Weasel Words of the BBC's defenders

The Left have gone through seventy-three years (and counting) of selective pressures that have brought them to the top of Britain's Establishment.  That means they are clever.  Many of them have high verbal intelligence especially.

Among the weasel formulations they use to give the BBC sentimental and emotional pull with the public are the following, all of which have been put to us:

"The BBC is the national broadcaster"

The BBC is a state broadcaster.  The difference is crucial.  The BBC is not this fluffy, harmless broadcasting organisation loved by the nation.  The BBC is owned by the state.  Furthermore, many of its directing Board are government appointees, its senior management appointments are approved by government ministers, the government sets its terms and the government settles the TV licence fee and awards it grant aid out of general taxation.  It is conceded that the BBC operates largely autonomously and has editorial independence, but political control of the BBC is undeniable and ineluctably leads to the government setting the political tone at the BBC and influencing its institutional culture and values.  Furthermore, there is a long and disreputable record of editorial interference and meddling from governments at key moments in history.

The BBC is a state body that is imposed on us and those who resist are bullied.  The funding of the BBC is ultimately enforced by the state - with the threat of court summonses and prison as the final sanctions.  No other broadcaster imposes itself on the public in this way.  If we decide we don't like Sky, we simply don't watch it, settle up our bill and we need have nothing further to do with that broadcaster.  If we decide we don't like the BBC, we must still fund it anyway, or ultimately face imprisonment.  That is outrageous.

"The BBC has nothing to do with the state.  It's a public service broadcaster"

This is the weasel formulation used by the BBC themselves.  Notice the fluffy, nice-sounding phrase, 'public service broadcaster'.  It's intended to trick you into not examining the true reality of the BBC, which we have already outlined.  These dishonest people want you to think that the state's ownership and control of the BBC are only notional, when the reality is a little bit more complex.  It is also intended to deter you from thinking any further about the matter.  For instance, you may wish to consider exactly what this phrase 'public service broadcasting' really means.

As we have explained elsewhere, if public service broadcasting means being impartial, balanced, diverse and upholding the highest production standards, etc., we have seen nothing to tell us that only the BBC can do those things, if it can do them at all, or that any decent commercial broadcaster cannot uphold such values to the extent that they are practicable.  In short, public service broadcasting is not the exclusive province of the public sector and the BBC is hardly doing a good job in what is supposedly its own specialist field.

The truth is that the BBC is flawed.  We think it should be abolished.