Les Tricoteuses - Part Deux

[BornSicky]

new thread to discuss phonehacking scandal.

Never going to agree on the free market always means freedom claig. This is the same argment that was put to hold up the health care reforms in the US. Certainly, ithe neo-cons here would argue that we should not be paying for the NHS here out of NI contribtions but paying diectly ourselves for that 'free choice'. Which surely does not need an explanation as to why that it is no free choice at all.

Again, like the BBC, the NHS is something that the UK does really well, which is the envy of the world. I'm certainly not going to support free loaders making their swift buck and leaving everyone to payi more for pish and lies.

Marr said that the BBC has 'an innate liberal bias'

business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article1968952.ece

If liberal just means freedom of expression and open to all viewpoints (which is precisely what I support) then why do ethe BBC feel teh need to "tackle" this "liberal bias"?

Why did Roger Mosey say the following about Marr's 'innate liberal bias' statement

'Roger Mosey, once head of news, now director of sport, agreed that ?in the past? the BBC had been ?too closed to a wide range of views and we?ve had too narrow an agenda?.'

gah!!! Dubell post!!!

when people don't listen to balanced views, when they listen to the narrow interests of their own sides, in the most extreme circumstances you get genocide; at the very least you will get a further breakdown in civil society if we aren't all broadly pushing in the same direction.
that's why the state "subsidises" the BBC and I hope it continues to do so, particularly as we become an ever more diverse society

i've always thought it apt the word "consensus" contains most of the word "sense".

What we really need is 20 Murdochs (with no illegal hacking) all disagreeing with each other, all competing with each other, some supporting Brown and Miliband and some supporting the other parties. Let them battle it out with a battle of ideas, then we can read, listen and watch them all and make up our minds who is best for us and who is telling the truth. We don't want monolithic media organisations, be that Murdoch or the BBC. It is real competition between vying interests that gives us the best chance of finding out the truth, not a cosy "we're all in it together" type consensus.

wasn't there a philosopher who argued that progress is only made through debate and struggle rather as you are suggesting claig?

teejwood, that's where we disagree. I don't have such a pessimistic view of the people, but I do have a pessimistic view of the politicians. I am not in favour of propaganda to sway the people in the direction that the liberal elite want them to move, because I don't think that the liberal elite cares for the people. I believe they are "all in it together" for their own interests and stuff teh public (just as we saw with the tuition fees policy).

I like real diversity (not just teh progressive lip service to diversity). I like diversity of thought and freedom with competing interests debating openly (no sofa politics and convenient consensus).

Sometimes consensus is necessary, but I prefer individualism and freedom, not following the herd. I like iconclasm and challenge of ideas, innovative art with new thinking. Breaking the mould, taking risks, daring to achieve. Lemmings believe in consensus and they all fall over the edge together.

claig - imho what they meant was they had been browbeaten into having to broadcast more opinions of people whose fundamental beliefs are against "cultural liberalism" - and then they got kicked for doing that, too.

and perhaps if you had direct experience of a society in violent conflict you would not be so mocking of the safety and security brought by consensus.

the worst excesses of the right wing press in the US could be seen to have incited public opinion to the point where perfectly well qualified doctors carrying out perfectly legal practices have been murdered. it also led to a democratic congresswoman, her staff and members of the general public being mown down in the street. this is what happens when we don't agree broadly on the rights and wrongs in our society and narrow, self-interested press feeds the paranoias of narrow, self-interested people. be careful what you wish for.

and a fundamental problem with your argument is that murdoch does not want a free and open press - he wants his media empire to be dominant the world over. there would never be 20 murdochs - none of them would allow it.

Whoever that philosopher was was right on that aspect. That is how humanity has advanced over centuries and conquered all the challneges presented to it. That is why we humans are unique on this earth. Like Obama said "yes we can", and we can solve any problem with our ingenuity and individuality and freedom of will and freedom of thought. That's why all the doom-monger liars are wrong when they tell us that we are destroying the planet and that we have passed the "tipping point".

No written or spoken piece can be truly objective. The very act of selecting verbs and adjectives etc brings subjectivity by default.

However, the BBC does generally provide balance, in that it provides the forum for discussion and the presenters are that, to question and facilitate discussion.

In the 80s, the BBC came under a lot of fire because it was browbeaten by Thatcher to broadcast a biased view of the miner's strike, the coverage of the IRA assasinations and other sensitive areas. There are various groups like the Glasgow Media Group which covered this. There is half a chance of putting these things right when the expectation is to be balanced and such groups exist to ensure balance.

But, if you start from the premise of accepting lies and bias then you can only expect to be deceived by rich men for their own ends.

and the BBC has just been told it should not give so much airtime to climate change deniers because it is disproportionate to the evidence and global consensus.
proof - if ever it was needed - that the bbc can never do right for doing wrong

I thought it was because we had thumbs

... not just thumbs ... opposable thumbs.

(very important for the space bar.)

We all like punk music. Johnny Rotten shook up the cosy consensus and challnged the establishment. The Pistols 'Anarchy in the UK' shocked teh great and the good and the BBC (the establishment's broadcaster) rushed to ban 'God Save The Queen'. They shook it up, just like Elvis did 20 odd years before.

Someone recommended the book 'Stick it up your punter' about the Sun and Kelvin Mackenzie. I had never heard of it, so I looked up a review of it in teh Independent. It said that the author said that the Sun was teh Sex Pistols of the newspaper industry, it gobbed over everyone and every institution. The Sun and Mackenzie often go too far and have done harmful things, but they are punks, they challenge the consensus, they challenge the status quo, they cause teh Establishment to have a few sleepless nights. We need papers and people like that who shake things up so that something new emerges.

At least then the nightmarr of 100 'liberal bias' Marrs has some counterpoint, some challenge.

I rather thought that the Sun is somewhat reactionary, and far from challenging the status quo, what has emerged that is new from the Sun's actions that is positive?

Murdoch is an outsider. Jon Snow said on Andrew Neil's show 'This Week' something to the effect that the rouble with Murdoch is that we have no hold on him, he's a foreign citizen and he doesn't pay taxes here. He is uncontrollable and outside teh establishment. He's not a Lord or a Sir. He followed his own agenda and shook the establishment. He said something like the establishment didn't like him because everytime they invited him somewhere he found Lord so and so in bed with someone and reported it to the public. He is an outsider.

Thatcher was an outsider too. She allowed him his big rise and she too shook up the cosy establishment agenda. They both changed Britain, for better or worse. They were both against the cosy consensus status quo.

The establishment is not reactionary, it is the same as the establishment's broadcaster, the BBC. Murdoch was the opposition to the establishment. He exposed many of the establishment's misdeeds. When he bought the establishment's paper, The Times, the establishment were pissed that this brash outsider had gotten hold of their paper.

As Carl Bernstein said on Newsnight last night, Murdoch ended up becoming teh new establishment. He had politicians in his pocket. But he was always an outsider to the Lords and Sirs.

Jumps in with a flippant little point that is hardly worthy of this excellent debate:

The Sex Pistols were a manufactured band egged on to be as gratuitous and "anti-establishment" as they could be, by the music establishment of that era - Malcolm McLaren.

I want to come back and join in properly, but need me tea!

claig but if you are anti-establishment then how exactly does supporting the new establishment make it rock and roll? surely it's just supporting another load of vested interests with too much power? so what you "yeah" the person with too much power as long as they aren't the person that you used to think had too much power?
oh and the sex pistols were a manufactured band with -to an extent - a manufactured attitude. they (or rather their manager) realised that their posturing got them notoriety, notoriety got them sales. very counter-culture. oh and Johnny Rotten ended up marrying an hieress and investing in property. rock'n'roll

"he exposed many of the establishment's misdeeds" - not so happy when they helped expose his establishment's misdeeds, though, eh?

x-post with teej who said it better than me...

knit one, purl one.

x-post bornsicky and i'm also off for me tea

I don't support the new establishment. I don't support Murdoch. I am all for many competing interests such as Murdoch , the BBC, the Guardian, the Mail etc. I want plurality because I believe that each one of them serves a purpose to increase our understanding and knowledge of what goes on. They all contribute to the people's knowledge and entertainment.

Yes the Pistols were manufactured, just like the Stones and the Beatles were manufactured. But the Pistols were never mainstream establishment. McClaren was an outsider without a history in the music business. The music establishment's EMI sacked teh Pistols because they were too hot and the Pistols wrote that classic record "EMIIII". It was the then relative outsider Branson who signed them up. McClaren was a legendary svengali who created them, but he was never establishment either.

In case we have some younger lurkers who never lived through it. Here are the Pistols socking it to teh Establishment with the legendary EMI

I bet the CEO of EMI's phone was red hot with the Establishment phoning up demanding that these 'punks' be sacked immediately.