British government considers breaking up the BBC

[BayCityProgressive]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0215-05.htm

great...looks like Britian will start having a state run news by the Labor Party. Thank God we won the cold war. Now America and Britian can be just like Russia was.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Pretty unbelievable development.

The BBC was a great voice for the people. I still don't fully understand how they got caught up in the blame game.

[Cannikin]

2. MIHOP....so they can neuter the free press....

This wars public support has gone very badly for the government because of its news coverage..so what do you do? Eliminate that factor. Then you can tell the people that the war is going great...no matter what the truth might be.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. What seems to have happened, and correct me if I'm wrong...

Is that a state sanctioned investigation committee blamed the BBC for the Iraq misinformation and in blaming the BBC, it took Blair off the hook.

Do I have that right? Is staunch conservative warhawk, Lord Black involved in any of this?

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. The report said the BBC had no foundation for saying Blair lied

which was partly true; the BBC wouldn't have been able to prove in a court of law that Blair knew the 45 minute claim was wrong. In a way, the burden of proof seems to have been assumed to be like the notoriously strict British libel laws - a writer (or broadcaster) has to be able to prove their accusation is true.

Because Hutton found against the BBC on this point, Blair is claiming his use of intelligence has been vindicated (despite his claim of a Bush-like lack of curiosity about what weapons were supposed to be able to be launched within 45 minutes).

The irony that, at best, the government used rumours from unreliable sources to build a case for killing thousands of people, and thinks itself justified, while the BBC used a reliable (but single) source for exposing this, and have been condemned, has passed over Blair's head completely. I think his towering ego blinds him to things that reflect badly on himself.

Lord Black isn't directly involved in any if this; but his paper, the Telegraph, is part of the larger problem of the media in Britain. So many of the newspapers are unashamedly biased politically (mostly to the right) that the average person can't get true facts from them (the exceptions are the Guardian, Independent, the Financial Times, and to a certain extent, the Murdoch-owned Times, which, although right-leaning, is still bearable; what the Telegraph prints as news is true, but I wouldn't trust it to follow up stories that were inconvenient for its point of view. I don't read the Scottish papers enough to be able to rate them).
This means the broadcast media has to make up for this. Commercial radio stations don't spend much money on news coverage, especially investigative journalism; and neither does Channel 5 on TV. ITV, the most-watched commercial channel, has been spending less and less on journalism (it used to give the BBC a run for its money in proper international news coverage and documentaries, but now it's more rebroadcast CNN reports and 'human interest' stories). That leaves Channel 4 (a commercial, but non-profit, organisation whose licence says it should do non-mainstream programming) and the BBC. Both do a good job, overall; but for 20 years the party in government has constantly attacked the BBC for being too critical of it, when the BBC is really doing what all journalists ought to be.

The problem with Hutton was that we all saw so much evidence in the inquiry that showed how the government distorted intelligence to bolster its case for war, that we thought Hutton was on the side of truth, and built him up as 'independent'. That left Blair thinking the whitewash verdict vindicates him, and allows him to move for more government control of the BBC.

[tom_paine]

5. Nature abhors a vacuum

I've often had pause to consider, since Amerika has put it's feet firmly on the path to Free-Market Stalinism (probably less violent, Thank God, though I wouldn't be sure until we see the Final Transformations in the 2030s or so), that I actually miss the Old Soviet Union.

No, I don't miss MAD. No, I don't miss the Soviet Commie Lying Hypocrisy (after all, people pining for a dose of THAT just need to flip on Faux "News" to see Imperial Pravda these days).

What I miss is that, with the Old Soviet Union as example, we NEVER would have allowed the Busheviks to make us so much like them.

"WHAT??? You mean the government wants to track EACH CITIZEN regardless as to whether they've got probably cause?? Why, that's what they do in the Soviet Union!"

"WHAT??? You mean the government wants to allow the FBI to infiltrate political and religious dissident groups FOR NO REASON and WITHOUT probable cause?? Why, that's what they do in the Soviet Union!"

And so forth...