James Murdoch Criticizes BBC For Providing "Free News" 703
Hugh Pickens writes "News Corporation's James Murdoch says that a 'dominant' BBC threatens independent journalism in the UK and that free news on the web provided by the BBC made it 'incredibly difficult' for private news organizations to ask people to pay for their news. 'It is essential for the future of independent digital journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it,' says Murdoch. 'The expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision.' In common with the public broadcasting organizations of many other European countries, the BBC is funded by a television license fee charged to all households owning a television capable of receiving broadcasts. Murdoch's News Corporation, one of the world's largest media conglomerates, owns the Times, the Sunday Times and Sun newspapers and pay TV provider BSkyB in the UK and the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News TV in the US." Note that James Murdoch is the son of Rupert Murdoch.
Hey Murdoch, ask me (Score:5, Informative)
Hey Murdoch, I am a UK BBC licence fee payer and I have no problems with what the BBC is doing with my cash with regards to their news provisions, especially their excellent news Web site.
You don't like what they are doing with my cash? Tough - if you don't like it, get another job.
Yours etc..
Different meaning of independent (Score:1, Informative)
Murdoch means "independent journalism" in the sense of "journalism that is independent of the facts". The Beeb obviously threatens that, with their insistence on reality-based reporting.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:1, Informative)
The fact is that the BBC is known for its objectivity.
.
Perhaps one considers the BBC "objective" if one is left-of-center. However, a report commissioned by the BBC itself (reported here [timesonline.co.uk]) found bias.
Re:Ultimate irony (Score:5, Informative)
Irony given News Corp's attitude to reporting about themselves. When they were recently implicated in illegal phone tapping, the silence from News Corp's papers (the Sun, the News of the World et al) was deafening.
Winfall (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:5, Informative)
For free NOAA/National Weather Service forecasts for your ZIP code (USA only) go to weather.gov [weather.gov], input your city and state.
Then, at that next page, input your ZIP code.
Save the URL of the resulting page with the forecast for your ZIP code.
This will make EX-Senator Santorum weep bitter, bitter tears.
And you'll get, essentially, the same forecast you'd get from the local media. After all, the NWS is where they get their weather info from.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:4, Informative)
No, they sued and won for the right to fire employees for refusing to lie to you.
No. The implications of that case were much more broad. Not only did they permit them to fire them -- but it was then, under judgement, supporting the matter that the news is 'merely' (lol) entertainment and that the information need not be factual by any means.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:5, Informative)
No, they sued and won for the right to fire employees for refusing to lie to you.
A distinction without a difference. It's an uncontested matter of court record that they ordered the producers to knowingly include false information in a news documentary. By prevailing in the law suit, they have established their right to do so again. Do you think they have discontinued the practice after getting a favorable court ruling?
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:3, Informative)
Which is why the BBC has been at the forefront of reporting the MP expense scandal in Britain, which has certainly done far more damage to Labour than to the Conservatives.
I'm not saying the BBC is perfect, but as new sources goes, it's probably up there as being one of the most reliable in the world. Look at the demonstrations in Iran. Without the BBC's Farsi division, the extent of our knowledge of what happened after the election would be far less.
Besides, even if there is some bias in the BBC, it's nothing compared to that grand misinformation network known as Fox News. Murdoch is a lying worthless sack of crap who views journalism as a propaganda tool. He's nothing more than Leonid Brezhnev with a large collection of fancy cars.
Murdoch != Murdoch (Score:1, Informative)
FYI, James Murdoch is the son of Rupert Murdoch, who is the actual guy who runs "News" Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Murdoch_(media_executive) [wikipedia.org]
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:5, Informative)
Technically, the BBC is neither government owned nor taxpayer funded. Of course, by law if you operate any equipment capable of receiving broadcast material you have to pay the license fee, but the government doesn't handle or distribute the funding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bbc#Governance [wikipedia.org]
As an interesting aside, you can use the BBC iPlayer to watch previously shown material without a license, but you can't watch the live stream without one. As long as you watch everything an hour later you're good.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:5, Informative)
What about when CBS rigged cars to explode when they slammed into a wall, and then used that story to convince viewers "to call your Senators and Congressmen to ask for tougher safety laws". Fake news indeed.
And then there's John Stossel over at ABC who admitted his corporate overlords routinely censor his pro-small government stories saying, "We can't risk angering the Congress." That video, in case you want to watch it, is on youtube. Keywords - Freedom Watch John Stossel
Fake news indeed. Bias evident.
Re:Government sponsered (Score:3, Informative)
BBC World Service is funded by the Foreign Office, not the license fee.
The BBC is also split into many other companies, outside of the UK they are usually commercial and not funded by the license fee also.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:3, Informative)
Disney's the largest media conglomerate just by sheer company size, not necessarily as a measure of its control of news media--- Disney makes a bunch of money from movies, cruises, and theme parks as well.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:3, Informative)
Um...really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC [wikipedia.org]
NOTE: For the record, I think FOX News is shit and Murdoch should be hung by his balls...but let's not pretend that the BBC is some bastion of fairness and impartiality.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:1, Informative)
FYI that's only true for radio, not TV, I just tried iPlayer for a Top Gear episode and it says 'you can't use iPlayer TV outside the UK, but you can listen to Radio, click here to find out WHY'.
Murdoch is not an idiot... (Score:5, Informative)
I like the BBC. Murdoch's an idiot.
Rupert Murdoch may be many things. He's an entirely amoral, self-serving piece of shit who as far as I can tell has never believed in, stood for, or even demonstrated any interest in anything other than furthering his own business interests. Everything else is a means to that end. He's shown no compunction in repeatedly subverting journalistic integrity to promote his own business agenda.
The recent Silvio Berlusconi scandals were promoted by his former ally Murdoch, when Berlusconi made moves to tax Murdoch's Sky Italia satellite TV network less favourably. Yes, Berlusconi is just as bad, but that's beside the point- the fact that Murdoch can use the might of his own network to wage a partisan campaign against him is hardly A Good Thing.
It's been clear for a long time that Murdoch Sr hates the BBC because it's competition, and not because of any higher principle, regardless of what he likes to claim. Like the Berlusconi case, it's clear he's quite happy for his mouthpieces to sacrifice journalistic integrity in favour of going after his enemies.
Anyway, back to the point. Murdoch may be many things, but he's not an idiot. Quite the opposite. His one-dimensional focus and complete absence of any principles have made him an extremely shrewd businessman.
I wouldn't count him out too soon, any more than I'd finish the cancer drugs halfway through the course because the tumour hadn't been quite as aggressive this week.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:5, Informative)
An awful lot of BBC generated content on the radio is NOT repeat NOT blocked from internet users outside the UK. I listen to Radio 5 a lot. There are many text's & email from listeners all over the world.
The main exceptions are where they don't own the worldwide broadcast rights. Eg PRemiership Footie. Even part of that is broadcast worldwide via the BBC World Service.
The recent Cricket Test series between England & Australia was broadcast worldwide. TMS ( Test Match Special) is very proud of its Worldwide audience not just its listeners in the UK and Oz.
Perhaps you should check your facts?
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:2, Informative)
"Fox News sued and won for the right to lie to you. "
No they didn't. You are no better than them when you twist the truth like that.
A diplomatic view (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Government sponsered (Score:5, Informative)
Untrue. The BBC is funded solely through the license fee, sales of it's programmes abroad, and sales of other materials.
It receives no government funds. It is no more answerable to the government than any other media organisation. It pays it's taxes. It also has a unique lack of pressure from external commercial interests.
everyone that purchases a TV in Britain [has] to support the BBC, whether they actually watch it or not.
Yes, this is true. But the BBC in turn provides such an excellent benchmark that all the other FTA broadcasters in the UK have to raise their game, so it arguably has a positive effect on your viewing even if you don't watch it. Just the reduction in commercial break sizes (a maximum average of 12 minutes, versus about 18 minutes in the USA) is worth the license fee, which is very small compared to the costs of equivalent offerings.
Imagine if the USA had an equivalent, independent, federally mandated institution (PBS is federally funded and thus is not independent). It could either produce about 4 times as much content or cost half the money .. and still produce twice as much content. And that's compared to....
And that's all commercial free [bbc.co.uk] , with a mandate to inform, educate, and entertain [bbc.co.uk].
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:3, Informative)
That just proves how out of touch with reality America is.
How can you have a "World" series when only one country from the "World" competes.
Because it was named after the company that sponsored it.. The "World" newspaper, as far as I remember. It could just as easily have been the times series or the enquirer series or any other paper you care to mention.
And America wonders why people hate it so much.
We don't hate.. We just point and laugh.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:2, Informative)
The "World" in World Series refers to a company name, not geography. ...much like the Hanshin Tigers.
Although you're welcome to suggest an alternate global champion
in baseball if you think you can.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:4, Informative)
It wasn't just the forecasts that Santorum and crew wanted to lock down. It was *all* of the weather data that is available for free. WSR-88D Radar images, atmospheric modelling outputs, watches & warnings, high resolution satellite images, and quite a bit more. Accuweather wanted everything that is available on both the EMWIN and the NOAAPORT networks to be encrypted and unavailable to anyone who didn't want to pay a bunch of money to Accuweather.
Re:Ultimate irony (Score:3, Informative)
The BBC claimed that they were forced to provide DRM by the rights owners, but that didn't explain why they needed to for BBC-produced content, nor why they could suddenly provide a DRM-free version for the iPhone. It also didn't explain how they were allowed to transmit in unencrypted HD MPEG2 over the air...
Re:Ultimate irony (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.newscorp.com/news/bunews_40.html [newscorp.com]
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/402737/The-News-of-the-World-was-the-subject-of-some-ferocious-attacks.html [newsoftheworld.co.uk]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124713962333917725.html [wsj.com]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124710587096916143.html [wsj.com]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124725579809924597.html [wsj.com]
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2528020/Met-Police-No-investigation-into-hacking.html [thesun.co.uk]
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2530062/No-truth-in-News-of-the-World-phone-tap-claim.html [thesun.co.uk]
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Article/200907215334404 [sky.com]
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Article/200907215335802 [sky.com]
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25762968-401,00.html [news.com.au]
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25763994-23109,00.html [news.com.au]
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25759684-7582,00.html [news.com.au]
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25757545-2703,00.html [news.com.au]
http://www.skynews.com.au/showbiz/article.aspx?id=351326 [skynews.com.au]
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6670747.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
just a few links about it from News Corp. owned sources.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:3, Informative)
You also don't need a license to listen to BBC radio. The license fee applies to people using TV receivers. You can stop paying the license fee and continue listening to the radio without fear of consequences and in good conscience.
I knew as soon as the Murdoch junta declared their intent to charge for internet news that the BBC would be attacked in the near future.
Every time I hear those people crying for the end of the license fee, I see the world dominated by those rich media oligarchs like Murdoch and his unholy spawn, and wonder why they seem to think is a desirable alternative.
he's actually wrong! (Score:5, Informative)
The WSJ does produce decent news, and he's busy trying to stop that, because since he's had it, its gone down hill like hell.
Seriously, some of the best quality media comes out of the independant but govt owned sources, the BBC in the UK, ABC & SBS in Australia, the CBC in Canada and so one. Because these news sources are largely empowered (not fully so CBC & SBS, but mostly) to operate without bowing down to advertisers and big corporate interests, and LARGELY the govts have backed off from interfering with their autonomy (Oh they try, but the stations tend to resist). We actually need that. In Australia the ABC have proven their govt independence by shows like 4 Corners that have always been prepared to attack the government when it behaves badly , and interestingly in ways the commercial TV stations seem reluctant to. The SBS provides foreign and experimental programming that would never be shown by the bottom-line conscious commercial shows. And at a time when commercial TV is completely debased by ridiculous reality shows and idiotic right wing "current affairs" (usually consisting of harrassing poor people for being on welfare and the like) , the ABC provides high class drama, news, documentaries and so on.
Seriously Murdoch can go fuck himself. His shitty newspapers spread hate and fear in our community with its attacks on minorities and poor people, and he's done the same in the US with the gutteral fox news service. He's got no right to complain if nobody wants to pay for his "news". Make a non shit product and people might pay for it. Its not govt money that makes the BBC popular, its the fact that the alternatives are so fucking dismal.
Re:You don't actually like western style governmen (Score:3, Informative)
"American style government" != "Western style government", though it is certainly a subset, and rooted in largely the same philosophy.
Americans didn't invent neither republicanism, nor democracy, nor rule of law, nor individual rights, nor "no taxation without representation". And all the processes that have ultimately resulted in Democratic West as it is today have started, and yielded results, long before 1776, and on a different continent.
In particular, see Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth [wikipedia.org], and Dutch Republic [wikipedia.org] for some more well known examples.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:5, Informative)
Define 'long run'. The BBC has been around for 87 years, if it's going to turn into a instrument for government propaganda, it's taking its time.
Are you American by any chance? They seem to be paranoid about the government doing anything at all, so I'm not sure whether to take them seriously or not.
Re:Please don't tell me that! (Score:3, Informative)
Apt.
Re:Threatening plurality? (Score:4, Informative)
Because it was named after the company that sponsored it.. The "World" newspaper, as far as I remember. It could just as easily have been the times series or the enquirer series or any other paper you care to mention.
Not so - see http://www.snopes.com/business/names/worldseries.asp [snopes.com]