#the BBC are very far from impartial

[splend-42]

They did mention it once:

Yesterday, July 8th, saw a huge march for trans rights in London. Over 25,000 people in attendance, including celebrities and activists. Our "impartial" media, the BBC, hasn't mentioned it once across the BBC News website. You'd think 25,000+ gathering in the capital city to protest for equality would be worth even a token one-liner article, but no.

I would say I'm disappointed but at this point it's expected. I'm angry about it, though.

[theworldgate]

I have to explain what is going on in the UK, because it is absurd.

So, this is Gary Lineker:

He's known for a fair few things over here. He was a very good (association) footballer, playing for England in the 1986 and 1990 World Cups, winning the Golden Boot in 1986, and managing to never get a single yellow card in his playing career. He played for Leicester City, Everton, Barcelona, and Tottenham, before finishing his career in Japan. But if you aren't in your mid 30s, you probably know actually know him him for a couple of other things. The first is the role of spokesman for another Leicester icon, Walkers Crisps (which are sort of equivalent to Lays, but hit different), as pictured above. Despite being a notably clean player, he used to play a cheeky serial crisp thief. I don't think he's done that for well over a decade, but his ads were on the telly a lot when I was a kid and it's a bit like learning that the hamburglar was an incredibly clean (American) football player or something.

The second thing Gary is widely known for is having presented Match of the Day, the big football program on the BBC, the sort-of state broadcaster, since 1999. He is, incidentally, very well paid for this (though with a consensus that he could get even more if he went to one of the non-free-to-view broadcasters because he is very good at the job). He also has a twitter account. And political opinions. So, the UK government has got itself dead set upon doing heinous stuff that will totally somehow work to prevent people who want to come to the UK making the perilous crossing of the Channel (between England and France). By heinous, I mean "openly advertise that they won't attempt to protect victims of modern slavery" stuff. It's very obviously using a legal hammer to victimise a marginalised group of people in order to win votes. And, uh, I should clarify that by "legal" I mean "using the passage of laws" - the policy is, in addition to all the other ways it's awful, probably incompatible with the Human Rights Act and the UK's international law obligations. Gary, top lad that he is, objected to this. On Tuesday 7th March, he made a quote Tweet of a video of the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, bigging up the policy, he wrote "Good heavens, this is beyond awful.". This got a bunch of backlash from extremely right-wingers, and then he made the tweet that really got him in trouble (with right-wingers): "There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?".

Now, I am not actually subjecting myself to watching a video of Suella Braverman bigging up a cruel policy to say whether the specific comparison of the language to 1930s Germany is accurate. But needless to say, Ms Braverman was amongst the many figures on the right of UK politics objecting to Gary's rhetoric. And here's the part where a fact about the BBC comes in: it is nominally neutral and impartial (and so, of course, is routinely accused of bias from all sides but particularly the right-wing), and has something of a code for its contributors to this effect. Now, that code has previously been applied to Gary Lineker, over a comment about whether governing Conservative Party would hand back donations from figures linked to the Russian regime. But it generally hasn't been applied too strongly to people like Gary, whose roles have nothing to do with politics (such as presenting a "here's what happened on the footie today" show), on the basis that, well, their roles have nothing to do with politics. However, when directly asked about whether the BBC should punish Gary Lineker for his tweets, government figures basically went "well, that's a them problem". But a couple of days passed, and it seemed like Gary's approach of "standing his ground because he did nothing wrong" was working and everything would die down. He was set to get 'a talking to' but not much more than that. The Conservative right, after all their fire and fury earlier, had gotten bored and moved onto something else. And then, on Friday 10th March, the BBC announced that he would be suspended from hosting Match of the Day this weekend. But it could still go ahead, because there are, like, other hosts! Except, well, funnily enough, when you take a beloved figure off air, for making a fairly anodyne tweet, no one wants to be the scab who actually takes up the role of replacing him. Gary's two co-hosts, Alan Shearer and Ian Wright, said that they would not appear without him. People who (co-)host Match of the Day on other days followed suit. The net result is that Match of the Day is currently set to air without hosts, BBC commentary, or global feed commentary. And the solidarity shown to Gary Lineker, over what is very flagrantly actual cancel culture and an attack on freedom of speech (the logic implied is that institutional impartiality requires that no one say anything too critical of the government ever), has continued to grow. The BBC has pretty much been unable to run pretty much any live sports content today, and has resorted to raiding the BBC Sounds archive to fill the sports radio channel. And, as of 17:30 on Saturday 11th March, the situation shows no signs of improvement, though some are calling for the Chairman Richard Sharp, who is separately facing corruption allegations, to resign (yes I linked to the BBC itself there, there is nothing, nothing, the BBC loves more than going into great detail about how much the BBC sucks).

[aeolianblues]

I’ve been poring over the election result maps (why?? Curiosity maybe?) and the thing I’m seeing is that pretty much all over the country, the Tories have 1. lost seats, and heavily. 1.2. They’ve lost seats in Conservative strongholds. They’ve lost seats in places that haven’t not voted Tory in decades, 50+ years.

2. More importantly, every place I’ve seen that will have a Tory MP is a seat the Tories have retained. Meaning the Conservatives have gained basically no seats at all, unless I missed something on the map. No constituency this time has looked at the last four years and thought, ‘I haven’t voted Tory before, but I’m going to consider it this time’. The only seats they will hold are ones that voted Tory last time, and even those they lost many of.

The great news is this means Tory scare tactics have NOT worked. Rwanda has not worked. ‘We’ll introduce national service’ has not worked. Threatening to leave the ECHR has not worked. Matt Hancock’s celebrity TV appearances have not worked. Rishi Sunak’s politicisation of climate change has not worked in favour of the Tories, in fact the Libdems and the Greens have made historic inroads into government.

Partygate was not forgotten. ‘Let the bodies pile high’ was not forgotten. Sewage in the rivers was not forgotten, nor forgiven. The villainisation of NHS workers, striking workers and people in public services has not worked, in fact both Labour and the Libdems had headlining parts of their manifestos talking about reducing NHS waiting lists, creating more funding for the NHS and in fact public services (nationalised clean energy being one of Labour’s big election promises), whereas Rishi Sunak’s blaming NHS waiting times on striking doctors on the campaign trail was widely denounced as being in poor taste.

There’s stuff to take heart from, in spite of it all.

Of course we worry that a lot of those Tory seats shifted further right to Reform for the first time. And Kier Starmer’s Labour shares a few policies with the Tories. But I’m still out here hoping that with Labour now in power, Kier Starmer can now stop trying to win Conservative votes and actually act like a Labour leader. I’m hoping the Libdems and Green are able to keep pulling Labour to the left.

Hopefully Kier Starmer is made very clearly aware of how many votes Labour lost because of his initial stance on Israel and Gaza. The fact that members of his own party were on Radio 4 this morning publicly saying that most the independent seats Labour lost were to candidates who were running on criticism of how long it took Starmer to eventually join calls for a ceasefire, and who could highlight that the difference between a leader of opposition calling for a ceasefire, and a government in Downing Street that has the ability to curtail the arms sent to Israel was massive, and a far from symbolic gesture.

In terms of the tone of politics in the UK: Tim Davie is still the director-general of the BBC, but a lot of the caution on the part of the BBC to ‘remain impartial’ to the point of never fact checking the Tories, allowing some of the most vile and fringe commentary on trans rights to enter the country’s public consciousness and discourse, not correcting the Tories as they kept demonising striking rail and NHS workers— a lot of that was down to them not wanting to lose funding for the BBC, which the Tories would threaten to gut, loudly and often. Hopefully with Labour in government, the BBC can go back to somewhat sensible reporting.

There is stuff to look forward to, in spite of everything. Lower energy bills in the future would be a nice place to start, and if it is genuinely nationalised green energy as Starmer has stated before, then that’s a sweet, sweet plus.

[jfbuckley]

Just to be clear from the outset, I have to state that I am NOT a great fan of Nigel Farage. I sympathise with some of his policies, but generally not with his ways of going about things.

What sends cold shivers down my spine about this story is that it shows just how far down the road we are to a Chinese style “social credit” system, where the government controls and knows everything about you, and if you don’t fit in with their thinking, you are “cancelled” and will find it very hard to live.

I don’t care who it is. Nigel Farage or Mick Lynch. The banks should NOT have the power to close your account just because they don’t like your ideas. It should be made illegal right NOW!!

What makes this story even more shocking, is that despite it being a massive attack on civil liberties, there is not a whisper of it on the supposedly impartial BBC. I wonder why?

[apazwtsn]

Calm down people, I think you've taken it too far, both of you.

Don't take this personally, you know? If I see something I don't like, I just move on. If either "they are attacking my favorite show" or "they criticize me senselessly for something I said"

Being a person who enjoys all adaptations equally, without or with very little preference (ACD), I think I can contribute an impartial opinion in this little discussion debate.

Actually, I am not very good at debates, in general I get quite stuck and since I am bad at explaining what I think, I unconsciously think that others hate me or do not directly want me to talk, So, thank you, Internet, for giving me, in some sense, this veil of anonymity.

I've seen BBC sherlock, and I liked it. In fact, I had not noticed its flaws until I read several metas about it(I still don't do it??) but I'm not a person who analyzes things in depth. If I like something, I just like it, if not, I don't. And if you asked me to explain why I like something, I couldn't say it for sure.

I've only listened to the first 3 episodes of Sh&Co, so I can't say much about it. So far, I liked it. Although not being in my native language or having official subtitles, It makes it a little difficult for me to fully understand it. Also, I'm more of a vision person than an ear person, so it's a little harder for me to visualize what's happening at Sh&Co.

As a person who doesn't know shit about science (well, until now what I was taught in school and a couple of things I've seen on TV), I can't complain about any of the series for being scientifically incorrect. I'm here for a policial. I'm here because I want to see my favorite characters from literature in the 21st century. Not to talk to me about atoms and molecules and physics, that's why I got Rick & Morty. I understand perfectly that for someone who knows about the subject it can cause a terrible headache, because that's what happens to me every time someone calls the monster Frankenstein.

Regarding the Fuck BBC Sherlock thing, well, I think that's a point for Gregorovich (I don't know if that's actually your name, sorry). It was a post of their blog, and well, they can do whatever they want on their blog. It was expected, I guess. The majority of the blog is dedicated to criticizing BBC Sherlock. And the original post was about comparing BBC SH with SH&CO. So, yeah, I guess, they have the right to criticize it.

Is this a discussion, or a debate? I think it's a debate. If you were arguing, you probably would have gone to hell by now. But yes, I think it's a bit stupid. You like BBC Sherlock? Good. You don't like it? Good. Do you hate it so much that you want to say fuck BBC Sherlock every time you talk? uhh, good.

Do you like BBC Sherlock, and are you offended when someone speaks badly of it? If you want me to be frank, you should let it go. It's not worth getting angry over things like that.

I always try to speak as calmly as possible in debates. Even if sometimes anger wins me (this is not the case). I don't even know if what I said makes sense! Haha (not funny). The point is, if you don't like something, ignore it. Applies to everything.

I know I literally got into a conversation that isn't mine, but please, you guys are fighting over nonsense. (Besides, what else can I do? I like gossip and I hate seeing people fight)

[hummussexual]

(the link has more twitter shots than allowed by Tumblr...)

By Al Jazeera Staff Published On 27 Feb 202227 Feb 2022 | Updated: 27 Feb 2022 05:17 PM (GMT)

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues into a fourth day, an outpouring of support for Ukrainians has been witnessed across much of Europe, Australia, and the West in general. The war began on Thursday after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to enter Ukraine, following months of a heavy military build-up on the border. Ukraine’s health minister said at least 198 Ukrainians, including three children, have been killed so far during the invasion. The United Nations says more than 360,000 Ukrainians have fled the country, with the majority crossing the border into neighbouring Poland.

The war has triggered swift condemnation by several countries, immediate sanctions by the United States and other countries targeting Russian banks, oil refineries, and military exports, and marathon emergency talks at the UN Security Council (UNSC). On social media, the speed of such an international response – which includes the exclusion of Russia from some cultural events and treatment of it as a pariah in sports – has raised eyebrows at the lack of such a reaction to other conflicts across the world. Media pundits, journalists, and political figures have been accused of double standards for using their outlets to not only commend Ukraine’s armed resistance to Russian troops, but also to underlying their horror at how such a conflict could happen to a “civilised” nation. CBS News senior correspondent in Kyiv Charlie D’Agata said on Friday: “This isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilised, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.” His comments were met with derision and anger on social media, with many pointing out how his statements contributed to the further dehumanisation of non-white, non-European people suffering under a conflict within mainstream media.

D’Agata later apologised, saying he spoke “in a way I regret”.

On Saturday, the BBC hosted Ukraine’s former deputy general prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze. “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blonde hair and blue eyes being killed every day with Putin’s missiles and his helicopters and his rockets,” Sakvarelidze said.The BBC presenter responded: “I understand and of course respect the emotion.”

On Sunday, Al Jazeera English presenter Peter Dobbie described Ukrainians fleeing the war as “prosperous, middle class people” who “are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war; these are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa, they look like any European family that you would live next door to.” The media network later issued an apology, saying the comments “were inappropriate, insensitive, and irresponsible”. “Al Jazeera English is committed to impartiality, diversity and professionalism in all its work. This breach of that professionalism will be dealt with through disciplinary measures,” it said in a statement.

Meanwhile on Friday, Sky News broadcast a video of people in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro making Molotov cocktails, explaining how grating Styrofoam makes the incendiary device stick to vehicles better.

“Amazing mainstream Western media gives glowing coverage of people resisting invasion by making molotov cocktails,” one social media user remarked. “If they were brown people in Yemen or Palestine doing the same they would be labeled terrorists deserving US-Israeli or US-Saudi drone bombing.”

On BFM TV, France’s most-watched cable news channel, journalist Philippe Corbe said: “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin, we’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.”

British journalist Daniel Hannan was criticised online for an article in The Telegraph, in which he wrote that war no longer happens in “impoverished and remote populations”.

European politicians have also expressed support for open borders towards Ukrainian refugees, using terminology such as “intellectuals” and “European” – a far cry from the fear-mongering used by governments against migrants and refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. “Skin is a passport … epidermal citizenship,” one social media user said. Jean-Louis Bourlanges, a member of the French National Assembly, told a TV channel that the Ukrainian refugees will be “an immigration of great quality, intellectuals, one that we will be able to take advantage of”. The Russia-Ukraine war has been billed by liberal media as Europe’s worst security crisis since the end of World War II, contributing to the general amnesia of relatively recent conflicts on the continent such as the Bosnian war in the 1990s and the Northern Ireland conflict that lasted from the 1960s until 1998. Absent from such generalisations was the fact that in the post-World War era, Europe exported many wars in countries that were previous colonial entities. Some commentators have also heaped praise on the steadfastness of Ukrainians and the country’s defence capabilities, in a way that they suggested no other nation or people have undergone such an experience before. Critics pointed out the hypocrisy of crowdsourcing and setting up online donations to fund Kyiv’s military without facing any government backlash or suspension of their monetary accounts. The double standards regarding calls for excluding Russia from cultural and sporting events and not extending the same move to other occupying entities have not been lost on social media either. Examples were drawn between the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel – often touted by Western governments as anti-Semitic – and the current exclusion of Moscow from events such as the Eurovision contest and stripping the Champions League final from St Petersburg. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has backed the boycott of Russia from sports, but criticised the boycott of last month’s Sydney Cultural Festival over receiving sponsorship from the Israeli embassy. Claudia Webbe, a British member of parliament, tweeted that the people who genuinely care about Ukrainians are the ones who will welcome all refugees with open arms.“The rest?” she posted, “Well, they’re pretending.”

[mithliya]

ughh i want to see what happens with the bbc article, but no one else is reporting about it (aside from an irrelevant website "gay times" or something that was very biased against it). like please, i'm tired of people agreeing silently. if this does not make a push towards people talking about the issue, which goes as deep as trying to convince everyone tw are literal women, i am losong all hope. also i'm scared that if the bbc doesn't take it down, other sources will start saying the bbc is now parroting right wing stuff. this is a dumb question but, what's your opinion on this? what do you think could happen?

its not a dumb question! bbc is a publicly funded service n exists to be politically neutral doesnt it? that means, it'll report on all sorts of things and do so in impartial ways. theyre well-known for their credibility and only dumbasses would dismiss it simply bc it doesnt suit their beliefs. theyre also probably not going to be pressured like this into falling in line, this isnt some small news site or smth, its the BBC which is basically one of the strongest there is. theyve reported on shit that would literally endanger their journalists in countries with little freedom of press, like china.

there are far more normies than there are people on the TRA side or on the gender critical side. on my gf's social media, a lot of her normie friends shared the article saying things like "wow i wouldve thought this was fake news if this wasnt reported by the BBC!" so i would assume, ppl not familiar with this issue are probably in shock. when i walked around in the UK with women holding "lesbians dont like penises" signs, the majority of normie onlookers would say shit like "no shit" and "why are they holding signs saying obvious things" etc, so really what i think will happen w this article is it will bring awareness to this issue and baffle many that its even an issue.

idk tho i may be wrong. but thats what i believe

[ataswegianabroad]

Alone Amongst the Gum Trees Part 4 - Digital News Report: Australia - A Murdoch Review

NOTE - this article has been migrated to Medium. As of 2021, A Taswegian Abroad will be closed down, and all of my writing will be published on my Medium profile.

---

After seeing a significant public outcry to my story based on a response to Sally McManus on twitter - I recently spoke with the ABC on being an Aussie overseas and the challenges we’ve faced getting home. The failure once again of Morrison’s government to provide enough vaccines and a proper quarantine system (covered up by the Murdoch Press protection racket) is having real implications on everyday Australians.

I strongly believe that for this to change, the media needs to perform its function of holding both elected officials, and their peers in the press, accountable for such actions.

Until Australia has reestablished media fairness among the press, improved media literacy amongst its citizens, and have mostly removed the cancer of Murdoch’s News Corp dominating mainstream media, we will never break this cycle of government ineptitude, gaslighting, negligence, and outright corruption with little to almost zero accountability.

You don't need to look far for proof. The ones that immediately come to mind for me:

2020 Bushfires and consistent climate change denial - "I don't hold a hose mate"

Freedom of speech is threatened where internet comedians get arrested in their own homes for making jokes about a LNP Deputy Premier

Kate and the horrendous Christian Porter alleged rape case

The four stage plan to make a plan about having a plan for Covid, 18 months into the pandemic, with literally no dates or vaccination targets.

Back in March, I caught onto calls for a Murdoch Royal Commission by former prime minister Kevin Rudd, and since then I’ve been keeping a very sharp eye on the Australian media landscape.

Despite over 500,000 petition signatures and the ramping exposure by Rudd online (leading to a full senate enquiry), the Murdoch press is doing its best to discredit, misdirect, or, blatantly ignore the storm that’s brewing. A couple of major things have caught my attention since that date.

News Corp outlets are still consistently cowing their competitors at Nine, Seven, the ABC, and more into towing the pro-Coalition narrative THEY choose, or, risk facing character assassination. This applies to everyone who dares step out of line: reporters, ministers, producers, senators, editors, presenters, janitors… no one is safe.

This sort of behaviour and influence is not easy to show on graphs and charts, but if you read between the lines, you can see it. Let me show you.

The ABC Presents the Data

In April of 2021, the ABC published a fact-file article outlining the power of the Murdoch press - the first article from an at least somewhat reputable source addressing this that I’ve seen on this topic.

The biggest things I took from it are that despite there seeming to be a diverse ownership pool across many mediums, News Corp (Murdoch) newspapers significantly dominate the national market for print papers, and, have recently been crowned leaders of the #1 source of news for Australians: social media (via mostly viral, opinion, and video based content primarily from News.com.au and Sky News pages on Facebook and YouTube).

Remember this point - spoiler alert: it’s important.

At the recent senate enquiries, News Corp claims there is in fact diversity - focusing on different mediums such as online, social media, radio, television etc. available to represent “diversity”. This is response refers to medium diversity, and is quite frankly a misdirection based on a technicality to avoid the real question. Classic News Corp.

Rudd says “each story published online or broadcast over the airwaves finds its point of origin in a print story, often a Murdoch print story". The former PM is referring to content diversity where factual reporting reigns supreme, and different points of view are given equal time in the sun without the blurring of opinion and fact.

As Kevin likes to say: “pigs might fly”

While you might be thinking “so what? News Corp is strong in print and social, Nine is strong for television and online news, ABC is strong on radio and social, Seven is strong on radio and television etc” - I’d like to ask you a question: where then is the accountability for elected officials in the media?

The Murdoch press won’t say a word about the Coalition’s ever growing laundry list of corruption, negligence, ineptitude or incompetence, but if a Labor politician sneezes, they’re likely to be labelled a Covid super spreader on the front page of 15 national and state papers the next day.

How about this doozy from the Herald Sun in May 2021 after Dan Andrews quite literally broke his back and took medical leave:

I didn’t see one peep from the Murdoch reptiles about Morrison's three day actual disappearing act only last week after his bogus "AstraZeneca is OK for under 40’s / go to your GP” comments.

The key thing to point out here is that the news provider who ranks number one in Australia's largest news medium (social media) is a well known right wing protection racket that doesn’t show any signs of slowing down, and there's mountains of evidence that exists to prove they don’t play a fair game.

Let’s Go To the Numbers

To really drill down into how important online media control is, I found the Digital News Report: Australia 2021 (i.e “the report” for the rest of this article), recently published by the University of Canberra by way of the Reuters Digital News Report: 2021

Below I've outlined a number of key headers from the report, and more specifically tried to point out exactly where Murdoch and News Corp are exploiting and manipulating their way into control. The data shows us both what has been going on, and the direction it will likely continue in.

Having worked in digital marketing for the better part of the last four years, I couldn’t wait to dive into this data and explain just how much of a rort this all is for the sake of profit.

1: Local News

Replaced by Murdoch Sky News, Invests in Social Media

“For ‘hard news’ such as local politics, economy, crime and health, local news consumers continue to turn to traditional local news outlets, such as the newspaper or TV. However, for most other news and information, consumers are using internet search and other internet sites to get localised information.”

The report tells us that:

“2020 was a difficult year in Australian news sector, with news companies closing or suspended. This is in part a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it reflects a longer-term gradual decline in newspaper consumption that is replaced by online offerings”

So why did the BBC report in 2020 that Murdoch shuts 112 Australia print papers in major digital shift? CNN covered it too, as did the Guardian. I couldn’t find anything on a Murdoch owned site or outlet. That’s because Rupert is rolling out “Sky News Regional” to replace them all.

The report outlines:

“This year’s data highlights the important role of newspapers in generating a sense of community, particularly among older news consumers . Further, newspapers are perceived to be the best source of information about local government and politics, which is central to the functioning and accountability of local communities. It is important for industry and government to remember that the closure of a local newspaper not only leaves a gap in the provision of quality news, but also a loss of critical information that is connected to people’s sense of attachment to their community”

How on earth does one far-right Sydney run “news” channel represent hundreds of regional communities? Answer: It doesn’t - it’s designed to influence regional voters to think the way that suits the Murdoch press agenda.

2: Impartiality of News

Murdoch Cuts ABC Funding via Coalition, Ramps-Up Online Polarisation

The report tells us that 

“traditionally, values of independence, and impartiality — or ‘objectivity’ — have been central to journalism’s mission and deemed important to perceptions of trust in news. However, in the digital media environment, former demarcations between news, features, opinion, and advertising continue to blur.

“News audiences are becoming more polarised and are increasingly attracted to news brands that offer partisan perspectives.”

What you’re seeing here is that while the data reveals a strong desire for news outlets to attempt fairness, balance, and an impartial approach to reporting - the demographics more likely to use social media (the medium that Murdoch now leads, mostly containing Millennials and Gen Z) are less supportive of impartiality, neutrality and giving equal time. More on this in Part 8.

On the flip side: 

"news consumers who prefer impartiality are much more likely to say they distrust news on social media.”

“Both the 2020 and 2021 data highlight that these traditional journalism ideals are more strongly supported by older generations and those who use traditional sources of news."

You need not look further than the blatant defunding of the ABC to see how the Murdoch Cancer continues to take over.

So, if the majority of Australians believe the ABC is impartial and does a “good job”, why has the ABC had $783m in funding cut since 2014 by the Coalition government?

Seems to suit the Murdoch agenda pretty nicely.

3: News Representation

Low Media Literacy in Under-Represented Demographics

“Importantly, a large proportion of Australians say they don’t know if the amount of media coverage of ‘people like them’ is sufficient or fair. Those who have low education are much more likely to say they don’t know. This indicates a lack of engagement and adequate media literacy to identify misrepresentation and bias in the news.

“Combined with a lack of awareness about misinformation, lower interest in and consumption of news, these findings confirm the ongoing need for targeted media literacy interventions"

The only way the public can push back against misinformation is by knowing they’re witnessing it first hand. That does not suit what Murdoch is selling.

Misinformation breeds confusion, smoke and mirrors, and is aided by political spin, gaslighting and stone throwing to keep people moderately confused and ultimately giving up on understanding the “truth”, or, deciding their own convenient version of truth.

The closure of the Australian Alternative Press due to revoked funding by Nine and News Corp in 2020 should be enough to tell you the media landscape is gravitating consistently to the right.

4: News Access

People Losing Interest, Murdoch Keeps the Elderly Onside

As traditional mediums (television, radio, and print) are on the decline, social media and online news is on the rise with the aid of mobile device popularity (45% of Australians preferred news devices).

It's not a surprise to learn that during COVID-19, older Australians have increasingly turned to social media platforms to get news.

“The percentage of 75+ who use social media as their main source of news has more than tripled in two years from 3% to 10%. Among this age group, social media is now comparable to print use.” the report states.

While it’s hard to point this as a direct plot by News Corp, this is still great news for Murdoch. All News Corp had to do was weaken the traditional mediums that aren’t making them as much money, and push the audience toward social media. It worked.

75+ votes still count, and they are more likely to click the “clickbait” articles to make News Corp that sweet, sweet ad platform revenue.

5: Emerging New Habits 

Murdoch Funds the Fuel for the Fire

Despite people being somewhat varied on their social media usage for news specifically, the important statistic here is that more than half of Australians consume news videos.

The below statistics from the ABC should set alarm bells screaming. To put it plainly:

More people on social media than ever before

Murdoch ramps up social media content (Facebook posts / videos & YouTube videos mainly), then mega-funds paid advertising on said content

Drives subscribers and views through the roof

Overtakes ABC (yes, the one he’s got his politician friends/puppets actively defunding)

Don’t believe me? See for yourself.

The ABC outlines that: 

“Fact Check has analysed audience data for media accounts on what Canberra University found were the two most popular platforms: Facebook (used by 39 per cent of news consumers ) and YouTube (21 per cent).”

“Data from the analytics site Social Blade shows that Sky News Australia's YouTube channel had more than a million subscribers at the start of 2021, having doubled its following in just six months. Its subscriber base began to pull ahead of Channel 7 and Channel 9 from mid-2020, and by March 2021 Sky had overtaken ABC News”

The University of Canberra report aligns to these trends, and summaries that:

“Australian news consumers are accessing news online from a diverse range of sources including news videos, podcast apps, and numerous social media platforms alongside traditional branded news websites.”

“Although social (media) is the most common main pathway to news online it is common for consumers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram to say they mostly see news incidentally while they are on those platforms for other reasons.”

6: Trust and Misinformation

Rupert’s Bread & Butter

“Tackling disinformation and misinformation is complex and won’t be solved by platforms alone. Responsibility must be shared across governments, digital platforms, users, news media and society to make sure Australians can access accurate and reliable news and information online, while ensuring rights to freedom of expression are protected.”

Creina Chapman, Deputy Chair, Australian Communications and Media Authority

This in part ties back to my earlier points in part 3 regarding media literacy - the report indicates that trust remains high where people use both multiple mediums AND multiple sources for news. This is further compounded by the evidence that low educated readers are less likely to know they’ve encountered misinformation.

The report confirms this by indicating:

“The differences between high and low educated Australian consumers in relation to concern about COVID-19 misinformation and their ability to discern it, points to an ongoing need to boost media and information literacy among socio-economically disadvantaged groups in Australia”

The ABC and SBS still continue to be the most trusted brands, however, it needs to be highlighted that “Local or Regional Newspaper” comes in third (62% trustworthy) - the vast majority of which Murdoch owns.

In 2020, survey participants were most concerned about Australian governments and politicians being sources of general misinformation (35%), followed by activists or activist groups (20%).

Despite this, 2021 shows that trust in news has increased in 2021 (43%), rebounding off trust associated with COVID-19 news reporting. The report breaks this down further:

“The data show(s) that concern about journalism as a source of misinformation about COVID-19 is very low (9%). In 2018, we asked about ‘fake news’ and 63% of news consumers said they were concerned about poor quality journalism as a source of ‘fake news’, and 40% said they had encountered it. This signals a possible positive shift in perception of journalism after 12 months of reporting expert health advice about the COVID-19 pandemic.”

"The data also highlight(s) ongoing low levels of trust in news found on social media (18%) compared to trust in news generally. Given much of the news encountered on digital platforms is the same as that which appears on the homepages and front pages of well-respected news brands, the findings suggest that the nature of the online environment itself is one the factors lowering perceptions of trust, rather than the news content."

Creina Chapman, Deputy Chair, Australian Communications and Media Authority states in the report that:

“In the context of online news, nearly two-thirds of Australians remain concerned about what is real and fake on the internet. And a variety of surveys over the past 12 months have shown a concerning portion of the population believe dangerous falsehoods about COVID-19 that have been circulating online.

"Any lack of trust in authoritative or reliable sources of news and information is particularly worrisome during a global pandemic, as it may drive people to spaces where misinformation is more prevalent. This, in turn, increases exposure to false conspiratorial narratives that can result in real-world harm to both individual users and broader societal institutions”

Where does Murdoch benefit here? Same as always: smoke, mirrors, confusion, and spin all wrapped into enormous volumes of social media content.

7: Paying for News and Funding Journalism

Conveniently Avoiding the Issue

“To ensure media diversity and plurality in Australia, a mix of substantive, fiscal measures is necessary to support, transition and stimulate existing news businesses and encourage new entrants”

Anna Draffin, Chief Executive Officer, Public Interest Journalism Initiative

Despite a fair and balanced media being a must-have for any democracy - this is not surprising, given the low amounts of trust for online media content. Overall, given that Australians are not concerned about the poor financial state of news outlets, it’s sad but not surprising that many feel the government should not step in to help.

What is the most dangerous here is the simple fact that when there’s no money to fund decent and ethical journalism, we end up with tabloids, opinion pieces, shock jocks, and anything that just gets you to first: SEE it (an “impression” in the marketing world) and second: CLICK on it. Both of these things make News Corp richer.

Here’s the report evidence:

“A quarter (25%) of left-wing news consumers and 27% of centre-leaning are supportive of government intervention (to assist struggling journalism). However, more than half of right-wing (58%) news consumers are opposed to government assistance for financially struggling news companies."

“This is consistent with the findings that left-wing news consumers are more likely to say they are concerned about the financial state of news businesses (41%) compared to centre (37%) or right-wing (34%) news consumers”.

News consumers who think their political views are represented fairly for online news are another win for Murdoch. This is compounded by the fact that those who think news should take a position are also more likely to pay for that news.

That means if the mainstream media is pro-right wing, for example, then more people look at right wing news and pay for right wing reporting, ultimately leaving the left without funding, and fighting a losing battle. All Murdoch needs to do is discredit who he deems as “left” and it’s game over.

But Murdoch doesn’t need subscriptions. That’s just pocket money for him. With the introduction of the News Media Bargaining Code, Rupert & News Corp continue to improve their financial revenue streams through digital marketing strategies (views and clicks) without needing people to pay for fact based, objective journalism.

8: Political Orientation

Stealing the Centre & Making Opinion the “News”

Of all the elements of this report, this one shocks and upsets me the most.

The majority of Australians (61%) identify with the centre-left of politics (30% political ‘centre’ and 31% identify as either ‘very left-wing’, ‘fairly left-wing’ or ‘slightly left of centre’).

Only 22% of Australians align themselves with the right wing, and 18% don’t know their political orientation.

Younger generations have historically been the drivers of progressive social change, and younger Australians are more concerned about the environment and the impacts of things like climate change and equality.

Clare Armstrong, National Political Reporter at the The Daily Telegraph outlines in the commentary that: 

“many young Australians may rightly feel their futures, livelihoods and social activities have been either jeopardised or overlooked by a centre-right government, and subsequently a larger cohort has been pushed toward the left”

To begin in closing, based on this - how do Conservative/Right Wing parties keep winning federal elections?

It’s by doing exactly what we’ve mentioned in the first 7 sections:

Flooding the online and social media landscape with non-factual spin and confusion

This is aided by the bedrock of owning the majority of national, capital city, and regional papers which in turn steer the daily political narrative on television/radio

This is all driven home by bullying competitors into following suit, or, suffering the consequences

There is no governing or peer run body with teeth (or guts) to hold Murdoch and News Corp responsible or accountable

According to the report; 

“Younger generations, who say they feel less attached to their local community, and who also access social media widely for general news, are more likely to seek local news and information from the internet and online platforms.”

As Clare Armstrong also states: 

“Social media has significantly fuelled political polarisation in the last decade as its algorithms, by design, show users more of what they want to see, rather than a broader mix of ideas presented in traditional media.”

In summary - this quote from the Political Orientation trends leaves a long-lasting impression on my psyche:

“Left-wing news consumers (61% of the country) are more comfortable with news that takes a position rather than maintaining neutrality.”

Rupert has them right where he wants them: thinking that opinion is news.

[marginalgloss]

monochromology

As I write this it is the last day in November, and I have to renew my TV license. You have to have a TV license if you live in the United Kingdom and you own a device for watching live broadcasts, either online or through an actual TV. The fee is mostly used to pay for the existence of the BBC, and it costs £154.50 per year. It is effectively a regressive hypothecated tax. 

Sometimes it seems like there must be a better way of paying for public-service broadcasting. But the BBC has to remain free and universal to access, and free from advertising. And most of the time, the license fee is not controversial. There is little in the way of serious political will to abolish it, in part because it feels like nobody can be trusted to think of a serious alternative. In this respect it is not dissimilar to council tax, which is even more egregiously regressive, more conducive to extremes in inequality, more dangerous to reform. 

Various exemptions and concessions for the TV license are available. At the moment those aged over 75 don't have to pay at all. (This may change soon.) Oddly, if you have a black and white TV, there is still the option of paying a reduced rate license fee of £52 per year. The logic for this is essentially indefensible; aside from the fact that it is impossible to buy a new monochrome television, it would be absurd to suggest that anyone owning one was only receiving a third of the value of a full subscription. 

There are two ideas which might be mustered in defense of the black and white TV license. (I call them ideas rather than arguments, since again, nobody is really arguing about this.) The first is half-economic, half-emotional. It says that the only people still owning these ancient sets are those almost incapacitated by age and poverty. They have few pleasures left in life; they cannot be expected to arrive one year at a bill almost three times the usual amount. 

The second idea is linked to the first. It is wholly emotional, and far more important. In the British imagination the idea of a black and white television represents a link to the past. It is families clustered around a single glowing screen in a darkened room. Someone is probably smoking and someone is definitely drinking. There is a child lying inches from the screen, propped up on their elbows, head in their palms. The food is dreadful, in a homely sort of way. But something momentous is probably about to happen.  

The second idea comes out of a feeling that began near the end of the Second World War and went on to aggregate over fifty years or more of the second half of the twentieth century. There is something in the notion of a black and white receiver that is emblematic of the BBC as a beloved institution. It says: we've been here with you for all those years, for your parents and for your grandparents; won't you stick with us a little longer, at least? 

Sometimes the BBC is referred to as 'Auntie' in other parts of the media. It is a very old nickname. It is gentle and knowing. It is authoritative, and vaguely authoritarian – but at least it isn't 'Uncle'. The idea that the BBC might be a 'state broadcaster' (the special name it uses for equivalent stations in Iran or Russia) seems superficially absurd. Why? Because BBC content doesn't look like what we were taught propaganda looks like.  

More often than not, the BBC will contort itself to maintain some notion of journalistic impartiality. But these contortions create more problems than they solve. It is possibly to be openly racist or homophobic or transphobic on BBC television or radio, as long as prejudice is couched behind suitable disclaimers and a veneer of civility. As long as these views can find a counterpoint elsewhere, our national broadcaster can claim it was only doing its duty in representing the views of a section of the populace who pays for its continued existence.  

We are less than two weeks away from a general election. It seems like every day the BBC is accused of bias, from all sides. But at times the nature of the bias seems less like a considered editorial stance, and more like the product of something inherent to the way the BBC thinks about itself. And so a piece of footage which showed an audience openly laughing at the Prime Minister is cut to remove the laughter. On Memorial Sunday, the BBC runs a clip of the PM from a previous year, in which he managed to both look presentable and place the wreath the correct way around (neither of which he did this year). The BBC Politics twitter feed runs a handful of tweets critical of Jeremy Corbyn in between a jolly thirty-second clip of the PM spreading cream and jam on a scone. 

It is hard to distinguish a conspiracy in all this. What is evident is a consistent attitude of deference to power. The BBC house style is expressed through a voice in love with its own history, its own authority. These clips are chosen because they make the men in power (and some women) look good. They are picked for the same reasons they would not show the PM picking his nose. It is an unsubtle way of establishing the BBC as a broadcaster of quality. The people who produce this work want to align themselves with power. 

There is a sort of inverse courtship happening here. Once it was thought that politicians ought to defer to the media, out of a sort of necessity. You had to play their game if you wanted to be taken seriously. But suddenly none of that seems to matter. Now our Prime Minister can say, during an election campaign – what if I didn't show up to the leader's debate? What if I chose not to do the half-hour interview with the BBC's most aggressive presenter? What if I openly lied at every opportunity?  

All of this is facilitated by a media which is essentially reverential. Individuals vary in their approach but this is the default state of most newspapers and most television programmes. The position of the government must be respected not because it is always wise or informed, or moral or ethical but because it belongs to the government. Other political positions may be taken into consideration but they lack the democratic legitimacy which (we are to assume) is the privilege of government. And so members of the Cabinet are treated with a level of reverence which is entirely unrelated to their actual capabilities or the results achieved by their departments.

The BBC has no idea how to handle the current Prime Minister. The journalist Peter Oborne caused something of a stir recently by quoting a senior BBC figure who told him that they were reluctant to openly accuse the PM of lying because it would undermine trust in politics. And so the corporation must twist itself into strange knots. Its presenters must nod and smile, and report faithfully the inane ramblings of a man who is utterly devoid of principles, because he happens to be the Prime Minister.

Is he lying? Certainly most of what he says is demonstrably untrue. But to accuse him of lying would be to doubt his motivation. This is another sin of which the BBC cannot bear to be accused. Perhaps he simply didn't know that he wrong? Perhaps he was ignorant? So it must suffice to report the lie, and then to tell the audience that there may be some debate about the nature of the facts. And so we are treated to headlines that accuse the Labour party of increasing spending by over a trillion pounds. This is a total fabrication. But even if this is accompanied by a disclaimer to say that Labour dispute these figures, which part of this will stick in the mind of the general reader? Perhaps there will be a talking head to explain that even if we were told we would be getting 40 new hospitals, some of those might only be refurbishments to existing hospitals. And the rest? We don't know. We move swiftly on to other things. 

In matters relating to the Royal Family, the BBC will always cleave closely to its special heritage. Its coverage is resolutely uncritical. Turn on during a royal wedding or some other state occasion and the tone is set to gaping admiration throughout. The recent interview with Prince Andrew could be considered an exception, but it wasn't astonishing because of a particularly penetrating line of questioning. The questions were direct, but the Prince still got to sit in the big chair, relatively speaking. What happened was so surprising because Andrew so effectively engineered his own public humiliation. It took only the gentlest of informed prompts for him to express some of the most extraordinary things heard on television in recent memory. 

I keep thinking back to the vast room in which Emily Maitlis and Prince Andrew sat for that interview. It did him no good, of course. It was lit like a room from Dracula's castle. I wondered who had allowed it. But there is at times a sort of mutual deference that we receive from the Royals. I mean in terms of the way that the Queen might be said to enjoy a particular brand of biscuit, for example; it's like a particularly British form of the idea that Madonna drinks Coke and you can too. It's 'democratic' in the (entirely incorrect and inappropriate) sense of the word commonly used interchangeably with 'popular'. At heart we know the Royals are nothing like us. Somehow we live with this.

Black and white televisions were once a status symbol of a sort. Another British stereotype says that in the 1980s/1990s if you still had a monochrome set you were probably not poor – you were probably a sort of aesthete or aristocrat, and mostly likely you had neither the time or the inclination to replace it. Or you might be very rich (because you hadn't frittered away money on buying a new TV). Big colour screens were considered the preserve of the idle feckless poor; by contrast, there was something pleasingly authentic about the black and white set.  

And why should those owners be made to pay if they chose not to enter the modern world with the rest of us? We might not want it ourselves, but it was nice to think of them as being there, the owners of the black and white sets. They were keepers of the flame. Most likely they were shut up in their damp, draughty stately homes, with only a skeleton crew of servants, the old Bentley slumbering under a tarp in a crumbling garage. But they were holding on to our myths for us.

I paid the full amount for my TV license. The website for it is a primitive thing, but I suppose it's functional; it doesn't seem to have changed at all in over ten years. What would it mean if the black and white television license were taken away? I think of that lonely aristocrat, last of their line, selling their heritage to pay off some frivolous debt owed to the grasping hand of the state. (Countless versions of this trope, serious and comic, are available across a variety of media.) Would it feel like we were taking the Queen's TV away? Probably. Perhaps the BBC think it is worth keeping for that reason alone.

[mariemariemaria]

I hope this doesn't come off as rude but what news sources do you trust for news? Here in the US the BBC is considered a good source but it's become clear to me that it's heavily biased.

This is such an interesting question. I get my news from a lot of different places. Channel 4 news is a popular one hour long news show in the UK which is fairly unbiased as far as I can make out, and it often covers stories that other news sources wouldn't. BBC news is very big here in the UK as well, but I do not trust it to be impartial. There have just been too many incidents when they've edited footage in a particular way to show Boris Johnson in a favourable light. I tried to make excuses for the BBC, because I didn't want to be one of those people who criticies supposedly 'neutral' news sources, but it's gone on long enough and needs to be called out.

As for newspapers, of course they are going to have bias and a particular agenda. The Sun/The Telegraph/The Daily Mail are all right wing nationalistic newspapers in the UK, and I will never trust them to give me news (even today, their headlines have all been about how Corbyn doesn't watch the Queen's speech, which is not the most important issue in this election). The Belfast Telegraph is the Northern Irish edition, and it is very biased in favour of unionism and almost always has a section written by some right wing bigot whose biggest concern in life is the growing popularity of the Irish Language. But then again there are papers like the Irish Times/Irish News which would be favourable towards Irish nationalism.

The Guardian is another popular paper in the UK, which a liberal/centre-left bias. It's online articles aren't stuck behind a paywall, but the paper itself is v expensive and so it has a mainly middle/upper middle class readership. Idk whether I'd trust it or not. Probably, but not all that much. Just today I bought an edition of 'The I' because it was cheap af. Haven't read a great deal of it yet, but it seems alright.

Sorry if this comes across as really rambling and long. I'm on mobile rn and answering your q was a form of procrastination from writing essays. And I'm also sorry that this is such a Brit-centric response, but I hope you understand why. We don't get American news media over here, but I have heard the horror stories about Fox News. Overall it's a tricky question to answer, especially at the moment. I suppose people believe what they want to believe, and I am no different. It should be fairly obvious to most adults that newspapers will have a particular bias, and that some political commentator's opinion may not necessarily be the whole truth. What is really insidious is when TV news is unashamedly biased in favour of one side over the other. I think it's different in the US, but in the UK we have rules governing how the news should be reported on TV and radio here.

(Speaking of radio, I do actually trust BBC Ulster when it comes to news. But that has quite a small audience I'd imagine.)

Edit: ok I've only just seen your whole question. Before I'd only seen "what news sources do you trust" (thanks tumblr!). All the crap about newspapers is probs v irrelevant to your question but I'm gonna keep it in anyway. But yeah overall as someone who has lived in the UK all her life, I do not trust the BBC to give me impartial news. Even Sky News, which is generally considered to have a right wing bias, is more trustworthy than the BBC imo. The only news source I really fully trust is Channel 4 news.

[yinzhengs]

xia talks about 绅探 | detective l

— where i’ve been watching detective l: eng sub (YT) || raws (maplestage)

— so i’ve finally made my way thru all 8 eps that have been released thus far. i know some people have been asking for my opinion, so here’s a post that’s meant to hopefully sum up everything i’ve been feeling about this show, personally. any spoilers in my review are very minor!

if you’re not familiar with the show, it’s a sherlock holmes inspired mystery/crime show set in the shanghai french concession during the republican period, starring bai yu, you jingru, and ji chen. at the moment, the show’s at a 7.3/10 on douban, and it was trending at #5 for web-series, so it’s definitely enjoying popularity.

disclaimer: this is just my personal opinion — no matter how i feel about the show, i heavily encourage everyone to check it out for themselves before coming to a conclusion!

+ setting

you know, if there’s one thing i do dig about this show (in theory), it’s the setting. while i’m not a big fan of the set, for reasons i’ll go into below, i think the time period lends itself to some interesting setups and unique cases. as mentioned, it takes place in the republican period in shanghai’s french concession. if i had to guess, it takes place in the 30′s — but my chinese history is shaky, and this is entirely based on some throwaway details mentioned in later cases. suffice it to say that it's a pretty cool setting, and while i was skeptical at first, i did find myself getting into it.

+ characters

another thing i like about the show is the character concepts — in theory, if not always in practice. we have a kind of triumvirate in the main trio. 

first, we have luo fei, the sherlock of the series and arguably its main character, who serves as a consulting detective for the shanghai police department. while he’s occasionally (mostly accidentally) an asshole, he’s generally likable and a far cry from the more eccentric/socially inept portrayals of sherlock holmes in modern adaptations. we start seeing a hint of his backstory in recent episodes, and cases soon start getting tied into his feud with an elusive “captain,” likely the show’s moriarty.

next, we have qin xiaoman, a rookie officer newly assigned to the dept, who has a fiesty temper and a fierce passion for making sure justice is served. in an enjoyable twist, she’s generally the one that does the heavy lifting: chasing perps down, aiming down sights, slamming suspects to the ground — she also soon learns to make deductions of her own, as well. 

finally, we have........................benjamin (本杰明). his name / its transliteration makes me laugh a little bit whenever i see it, so generally i just refer to the poor guy as ben. anyway, he’s a reserved forensic examiner who also serves as the department’s forensic analyst — he pretty much lives in the morgue, and is more comfortable with the dead than with the living. (also, he has a pretty cute bromance with luo fei...) his backstory’s interesting, and i like his character a lot because it plays perfectly off of the other two’s preexisting dynamic — here’s hoping that he gets more screentime and development! 

(ot3? ot3.)

+ cases

there are mixed opinions about the cases, but my personal take is that they’re pretty enjoyable to watch. while they’re not super hard to figure out / generally don’t have a whole lot of killer twists, they’re also not terribly unrealistic. they can get a little convoluted, but such is the eternal curse of mystery shows, i suppose. a lot of the smaller puzzles that luo fei solves are also contingent on some Pretty Chinese elements, which i found very cute (麻雀/麻将, 简谱, to name two). so yeah, they do a pretty okay job of taking classic mystery cases and making them fit in the setting given. more importantly, the process by which they unravel the cases is generally fun to watch, which is really the crucial part of any good mystery/crime show.

that being said, as someone who’s watched quite a few crime shows, i’m entirely not convinced that the writing for the cases is sufficient to keep me watching — even though they’re fun, i haven’t seen much so far that makes me feel like the show’s doing anything different from the usual formula. of course, that’s fine — crime shows don’t need to reinvent the wheel, they just need to make themselves worth watching, one way or another (normally thru character chemistry/acting, etc).

- some familiar sights/sounds...

why did they use the cinemasins stock sound effect multiple times

anyway, that aside, there are obvious nods to sherlock (bbc) — the main theme, luo fei’s initial appearance, the deduction scene in the car...

well, is it plagiarism? i guess not (or well, sina doesn’t think so), but what detective l’s doing here is less reinventing the wheel and more... repainting tires, if you catch my drift.

also, if you’re someone who pays a lot of attention to film ost’s, you’ll be assaulted with a LOT of familiar sounding melodies, be warned. this isn’t necessarily something that detracts from the drama, but it’s definitely something that’s thrown me for a loop / broken my immersion multiple times.

? tone

here’s where i start getting a little hesitant about the show, one of my main gripes: i’m really not sure what kind of tone the show is aiming for. while it’s clearly not a show that takes itself too seriously, and certainly not a dark/hard-boiled noir, occasionally there are moments included where characters rail at, for example, the imperfection/injustice of their supposedly impartial justice system — and while i’m not saying that the show can’t go there, it came off to me as just very thin attempts to increase the show’s depth while also not elaborating on those issues at all. and that’s what’s bothered me the most: the illusion of depth. 

i’ll be the first to admit, though, that this is probably because i’m watching this directly after OS, which definitely tackled those issues from the start and had a radically different tone — i just feel like detective l, at least so far, hasn’t settled into one yet, and so i felt like there were some definite moments of tone incongruity / moments when i thought the show would continue with issues it’d raised ... but it didn’t.

- cinematography / lighting

take this with a disclaimer: i think the lighting and design in this show is gorgeous... for stills.

for a moving film? not so much.

i’ve said earlier that i felt like some of the lines felt scripted — but if anything enhances that artificiality, it’s definitely some of the set design. it’s clearly a studio set, and i can’t really begrudge them that part, but some of the lighting is so clearly artificial that it’s been starting to get to me — characters inside a normal room (lit by an innocuously dim overhead lamp) shouldn’t have three separate colors reflecting off their faces like a hobbyist artist’s color study sketches (though it does do a good job of highlighting bai yu’s jawline unnecessarily, in like, every other scene). 

they’re clearly trying to create a mood through coloring / lighting, but ... often, i find, it’s at the cost of realism and could definitely be toned down a bit. (i find that over-the-top coloring is pretty common in cdramas, though, so this is probably also very subjective.)

(also, as with most cdramas.. they could probably do with less cgi.)

- acting / directing

alright, i’ll be honest: i’m not a fan of the acting in this.

in my personal opinion, something about the leads’ acting comes off as overly dramatized (esp. in xiaoman’s case) or slightly forced/artificial (in bai yu’s case). this could just be me not really being used to these two actors, but there were multiple times when i was surprised at how overdramatic/unrealistic some lines were delivered. same goes for minor characters, as well — something about the entire show just strikes me as extremely scripted, to the point where it breaks my immersion a lot. this might just be me, though, because i’ve def. heard some praises of the line delivery in this that i couldn’t wrap my mind around: take my words with a grain of salt, i suppose. 

(also, of course, i’ve been watching this directly after coming from white deer plain — which has some really down-to-earth acting and a setting/tone that’s worlds apart from detective l. maybe i’m drawing too many direct comparisons: white deer plain definitely has some amazing acting, and it’s a high bar to set, esp for a drama filled with more younger actors.)

directing-wise... i definitely wish i could ask why they made some of the choices they did. while the subs haven’t reached that point yet, there are definitely some cliche tropes that they start throwing in around ep. 6 that heavily detracted from my enjoyment of the show, esp. with the show’s (perhaps over-the-top) use of slow motion at times + (imo) forcing chemistry before it’s had time to develop.

as a result though, i really can’t find myself getting attached to either of the main two (i like ben, probably because he hasn’t had enough screentime for me to be turned off yet, though) — i think that the acting choices for qin xiaoman definitely made her more unlikable for me despite me being a fan of her character in... theory. similarly, luo fei often feels too thin as a character — i’m constantly searching for depth there that i’m not sure i’m finding. so far, while these two are foils, they really feel like nothing more. maybe it’s too early to tell (but hey, i’m a third of the way through, aren’t i?), but i’m definitely finding myself wishing at almost every turn that there was more to the acting there — though they’re definitely being stingy with releasing characters’ backstories / hints to their backstories, which could help contextualize their behavior a little more. 

overall: would i recommend it?

my very eloquent answer is... it depends. if you’re looking for a fun mystery romp that doesn’t always take itself too seriously with a unique setting and some interesting cases, then by all means: detective l might be up your alley!

that being said, i think it has a lot of flaws — notably, veteran crime show fans might not find enough flesh on the show’s bones to justify watching it for the cases alone — but if you can overlook them, it’s a fun show to watch: just don’t go in looking for stunning acting or dark moral quandaries. 

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: September 2019

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of September 2019 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

As if proven liar Boris Johnson suspending parliament to try and force through a No Deal Britait at the end of August didn’t look dictatorial enough, he then moved on to threatening and Tory MP who doesn't fall in line with deselection - and yet, rather than call this the obviously despotic move that it is, instead the media spent more time focusing on him adopting a fucking dog

Master strategist Dominic Cummings said that, rather than listen to “rich Remainers” in London, people should listen to those all over the country - which certainly helped, as Cummings’ genius idea to have proven liar Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson walk the streets of Morley and Doncaster saw said proven liar have to listen to the non-rich giving him both barrels for being responsible for the mess we are currently in

Not only did Laura Kuenssberg repeat what the press did with Carrie Symonds’ neighbours and throw around the term “Labour activist” to dismiss the very real concerns of the father whose daughter was in the understaffed hospital that proven liar Boris Johnson visited for a press op and then called out the proven liar’s claims it wasn’t a press op by pointing to the camera crew a few feet away, but she went one step further by doxxing the person by posting one of his tweets to her Twitter timeline, which unsurprisingly led to him getting a dog’s abuse from people because he dared say bad things about proven liar Boris Johnson - abuse he would not have got if Kuenssberg hadn’t doxxed him to her 1.1m Twitter followers, all because she wanted to distract attention from the fact her beloved BoBo had been caught on camera lying to someone’s face

...and it wasn’t long before the BBC proved their blatant double standards, having circled the wagons around Kuenssberg to say she did nothing wrong while doxxing a member of the public, yet disciplining Naga Munchetty for an off-the-cuff remark about the Orange Overlord saying Trump saying non-whites who criticise him should “go back where they came from” is racist

There is nothing sinister about Dominic Cummings saying that, if MPs wants to stop receiving death threats, they need to get Britait done.  Absolutely nothing sinister about that at all...

When Jacob Rees Mogg wasn’t literally lying in parliament, he was dismissing the genuine concerns of neurologist Dr David Nicholl by comparing his concerns to those of anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield, who was struck off for giving erroneous advice

I’m trying to work out if Justin Trudeau forgot about the whole wearing blackface thing, or merely assumed everyone else had.  Either way, at best he could generously be accused of gross naivety - especially when the second round of photos came out, after he tried to pass it off as a one-time prank

So not only did proven liar Boris Johnson sound supremely cuntish by saying that leaving the EU would honour the memory of Jo Cox - that’s the same Jo Cox who, while campaigning for Remain, was murdered by a member of Britain First - but when quizzed on this Bernard Jenkin could only respond about the stress that the proven liar was under, because as we all know the real victim is the person who said something monumentally dense and not the person murdered by a member of the far-right on the streets of their constituency

If anyone can explain what the hell compelled Stephen Kinnock to suddenly decide that Theresa May’s deal should have yet another going over in parliament in spite it being defeated three times already and her not even being PM at this point, let alone why he wanted to bring this up at the moment No Deal was being defanged, I would love to hear it

Something compelled Quentin Letts to compare the recently-deceased Robert Mugabe to Boris Johnson...as a compliment

Compelling argument against nominative determinism James Cleverly thought he was being clever by keeping up the “chicken” jibes against Jeremy Corbyn that proven liar Boris Johnson and his cronies at The Sun had been keeping up for days in a desperate attempt to pretend Corbyn hadn’t spotted an obvious tarp by Dominic Cummings and sidestepped it...right up until his stunt ended up seeing the entire Tory party get bitchslapped by Kentucky Fried Chicken

...and it wasn’t long before proven liar Boris Johnson rendered all jibes of Corbyn being “chicken” laughable when he responded to some heckling when visiting Luxembourg by publicly running away from a press conference with Luxembourg’s PM 

According to Kwasi Kwarteng there are people up and down the country questioning the impartiality of the Scottish judges who ruled Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament unlawful.  Just a reminder, Kwasi Kwarteng is the Business Secretary and not a Youtube right-wing conspiracy nut

Waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage has decided that those dozens of appearances on BBC political programming over the last decade were examples of the BBC being biased against him, and he;s boycotting all future appearances.  He neglected to mention whether or not any other member of The Nigel Farage Ego Project would follow suit...

We saw just how little credibility Laura Kuenssberg has on the 2nd September edition of The Six O’Clock News where she stood outside 10 Downing Street talking about how proven liar Boris Johnson would be calling a snap election, only for her to be cut off mid-sentence by the proven liar walking out to waffle for five minutes where the only thing of note he said that wasn’t an easily-debunked lie was that there would be no election...and once he was finished Kuenssberg continued talking about a snap election as if she hadn’t been stood less than twenty feet away when it was said there would be no election

The fact that nobody was surprised when James Cleverly falsely claimed that the Tories created the NHS during the Tory conference isn’t a surprise - not least because it’s not even the first time Cleverly has made that patently false claim 

It would appear that Alan Sugar misses the days that he and not Alexander Boris De Pfeil Johnson was being held up as the British answer to Donald Trump, judging by his posting a tweet taking aim at the dogwhistlers’ favourite target Diane Abbott

We are supposed to feel sorry for David Cameron after his memoirs stated that he thought that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove behaved “appallingly” before and during the EU Referendum campaign.  If only the party leader did something about this, which they were in the position to do, and what was the name of the leader of the Tories at that moment in time again...?

Forgetting that we’re supposed to be calling Jeremy Corbyn a chicken, instead our good and honest friends at the Daily Mail instead ran an article about how awful it was that Jeremy Corbyn supported the Guildford Four’s Paul Hill.  That’s the Paul Hill who, like the other members of the Guildford Four (and the Maguire Seven) were threatened, beaten and tortured by the police and served fifteen years in jail for being members of the IRA in spite of the fact that they weren’t members of the IRA nor plotted any terror attacks, and the Mail thinks it’s bad to show support for someone who was a victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history

It’s a bit rich for Rachel Riley to be the face of the Don’t Feed The Trolls campaign considering her history of harassing, doxxing and encouraging pile-ons on anyone who disagrees with her

Sentient testicle Toby Young thought he was being really, really clever when he accused Phillip Hammond of an “anti-semitic conspiracy theory” after Hammond stated that the sole reason for proven liar Boris Johnson trying to take the UK out of the EU by October 31st is to help out his speculator mates - although the cleverness rapidly evaporated when Hammond responded personally with a threat of suing for libel, and for some strange reason Young’s really, really clever tweet vanished off the face of the earth

...and because Toby Young has to be Toby Young about things, rather than keep his head down after Hammond’s threat of legal action instead he came rushing to the defence of the proven liar by saying that female Spectator employees felt upset if they weren’t groped by proven liar Boris Johnson, which is not only the defence of the rapist but his “defence” only serves to say that proven liar Boris Johnson has a history of groping

It’s as if The Sun have decided they can go back to their pre-Leveson levels of scumbaggery, judging by how they’d both told Gareth Thomas’ parents he was HIV positive and threatened to publish it, as well as reporting how two members of Ben Stokes’ family had been shot and killed several years ago without actually obtaining consent from Stokes before splashing it across their front page

...and right on their heels was the Daily Mail doxxing Jo Maughan for the sole purpose of...nope, no idea why they felt the need to do so, but they did it anyway

If Steve Baker thought he was helping the Leave side look non-deranged, his claiming that proven liar Boris Johnson is moving the Tories back to the centre ground failed to do that on a molecular level

It’s all well and good the Liberal Democrats acting as if bringing in Luciana Berger and Angela “funny tinge” Smith as MPs is some kind of major breakthrough...but they sure kept it quiet that they wouldn’t be defending the parliamentary seats they’ve been squatting in since February

So nice of Mike Gapes to join the dogwhistling brigade with his deciding to highlight Diane Abbott’s poor use of grammar...by highlighting that she was using grammar correctly while Gapes’ attempts at grammar bullying only served to highlight his grasp of the English language could be better

It says it all that the Daily Mail was encouraging their readers to stop sponsoring the RNLI for the crime of using 2% of those donations to support causes abroad

To nobody’s surprise, as soon as John Humphrys was out the door he harrumphed about the BBC’s “liberal bias” to the Daily Mail - as if over thirty years of his using the Today programme as a platform of his right-wing views and generally being a miserable twat

How generous of Tim Martin to say that, as the UK had left the Customs Union, Wetherspoons could now charge 20p less per pint...except Britain hadn’t left the Customs Union, revealing that Martin could have cut prices long ago if he wanted to, but he obviously felt he didn’t need to as the chain’s profits weren’t nosediving as a direct consequence of Tim Martin alienating half of his customer base for the past three years

According to reports, Nicalis head honcho Tyrone Rodriguez went to the same business school as Channel Awesome supremo Mike Michaud, judging by the reports coming out that he would go weeks without answering any calls - which is not what an indie dev who sent their game over to Nicalis to be ported wants to discover - as well as a laundry list of evidence of him not realising he isn't a 14-year old edgelord who can only talk in raicst, antisemitic, homophobic or ablest slurs, on top of his charming habit of bullying members of staff

In the latest attempt by PewDipShit to prove he's not beholden to the alt-right section of his fanbase he offered to donate $50,000 to the Anti-Defamation League...and when that same alt-right section of his fanbase kicked up a fuss, he cancelled the donation and waffled about “taking responsibility” while demonstrating that how averse he is to the idea

This month it was John Ocasio-Nolte who was getting insanely triggered by Greta Thunburg, taking to Twitter to suggest she either needs to be spanked or receive psychological counselling (which worked about as well as can be expected the second the tweet was posted) while Dinesh D’Souza said she looks just like images used for Nazi propaganda as if that means anything other than Dinesh D’Souza spend hours going through Google image searches to try and find something, anything that would serve as the basis of an utterly batshit proclamation that his moron followers would swallow

Not a good look for Focus Home Entertainment to decide that, once their deal to distribute Frogwares’ games expired, their solution would be to drop all of Frogwares’ games from every online store - yet rather than return the code to Frogwares, instead they’d be keeping those as well because if Focus Home can’t sell those games, no-one can

It’s not a surprise to see The Sun forgot the faux outrage they stoked last December at trying to say Jeremy Corbyn called Theresa may a “stupid woman” (even though any lipreader will tell you he said “stupid people” of the entire Tory front bench) judging by their response to proven liar Boris Johnson calling Corbyn a “big girl’s blouse” was to dispatch one of their hacks to Corbyn’s house the following dya waving an item of women’s clothing at him, seemingly under the impression this looked anything other than mad

Meanwhile The Daily Telegraph wrote a piece comparing waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage to Britait’s Icarus...somehow forgetting how the story of Icarus ended

Britain’s most triggered man Piers Moron Morgan took to Twitter to howl about how Dora the Explorer discourages men from becoming explorers.  I’m guessing that he forgot how Indiana Jones and Nathan Drake exist...

What would a month be without Donald Trump doing something utterly lunkheaded?  Not this month, that’s for sure, judging by his response to mistakenly claiming that Hurricane Dorian was heading to Alabama wasn’t to admit the mistake or even never mention it again, but instead draw on a weather map with a Sharpie to make it look like Dorian’s path would now head into Alabama - so not only did he prove he can’t admit to being wrong, but he’s so thin-skinned his being wrong eats at him so much he can’t let his being wrong go, which only draws attention to his being wrong in the first place

[davidmalcolm]

Indyref2 and real independence

Indyref2

The situation with the lack of refuse collection in Edinburgh at the time of its annual cultural showpiece is spreading to other parts of Scotland. There has long been criticism of the SNP led Scottish devolved government that it is spending too much time on pressing for Indyref2 and not enough on the operational and strategic management of the governmental responsibilities entrusted to them. Really all of the rubbish should be independently collected and dumped in the environs of Holyrood House. If the government epicentre were to be completely covered making a second ‘Arthur’s seat’  in the city so be it. Breaking the union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland would be catastrophic not only for Scotland bit for all of the home nations. It would be a catastrophe far worse than that created by Brexit, or rather, the way in which Brexit has been implemented. The political, social, economic and cultural problems it would create if the break up if the United Kingdom  happened would make Brexit seem like a quick and easy divorce. 

All the non-existent benefits promised by the brexiteers, re-establishment of sovereignty, setting out own fishing quotas, enabling trade deals with the rest of the world, stopping illegal immigration, busloads of cash for the NHS, etc, etc, etc, have proved illusory. Hey, who cares about all this anyway. We have highly dangerous international tensions and a cost of living crisis at home (and in this we are not alone). 

Voices of reason

The very few voices of reason I have been hearing are generally called conspiracy theorists, enemy sympathisers, traitors. Real journalists are being criticised by corrupt global media. The much reviled, by western liberals, Republican Party senators and congressmen in the USA seems to be the only ones making sense. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are exposing very serious aspects of American politics which are frankly shocking yet their messages are not being covered by mainstream media.

At home we have a lame duck government which is putting off dealing with the impending cost of living crisis, so wrapped up in who will be the stand in prime minister. Truss seems intent on insulting one of our closest allies, France and Sunak is trying to push the blame on the mis-management of Covid on the ‘experts’ whilst Boris Johnson is tripping the light fantastic to celebrate a damp squib celebration of Ukrainian ‘independence’ whilst promising busloads of cash to help the Ukrainian government overthrow Russia. Instead of reasonably priced natural gas coming via Nord One and Two pipelines from Russia we are gearing up for an expected ‘pipeline of cash’ from the government to help with the cost of living crisis. If anything comes it will be too little too late and to all the wrong people. 

Emily Matlis, who has blown the whistle on the fact that the BBC is no longer an independent news organisation based on good journalistic practice, but a lick-spittle subsidiary of the government pushing stories it wants to push and suppressing independent investigative information which is in the public interest. In other words the BBC has developed into a government propaganda machine with government ‘placed men’ on the board. A ridiculous article by the so-called journalist Rebecca Perring has compared Matlis to Meghan Markle saying she is a trailer for her own ego trip and comparing her fallout with the BBC management with Markle’s fallout with the Royal Family ‘firm’. Of course the Daily Express, which Perring writes for is far from impartial being a publicity vehicle for the Conservative party, just short of extreme right on the political spectrum.

 In the United States, Mark Zuckerberg has confessed that the CIA controls social media and that personal privacy is no longer available. Could it be he works for the CIA,? After all the American mantra is ‘if you’re not with us you’re against us’.

The answer? Neil Oliver put it very well in a YouTube piece he did today 26 August 2022.

He points out that the new style of government in the ‘democratic’ west wants populations who are ignorant, fearful, unhealthy and over dependent on the satate for everything. He talks about the federal attack on the Amish farmer Amos Miller and the situation with the Dutch government’s attempted takeover of the Dutch agricultural businesses.

The real revolution comes not from killing people or blowing up authority buildings but by really trying to live as much independently from government as possible. This means not relying on benefits and services provided by government, not listening to government propaganda, living frugally and not getting into debt, making an effort to live healthily and communally as much as possible. Read and research widely so as not to be brainwashed by government propaganda. If you can, grow your own food and reconnect with the soil.

[xtruss]

ICC Should Investigate Massacre Crime By “Bloody British Bastard Forces:”Global Times editorial

— Global Times | July 18, 2022

Photo: International Criminal Court

In less than a month after the UK's "appalling" practice of deporting refugees as criminals was stopped by the European Court of Human Rights, another more "appalling" crime was exposed by Britain's own media. According to recent reports by media outlets like the BBC, Britain's elite Special Air Service (SAS) operatives in Afghanistan repeatedly killed detainees and unarmed men in suspicious circumstances, and SAS squadrons were even competing with each other to get the most kills. And one unit may have unlawfully killed 54 people in one six-month tour. In addition, the reports said SAS operatives might have been falsifying evidence. The former head of UK Special Forces, who went on to become head of the Army before stepping down last month, knew about the killings, but did not report them.

However, the attention drawn by this revelation is not in line with the seriousness of its content. American and Western public opinion, which tends to make a fuss, has generally shown an indifferent attitude of "treating major issues lightly" this time. Relevant stories rapidly subside before forming a certain momentum, and the ripple in British politics was covered by other topics. In the face of accusations against British military's brutal actions, the attitude of the UK Ministry of Defence was almost perfunctory. None of those British MPs and politicians who are into talking about human rights the most have been seen standing up in indignation to seek justice for innocent Afghan victims. There were only a few routine condemnations which sound feeble.

Overseas slaughter cannot be tolerated by any civilized country, and it is also a brutal trampling of international morality and laws. No British party or politician dares to endorse the "stain" that the British military is accused of, but they have even less enthusiasm or motivation to truly push for investigation or hold the perpetrators accountable. What they have done is just posturing. Therefore, there is reason to worry that this matter will end up with nothing definite. The UK Ministry of Defence claims to have conducted extensive investigations into the conduct of UK forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in fact at least 90 percent of war crimes allegations go uninvestigated. After all, we cannot expect the British military to check and correct itself.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Monday that there should be a thorough international investigation into UK's and US' war crimes and human rights violations, noting that justice should be done for innocent victims and that people from all over the world must be protected from bullying and cruelty. This call is very necessary and we hope it will resonate strongly enough in the international community and push for the implementation of the investigations.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) should immediately open a case against British, American and Australian forces for indiscriminate killings in Afghanistan. The ICC has launched an investigation in the country, but so far it has been directed at the Taliban. Investigations into the US were not pursued after former US president Donald Trump's public threats. It's hard not to call it "double standards." The ICC needs to promote judicial justice and win the trust of all countries through more independent, objective and impartial judicial activities. The investigation of the "massacre" by British forces is a litmus test.

It's common sense that when a cockroach is spotted there are actually a thousand of them. A deputy spokesperson for the Afghan interim administration said that NATO forces have committed more killings than what is reported when they were stationed in Afghanistan. Before British forces' evil deeds, US and Australian forces were also exposed for killing civilians in Afghanistan. Various facts show that these are not isolated cases, but a widespread phenomenon that exists on a long-term and systematic basis.

It is precisely the three Five Eyes countries, which wield human rights as a stick against other countries most vigorously, that are the most vicious in human rights abuses overseas. This is certainly not a coincidence, but has an inherent dark logic. Worse still, these three countries have established a system of exemption from responsibility. The British Parliament introduced the Overseas Operations Bill last year to shield British service personnel and veterans who commit serious crimes overseas, including torture. Meanwhile, Washington has sanctioned a number of ICC officials who have tried to investigate US war crimes, using this simple and brutal approach to block investigations.

As long as the perpetrators are not duly punished, the next crime is inevitable. It's long past time to put an end to this chilling situation in the UK and the US.

[mythoshunter]

BBC Impartiality

*A more topical post*

The BBC strives to be impartial. For years, now, though, it has received criticisms of bias. Ironically, these criticisms variously imply a bias towards both ends of the political spectrum! That gives you an idea of where I’m going.

Most media outlets openly declare their political/ideological alliances. The Guardian, the I, Huffpost, Buzzfeed, NewStatesman- varying degrees on the left. The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Telegraph, The Spectator and The Times- varying degrees to the right.

When you declare your political alliance, you make no pretensions. Your intention is open for all to see. You consequently attract the appropriate audience.

When you try for impartiality, it is a higher ideal that you’re going for: something which is (arguably) impossible to achieve. Why impossible? Because, in reality, every single person in the world has some form of political standing, even if they don’t consider themselves political/aren’t well acquainted with politics. 

Subconscious biases, internal filters, in other words, worldviews and perspectives: all of these filter the BBC from all directions as they do me, my readers and every human on this planet. The BBC set themselves an impossible task, but try anyway.

What angers people about the BBC is the pretension, I would guess. The BBC has also been slower to update itself to the modern world: we all still imagine and remember that plummy Queen’s English era of the BBC. It hardly feels modern, or at least hasn’t, historically.

Of course, some of these bias claims simply come from the creators of the post-facts world we seem to be living in, those claiming that the Illuminati rule the world etc. 

Not all of them of course though: and I agree that the BBC is biased, but from programme to programme, presenter to presenter: there is variety in the bias.

Another thing that angers people about the BBC is the space, the dissonance between the ideal of impartiality and the oscillating truth of the BBC’s output. We humans have never liked the cold light of truth, hence why we aim for the warm one of God Arguments (see previous post), ideals etc. 

Another thing that angers people is our love of monstering anything big and vague. This is another downside to the God Argument: if you get made into a God, get made into a national treasure or a bulwark of national identity, if you get pedestalised and institutionalised: if you then slip up, you have an awfully long way to fall. The same is true of all companies and big bodies. They’re abstract, hazy, full of bureaucracy and boards of directors. We love monstering anything that isn’t entirely transparent because it’s an easy, abstract thing to scapegoat.  Often, companies deserve it, too.

People see negligence where it may or may not be: no individual really has the objectivity to state whether or not the BBC is responsible of net negligence toward impartiality or not. 

Definitive bias across the net total output of the BBC would be incredibly difficult to judge because anyone judging it takes their own ideas, prejudices, blindnesses, thoughts, preconceived ideas and tastes onto the judging panel. 

Is it a bad thing (though) that the BBC strive for that higher ideal of impartiality? 

Can we not be kinder to a company that tries for something higher when everyone else declares their biases out loud?

The BBC definitely do mistakes. There definitely are many cases of negligence. I’m sure also however that a number of the perceived ‘cases of gross negligence’ so far as impartiality is concerned: are genuine mistakes too.

A body like that may be powerful, it may has ‘responsibilities’ and ‘duties to the nation’ to speak the whole truth and nothing but the truth: but again, these two things are abstract ideals, they are Gods again that we can worship but never touch. Does anyone ever believe it when a suspect stands up in court, places their hand on the Bible and swears to tell the truth? 

The BBC should be called out when they slip up, of course. But do it, understanding that they always were going to slip up because that is human nature. Yes, they should check their facts: but the writers of the content, the directors, the producers, the fact checkers: all of them are human too. 

In the end, anger solves very little. Calling someone or something out on a mistake need not be angry and need not sow resentment. 

Perhaps we all have too inflated a sense of ego, perhaps we all feel betrayed by mistakes, perhaps we need to take ourselves down a notch and realise that we don’t deserve as much as we think we do. Perhaps, mistakes show up the fragility of the thin veil of ‘shining humanity’ and make us glimpse the fragile, animal thing underneath. 

- Please, be kind.