woke.

[SuperBacon]

34 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

taking David Attenborough off the air because his nature documentary might upset Tories.

This hasn't happened. The BBC have had a nightmare this week, but its important to be fair and this was a complete non story by the Guardian.

[FLips]

2 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

This hasn't happened. The BBC have had a nightmare this week, but its important to be fair and this was a complete non story by the Guardian.

What’s the actual story with this then?

I still stand by my point on the BBC becoming less relevent, regardless.

[SuperBacon]

7 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

What’s the actual story with this then?

I still stand by my point on the BBC becoming less relevent, regardless.

That particular episode is funded by the WWF and others and was always iplayer only, and never intended to be on the main channels.

[Carbomb]

13 hours ago, Boycie said:

Fair point. My question remains the same though. If the people you refer to did face censure then what would your reaction be? 

Haven't checked all the answers to this thread yet, but here's my response:

If I honestly thought that there was consistency, and that the right-winger in question wasn't inciting people to hatred and violence, I'd probably not be OK with it. I won't lie: I wouldn't be shedding any tears over it, but it would give me cause for unease.

But I've never lived in a country that was consistent. The UK is a right-wing country that has always forgiven ten times worse in the right what it won't forgive in the left, so that scenario is so beyond academic, it's barely worth discussing.

[Tamura]

14 hours ago, Boycie said:

Right, without wishing to turn this thread into a left vs. right thing, how would you all be reacting had a well known pundit/commentator stepped down due to expressing right wing/anti-immigration views for example? I bet you'd all be celebrating (though if I'm wrong here then I'd be happy to be corrected).

Not a valid comparison.

Despite what some people might think, anti-racism and racism are not opposite yet equal. Is being opposed to murdering Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and disabled people en masse using gas chambers an equally extreme position to advocating the same? Of course not. Similarly being opposed to discrimination based on skin colour, gender, religion or sexual preference is not the same as advocating discrimination based on the same. It should be clear to any reasonable person that one set of views are abhorrent in the 21st century, and attempting to portray opposing views as equally abhorrent is intellectually bankrupt.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Tamura

[Guest]

1 hour ago, FelatioLips said:

The argument for funding the BBC with our TV License gets weaker and weaker when they start pulling presenters for tweeting opposing political views and taking David Attenborough off the air because his nature documentary might upset Tories.
Keeping the BBC around made plenty of sense when there wasn't many channels or radio stations and they offered so much, but in the digital age where everyone has DAB Radio and several streaming options their content is becoming less essential too. Not to mention all the nonces.

There are plenty of reasons why a publicly funded BBC is important to preserve beyond whether or not you like Mrs Brown's Boys, and nobody wants to see an end to its mandate more than the Tories. They'll be rubbing their hands with glee at this incident chipping away at support from those who see its value and are accustomed to defending it.

I can find fault with the Beeb as readily as anyone, but it's a public service tasked with providing content, materials, and a standard of accessibility that no commercially-driven enterprise would bother with. The problem is that it's currently held hostage by those seeking any excuse to remove that obligation, for monetary and political gain, while more than happy to make it dance to their tune while the sword's dangling over its head. It would be a damn shame for this country, and for global journalism, if it didn't survive this abuse.

[BomberPat]

2 hours ago, LEGIT said:

It's the same old thing imo, everyone who agrees with Lineker's views is sympathetic towards him and everyone who disagrees finds his suspension great. 

This simply isn't true, though. There are Tories saying that the BBC are in the wrong for how they've handled it, and Greg Dyke has gone in against the BBC on purely procedural grounds.

I couldn't give a toss about Gary Lineker and think he's your bog-standard wet liberal, but the issue is clearly that BBC impartiality rules aren't being fairly enforced, whatever Lineker said.

As I said earlier in the thread, when the left-wing talk about BBC right-wing bias, they mean clear evidence of bias in their news programming, in their editorial stance, and in the political leanings of their management, up to and including the chairman donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Tory Party and to Boris Johnson specifically. When the right-wing talk of left-wing bias on the BBC, they mean "panel shows make fun of us, the football man has opinions we don't like, and there's a lot of blacks and gays on the telly". That BBC impartiality rules can somehow allow for news presenters and programmers to have clear political conflicts of interest, and for the director general to be a Tory Party donor, but not for a sports presenter to express a not-inaccurate opinion about government policy outside of his on-air role is ridiculous, and a clear abuse of those guidelines. That's the issue, not "everyone who agrees with Lineker thinks X, everyone who disagrees thinks Y".

1 hour ago, FelatioLips said:

The argument for funding the BBC with our TV License gets weaker and weaker when they start pulling presenters for tweeting opposing political views and taking David Attenborough off the air because his nature documentary might upset Tories.
Keeping the BBC around made plenty of sense when there wasn't many channels or radio stations and they offered so much, but in the digital age where everyone has DAB Radio and several streaming options their content is becoming less essential too. Not to mention all the nonces.

The BBC is their own worst enemy. I'm 100% in favour of the license fee, or of the BBC remaining publicly funded in some way. Because it's not just their flagship TV output - if they went private, where's the financial incentive for them to continue providing local news and weather (online as well as TV and radio), or GCSE Bitesize revision planning, or the shipping forecast, or radio comedy and drama that nobody else is providing, or shows like Springwatch that have a genuine public benefit but I doubt would be remotely financially viable outside of the BBC model. Probably a ton of stuff I'm overlooking too. Speaking of Springwatch, Chris Packham should be looking over his shoulder given how many right-wing Countryside Alliance cunts have been out to get him for years, who are bound to see this as their opportunity.

No one left-leaning should be cheering on the collapse or privatisation of a publicly owned entity, but the BBC in recent years have made themselves very hard to defend because of constant capitulation to government, and interpreting "impartiality" as just unquestioningly repeating the government line. It's infuriating, and if the BBC dies off they only have themselves to blame, but it never should have come to this.

The only positive spin on all of it is that I don't think we'd have anything like this level of self-criticism or airing of critical views that the BBC are doing (their live news updates on the website this morning are basically a steady stream of "we're fucked, aren't we?") in a US-style commercial news network, but that's little comfort

 

[Jazzy G]

I think I read that MOTD tonight will literally just be footage of highlights from the matches because commentators are speaking out in support of Gary Linekar. I wonder whether there'll be any 606 this weekend. 

[Mr_Danger]

I’m pretty sure he’s sat in a pub corner pissing his pants by 10:30am so fuck knows what state he’d be in by 10:30pm. 

[Devon Malcolm]

Get Porky Parry on to eat some more cinnamon.

[SuperBacon]

I cant stop laughing at this.

[Hannibal Scorch]

Just to add to the left/right bias of Aunty Beeb

 

[Tommy!]

I don't follow sport or politics but Smiths > Walkers 

[Hannibal Scorch]

27 minutes ago, Tommy! said:

I don't follow sport or politics but Smiths > Walkers 

Golden Wonder > Smiths > Walkers

[BomberPat]

It's a complicated thing - Andrew Neill was, as I understand it, not a BBC employee in the same sense that Gary Lineker is. And "impartiality" rules were changed relatively recently, and were far stricter on social media accounts and the like than before - I remember seeing pricks celebrating that Lineker and Packham would definitely get fired for Being Political.

None of that's a defence, mind, just that a lot of people are bringing up comments from years ago as a kind of "gotcha", when the situation isn't quite the same.

Absolutely mental that a milquetoast liberal like Lineker has ended up looking like a radical speaking truth to power because the BBC are useless enough to capitulate to the Tories are at their most inept, and because the Tories have already moved the Overton Window far enough to the right that it currently looks out on a lovely view of 1930s Munich.