more on BBC promotes the Bush Plan to Privatize Social Security(Open Letter)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Ian Jackson <ijackson () chiark greenend org uk>
Newsgroups: chiark.mail.interesting-people
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 16:01:33 +0000
To: <dave () farber net>
Cc: Ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] BBC promotes the Bush Plan to Privatize Social
Security(Open Letter)

Ronda Hauben <ronda () panix com>:
> Here is an open letter I sent to the BBC about the program story
> they had on their World Business Report on Thursday, [...]

While I agree with Ronda that the report was wrong - and support the
decision to write to the BBC - it should be noted that this doesn't
reflect specific BBC or World Service editorial policy, as far as I
can make out.

The BBC World Service has a number of magazine and topic-specific news
programs like _World Business Report_ (and its longer cousin _In
Business_), _Focus on Faith_, _One Planet_ (regarding environmental
issues), _Science in Action_ etc.

Each of these programmes takes as a starting point the biases and
opinions of the relevant community.  So, the `business'[1] programmes
take free market capitalist dogma as an assumption; the environmental
programmes don't challenge the view that we are destroying the
environment.  This is most strikingly visible in _Focus on Faith_,
which deals with issues affecting and arising from religion: whichever
religion is being discussed, its tenets are taken as true for the
purposes of the discussion.  It is remarkable to hear the presenters
effortlessly moving between wildly different theological and moral
positions :-).  (The personal religious views of the presenters are
not known.)

This policy, of taking for granted the premises of an interest group
when making a programme about `their' issues, can result in more
diverse, useful, and interesting programming: in controversial areas
(like economic and environmental policy, for example!) there are whole
subject areas that would otherwise be swamped by largely sterile
debate.  (Of course, this approach should not be taken all of the time
- and isn't, by the BBC at least.)

So while it is disappointing that the `business' community contains so
many people who think that social security privatisation is a good
thing, for that very reason it is not surprising to find that _World
Business Report_ doesn't do much to challenge that view.

My complaint would rather be that programs from that `business' point
of view should also be so integrated into news programmes, and also
get rather too much airtime.  Programmes which form part of or attach
to news bulletins should take a neutral point of view and represent
controversy fairly.  The BBC World Service largely does this very well
in its current affairs programming; it's a shame that _World Business
Report_ is treated, apparently, as a `business' programme rather than
as a news program.

[1] Of course `business' here really only refers to a subset of those
who participate in business; many are excluded - but that's just a
matter of terminology, since the term as used definitely does refer to
a substantial number people who often have a similar outlook.  Perhaps
it's unfortunate that negative descriptions like `capitalist
oppressors' don't have the same currency as positive ones like
`business', but most communities do get to define their own labels so
we should not be surprised.

Ian.

------ End of Forwarded Message


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