Tuesday 10 November 2009

Media Impartiality

May or may not be true.
If true, very worrying
:
"a Tory government would abolish Ofcom and allow greater freedom for News Corporation to campaign on issues in the same style as Fox News.

Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw warned in a lecture to Progress last month:

"David Cameron says he wants to abolish or dismember Ofcom. What a co-incidence! The Tories have also said they would lift the legal requirement on broadcasters to be politically impartial. Impartiality is one of things the public value most about British broadcasting and the reason TV and radio news are more trusted than newspapers. But of course if broadcasters were no longer required to be impartial, that would pave the way for a UK version of Fox News.""

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,

The Culture Secretary, Ben Bradshaw, was incorrect. Fox News is already available in the UK -- I know it is on the Sky platform, for example.

I find it very illiberal for a UK government minister to speak about banning or preventing people from having their say... particularly people that are on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

You seem to have your say on this blog -- why would you deny the same freedom for Fox News?

Bearded Socialist said...

Good point, well made.
The issue is impartiality, not free speech.
I support free speech, which is why i don't moderate my comments. Anyone can say whatever they like.
As I say, impartiality is the issue. I am not a major news broadcaster, nor do i pretend to be impartial. Fox news is not impartial, they make the news and push their own agenda. There are those who believe the BBC is partial and biased, which i believe is untrue. People argue it is too left, too right, too liberal etc.
In aggregate, I'd argue that they are probably all wrong as if everyone thinks it biased in a different direction, they are probably pretty impartial