[dropcap style=”font-size:100px; color:#992211;”]Y[/dropcap]ou pay for it, you get to say who runs it.
That, at least, should be the case. The BBC depends upon license-payers for its funding, not advertisers.
Numerous regulatory bodies exist to maintain and enforce unbiased coverage of news and events in the broadcast media. Some of them are effective.
Legislation exists to maintain and enforce truthfulness and legal rights in coverage of news and events in the broadcast media. Some of that is effective.
All of this is irrelevant though, when media outlets are controlled by corporate interests and agendae. A major advertiser witholding a lucrative campaign due to news coverage that attacks their product, will influence commercial-sector broadcasting more quickly and more efficiently than any judicial intervention.
Which is one reason why a license-funded BBC, free of such influence, is a cultural institution that must be preserved. Similarly, it is a reason why the recruitment of the BBC’s next Director General must be a process in which the license-payer has influence.
OurBeeb is an organisation seeking to make the BBC’s next Director General truly accountable to the public, with a petition to make the recruitment of the new BBC Director General an open process, rather than the result of closed-door, backroom politicking that it currently is.
The petition is here.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
