents.

Not joking. It creates an air of authority, refinement, and objectivity.

LOL! :laugh:

[Rusty Shackleford]

probably because at least in US issues it is not involved in any political affair in the US so it has a chance of being more credible?

[Arlekino]

I do like BBC4 radio4 seems ok, I fed up of BBC some programs on and on repeats and seems is going to right wing shows. BBC radio2 is disgusting radio is similar like fox news I am listening only becouse my partner like it.

[caramelpence]

LOL! :laugh:

A slight over-simplification of course. But I wasn't joking. One of the most powerful and enduring forms of class prejudice in Britain is the assumption that people with received pronunciation are generally more educated and ought to be looked up to, and as a result, people with that kind of accent are more likely to be trusted. It just so happens that the BBC's reporting staff are largely comprised of individuals whose social and educational backgrounds are such that they have received pronunciation, and I would argue that in Britain if not across the world that is one of the factors behind the generally positive public attitude towards the BBC. Nor is this true only of the BBC - according to some research (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7532922/Air-passengers-more-trusting-of-pilots-who-sound-posh.html), four-out-of-five airline passengers feel more at ease if their pilot speaks with a "posh" voice, and in general it's remarkable how many pre-recorded announcements, in tube stations and airports etc., are delivered by people with received pronunciation.

[Blake's Baby]

A lot of it is funded by the UK government. The World Service is funded by the Forreign Office, but the BBC as a whole is partly funded by the Home Office, through the Licence Fee, which is a kind of tax on TV and radio equipment. Every household in the UK that has a TV or radio pays the Licence Fee (about £140 for a TV but only about £30 for a radio, so that's about €150 and €40, or $US200 and $50), people get sent to jail if they don't.

There are about 22 million TV sets in the UK so that's around £3billion that the BBC gets from taxation. As a result of the conditions of its charter, it's supposed to limit commercial activities (no advertising for instance).

So one way of looking at it is that it is a massive propaganda department for the government, but then again it tries to be independent (as it knows it has to work with the next governemtn, so it never gets too nasty either way; of course it never challenges the establishment/system in any serious way at all).

The otehr way of looking at it is that it's a great big nationalised media company. If you like nationalised industry, that might be thought to be a good thing.

[L.A.P.]

Well it's not that BBC is that much better than MSNBC and CNN, it's that MSNBC and CNN are just that much more ridiculous and constantly report such irrelevant shit that i would rather watch a bourgeois news source like the BBC. I personally like RussiaToday more but still enjoy international news as a whole over any American news network. It's just that BBC and other networks report interesting stuff ,regardless of bourgeois bias, as opposed to the American networks.

[Sean]

Am I just missing something and asking a hugely ignorant question?

Not in the least. A lot of it has to do with their professionalism and having quality reporters everywhere. Generally the BBC report stories in a manner far less biased and objective than cartoon villians like Fox. Its very much a case that they get stories they just don't report on and silence is a much harder thing to point at as an example of bad journalism. Its always good to see what Al Zajeera is reporting and what the BBC isn't despite having reporters in that area, as a yard stick. I can't think of any examples as I say because reticence is a slippery fish. Maybe Fox's lies are so partisan that we're lax on the Beebs say something well or don't say anything at all approach. You're basically only able to observe how much they fail us if you're relentlessly analysing news and observing them as a comparison instead of source of news you already know, which is something very few people do broadly! You might find a few things to pull your hair out about on a subject you follow passionately but since the only way to see truly see how bad they are is judge them by whats not said, that's whats needed!

[Die Rote Fahne]

I go to Al Jazeera for the most part...

[Manic Impressive]

I don't watch a lot of US news but occasionally I catch a bit of ABC news. I don't think there is a great difference between them except for when an international story involves American interests for example I remember when the unrest in Egypt started the BBC were much quicker to start praising the protests while ABC were reluctant to criticise Mubarak probably due to him being a US puppet dictator. They probably changed their tune since but there was a stark difference between the initial reports.

[starmix]

Well in general British news organizations are better than american ones because the level of corporate control over them is weaker, I think the guardian is a particularly good example of this. Of course you shouldn't use them as your main source of news, there are still quite significant levels of corporate control over them but as a general rule they're better than mainstream american media institutions.

[MarxSchmarx]

Well in general British news organizations are better than american ones because the level of corporate control over them is weaker, I think the guardian is a particularly good example of this. Of course you shouldn't use them as your main source of news, there are still quite significant levels of corporate control over them but as a general rule they're better than mainstream american media institutions.

This strikes me as a "grass is greener on the other side" type of perspective.

Indeed, much of the hystrionic American journalism ( = Rupert Murdoch) got their start in the British tabloid press. Some American papers like the New York Post have deliberately sought to mimic the pathetic yellow journalism one finds in the Sun, but with the notable exception of fox news and AM radio those ventures have gone no where.

The fact is that even the corporate controlled American press like NBC, CNN NPR have a fairly professional standard. They are mouth pieces of the ruling class, to be sure, but to a large extent I think the perception that say the Guardian or the BBC are less corporate influenced isn't so much about the institution of journalism as it is a reflection of the considerably more capitalist oriented "mainstream" of American society versus a marginally less viciously neoliberal British "mainstream".

[starmix]

This strikes me as a "grass is greener on the other side" type of perspective.

Indeed, much of the hystrionic American journalism ( = Rupert Murdoch) got their start in the British tabloid press. Some American papers like the New York Post have deliberately sought to mimic the pathetic yellow journalism one finds in the Sun, but with the notable exception of fox news and AM radio those ventures have gone no where.

The fact is that even the corporate controlled American press like NBC, CNN NPR have a fairly professional standard. They are mouth pieces of the ruling class, to be sure, but to a large extent I think the perception that say the Guardian or the BBC are less corporate influenced isn't so much about the institution of journalism as it is a reflection of the considerably more capitalist oriented "mainstream" of American society versus a marginally less viciously neoliberal British "mainstream".

I don't think it's a "the grass is always greener" view, It's true that the mainstream in the U.K. is slightly less neoliberal and this is reflected in the press but i think there's also an element of greater mainstream press freedom involved. If you take a look at the front page of the guardian, for example, on any given day you will find articles or commentary that one would not expect to see if your institutional analysis, namely that the institutional structure is the same although it represents a slightly less rapacious bourgeoisie, were true.

[∞]

MaoistRebelNews, just look at his swag...hella prolly.

[Zav]

I trust it more than I trust FOX "News", but I don't really trust any news network.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

'Trust' is a silly word as all Bourgeois media must be taken with a grain of salt and critically analyzed.

[Lunatic Concept]

In some cases, they are quite objective and sometimes do allow quite dissident opinions to be seen, mainly on the actual debate-based shows.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V61NAS0Fi38

[Tifosi]

Anecdotal; I have heard people say that because the BBC (and British TV in general) isn't saturated in adverts like American TV it is somehow more "worthwhile". It isn't all about making money from adverts like in America so the reports must soley be about giving people news, not filling a gap.

Forgetting that TV Licensing adds are on pretty regularly.

[Vendetta]

I don't 'trust' any news source...so...

[Ocean Seal]

I know that most leftists wouldn't be so naive as to completely trust the BBC, but in general I feel that most consider it more reliable than, say, CNN or MSNBC. Why? I read the BBC often but I take it with a grain of salt the same way I would with any other network.

Am I just missing something and asking a hugely ignorant question?
Its not so much the idea that we trust it, but that merely the alternatives are often so ridiculous and so poor in covering up blatant lies that BBC just comes off as a better alternative. In other words their lies are less obvious.

[Dacaru]

Just a thought: the Bourgeoisie require the best info possible to help them maintain the status quo. The flourishing of information technology is indicative of that. An older friend of mine, who is a leftist, told me he reads the Financial Times. I of course asked him why, and he told me that the producers of the paper presume an audience with vested interests in the status quo and so are more blunt and direct in there reporting about certain matters, such as strategies for dealing with crisis, thus he can get a sense of their planning. Of course its still riven with ideology, but the info is more often of a higher quality than say cnn and fox. The latter being sterile middle of the road liberal (CNN) and right wing (fox) propaganda for the middle and working classes. Governments also must collect quality to maintain their functioning. So taking their info as raw data and challenging the framing and contextualizing with counter forms is a potent strategy.

[Q]

The BBC did hold a decent quality level in its reporting, did quite a few investigative journalism, etc. For this reason it was renowned internationally. However, recent budget cuts and clashes with the political establishment (especially over its reportage on Iraq and Afghanistan) made it much more cautious, to the point of becoming yet another capitalist news agency.

These days the role of quality journalism is filled by Al Jazeera, probably the best news agency in the world at this moment exactly because it investigates and gives coverage on both sides of all major questions. Of course it too remains a capitalist enterprise, but hidden agenda's don't seem to play a big part in its operation.

[MarxSchmarx]

I don't think it's a "the grass is always greener" view, It's true that the mainstream in the U.K. is slightly less neoliberal and this is reflected in the press but i think there's also an element of greater mainstream press freedom involved. If you take a look at the front page of the guardian, for example, on any given day you will find articles or commentary that one would not expect to see if your institutional analysis, namely that the institutional structure is the same although it represents a slightly less rapacious bourgeoisie, were true.

True in the US there is no real comparable national daily (also the US doesn't have real national dailies with the exception of the USA today and possibly the NY Times the way the UK does), but does the presence of a single left-leaning daily newspaper a spring make? If you look at the Times or the independent these are already arguably further to the right than most major American papers. So perhaps it is the case that there is more "press freedom" in the sense that the UK daily newspaper market is more conducive to a diversity of opinions.

Either way it may be a moot point since a large circulation print daily IMO are on their last legs.

Also, in going along with the rest of the thread, I don't think corporate control is really the deciding factor here. If we look at say Japan where there is also comparatively weak corporate control, the dailies including the state funded NHK are incredibly mediocre, whilst in Mexico where there is astounding corporate control of the press and nothing resembling the BBC RFI or NHK, there are also some acerbic hard-hitting dailies that put the Guardian to shame.

[SHORAS]

Just a quick note to say I think Channel 4 in the UK is far superior to good ole BBC otherwise known as the Voice of British Imperialism. Not that I watch either. Far too much respect and reliance is given to bourgeois news sources, especially The Guardian for example on the Libcom.org forums. A paper Lenin characterized as Liberal bourgeois back God knows when. The myth seems to be that the original Manchester Guardian was slightly radical but I don't know how much truth there is to that. Honestly I don't know if any bourgeois news source can be trusted, I've brought this up elsewhere but not had much of a reply. I'm not some conspiracy theorist I just think the weight of bias, ruling class ideology and interests associated with what I've mentioned are too great. I think it renders them useless but worse, harmful and reactionary.

[Blake's Baby]

Yes, the Manchester Guardian was a radical paper.

These days, it plays upon its radical heritage. It is the only 'serious' daily that doesn't publish the Queen's official engagements, I was once told.