A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.
I'm fed up with the BBC running very, very lengthy stories about itself.
posted by Luke Akehurst at 9:54 am
Labour MP for North Durham since 2024. Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012 and since 2020. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Dad. Unite and GMB union member. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.
6 Comments:
The today programme this morning was even worse I thought they started negotiating on air with Mr M Lyons Chair of the Trust
Paul Smith
11:34 am, October 18, 2007
They are in a hard place because there would be whingeing from the right-wing anti-BBC people if they seemed to downplay negative stories about the BBC.
11:40 am, October 18, 2007
1800 biased gravy train riding non-jounralists getting the sack? Best news ever!!
2:47 pm, October 18, 2007
Well I'll ignore the saloon-bar ignorance of "dave" there, and try to flag up why this matters.
The cutbacks at the BBC aren't taking place in a vacuum; they're part of a wider depressing trend of cost-cutting, short-termist trend-hopping and, in the private media, rapacious profiteering across the industry.
And the importance of this goes beyond a standard trade unionist's complaint to the denigration of public debate. The reasons for the Beeb's increasingly trivial coverage of politics and most local papers' dearth of informed local council coverage and the infantilisation of public debate in general are related to this lack of investment in, or interest in, journalism by the people that run the industry.
So Luke, as a good trade unionist, I hope you'll support the NUJ and BECTU in their campaigns against these cuts - this is about defending the very ethos of public service broadcasting.
http://www.standupforjournalism.org.uk/intro.html
10:35 pm, October 18, 2007
Yes I'll support the campaign - I just don't want to have it dominate the news coverage.
9:12 am, October 19, 2007
e10 rifle I accept what you say about the true context of all of this but the BBC doesn't exactly go out to win friends and allies.
Unbelievable amounts of money paid to 'super celeb and super borer' Jonathan Ross just as the BBC sounds the alarm about lack of income. A news production team on TV and radio that is over-focused on London and the South East; hence Paxman on a permanent whine about the temerity of the Scots wanting their own piece of the Neswnights schedule. And of course, a bit of heavy rain in London? - that'll be the 'entire country suffering washout reported' whereas thousands of Hull residents flooded out of their homes? - takes 24 hours to even get a mention on national news. The pathetic cave-in 'to Campbell et all over the Kelly affair'.
As for the appalling pro-English bias of their sports team that's broadcast at us in Scotland, Wales and Ireland by the BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation... well I'll just not go there:)
But still and all I think that one of the less savoury legacies of the Blair era has been a much weakened BBC. That's a bad thing for us all and not just the many world-respected people who work there.
9:52 am, October 19, 2007
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