Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Tory & Reform UK MPs, #TuftonSt lobbyists, & Media Barons Rupert Murdoch, Jonathan Harmsworth & Paul Marshall despise two of Britain’s most loved institutions: our @BBC & our #NHS.

They use their power to undermine them.

Why?

And who is the new @BBC Chair, Samir Shah?

For these individuals & organisations, our @BBC & #NHS are a constant reminder that free-market capitalism is a profoundly flawed ideology fuelling greed & climate change, & that not every large organisation should either be a charity or be owned by shareholders & run for profit.

This thread focuses on how @BBCNews & @BBCPolitics output has, since 2000, become increasingly skewed to the right & a vehicle for defending free-market capitalism.

I'd need to write a 100K word thesis to cover everything I want to say about the @BBC, but I'll convey the basics.

The @BBC is still extremely influential, & is undoubtedly one of the greatest if not THE greatest broadcaster on earth, with vast national & global reach.

Despite huge pressures & changes in media over the last few decades, it still has a profound influence on UK public opinion.

I'm not going to discuss the @BBC's important & influential non-news & politics output, other than to praise its drama, comedy, nature, music, children's & family entertainment, documentaries, sport, & national & international event output, as well as its incredible archive.

In our increasingly fragmented country & world, the Beeb - along with our wonderful #NHS - has imho been the consistent cultural glue that has contributed more to national identity, national unity, & a sense of pride in Britain than any Govt or any other organisation since 1951.

The British Broadcasting Company Ltd was a commercial broadcasting company formed in 1922, managed by John Reith, & effectively nationalised in 1926, when the company was dissolved & its assets transferred to the non-commercial & crown-chartered British Broadcasting Corporation.

By mid 1925, Reith wanted the @BBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise, but controversy was immediate: the 1926 UK general strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, & the BBC suddenly became the primary source of news during the crisis.

Reith was acutely aware that Stanley Baldwin's Tory Govt might exercise its right to commandeer the @BBC as a mouthpiece of the government if the BBC were to step out of line, but he was also anxious to maintain public trust by at least appearing to be acting independently.

The Tory Govt trusted Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored PM Baldwin's. Churchill wanted to commandeer the @BBC. Reith wrote that Baldwin's Govt wanted to be able to say "that they did not commandeer it, but they know that they can trust us not to be really impartial".

Thus the @BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the Govt's objectives largely in a manner of its own choosing.

Similar to today's left-leaning critics of the BBC's news & politics output, supporters of the strike nicknamed the BBC the BFC - the 'British Falsehood Company'.

Reith personally announced the end of the strike, which he marked by reciting from Blake's "Jerusalem" signifying that 'England had been saved'.

Since its formation, opinion has been divided on the extent to which the @BBC's news & politics output has ever been truly impartial.

Most sholars agree that the @BBC's news & politics output has always shown a tendency toward support for 'the establishment', & more often than not, support for the Government of the day - at least some of this is very obviously motivated by self-interest & self-preservation.

While the @BBC tends to characterise its coverage of the 1926 general strike - and everything since - as 'balanced' & 'impartial', Seaton has characterised this episode as the invention of "modern propaganda in its British form".

I tend to agree.

routledge.com/Power-Without-…

Reith argued that trust gained by 'authentic impartial news' could then be 'used' - 'impartial' news was not necessarily an end in itself.

I'll just mention that Stanly Baldwin himself was certainly no fan of some highly partisan national right-wing newspapers:

The @BBC did well out of the crisis, cementing a national audience. The Govt accepted the recommendation made by the Crawford Committee that the British Broadcasting Company be replaced by a non-commercial, Crown-chartered organisation: the British Broadcasting Corporation.

I could discuss the @BBC's role during WWII, & various other crises it has faced, but I just wanted to note that since its inception, the @BBC has always struggled to balance appearing impartial in its news & politics output, while keeping the Government of the day off its back.