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| Britain | ||
| BBC host quits in 'anti-Arab' row | ||
| 2004-01-17 | ||
Veteran British television presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk has quit as host of a BBC morning chat show following a row over anti-Arab comments he made in a newspaper article. "I believe this is the right moment to leave the programme and concentrate my energies in other directions," said Kilroy-Silk on Friday, a former Labour Party member of parliament. The BBC had suspended his long-running Kilroy topical discussion show after the Sunday Express newspaper published an article by him headlined "We owe the Arabs nothing". The Muslim Council of Britain, which had condemned Kilroy-Silk over the article, welcomed his departure. "We hope today's landmark decision by the BBC will send out a clear signal that anti-Arab racism is every bit as unacceptable, every bit as odious as any other form of racism," the council's secretary general Iqbal Sacranie said.
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| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #4 The BBC is not government propaganda. It is far worse, it is a tribune for the journalists. There is some legitimacy in an elected government having access to a media and to not depend on the humors of TV or journal owners to esxplain its policy. Of course some lines have to be drawn in order that the opposition has some access to it and in order that the media remains the voice of the state and not the voice of the ruling party. In case of BBC and France's public broadcast the journalists are "independent". But indcependency does not mean veracity: they have become a tribune for the rants and propaganda of loonie left journalists, a tax-payer funded tribune for unelected journalists. Another point is that people keep their shields up when the media is being advertised as "voice of government" and to lower them when it is "made by independent journalists". Problem is not BBC being state owned but journalists who act like activists for a cause instead ofmerley informing the public and letting it to form its opinion. AFAIK you have the same problem of distortuion of news in private media like CNN. The fundamental issue is that the voice of a journalist reaches much farther than the voice of other people and that they abuse this power. In France more and more we are seing politicains fearing to displease them more than they fear to displease the people. We need a counterweight to the journalistic power and that power is blogging: journalism made by the people. By real people, those who are in the productive sphere not by litterary types (see Den Beste's discussion on the psychology of the soft science people). |
| Posted by: JFM 2004-1-17 1:39:10 PM |
| #3 When you can do whatever you wish without being afraid of any backlash, you have no reason to provide a "balanced" point of view. The Left has been exceedingly diligent at seizing the lines of communication. In a free market, their particular bias results in loss of viewership/listeners/readers, and the loss of advertising funds to keep them going. When the government picks up the tab, the gap between what the audience believes and feels and what the production staff believes and feels widens until the gulf cannot be crossed. The BBC is the British version - in this country NPR and PBS occupy the same position. There are plenty of alternatives to current government propaganda. It's time to pull the plug on all of them. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-1-17 12:47:57 PM |
| #2 The BBC's subsidy needs to be removed ASAP. Lack of accountability is their number one enabler |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-1-17 11:35:10 AM |
| #1 Kilroy-Silk had swiftly apologised for any offence the article might have caused, claiming it had been re-published in error and had prompted no reaction when it first appeared in April last year. What the hell for? Since when is the Arabic world and Islam beyond criticism? "Presenters of this kind of programme have a responsibility to uphold the BBC's impartiality," Jana Bennett, the BBC's director of television. said. The BBC's "impartiality"??? ....ha....haha....hahahaa.....hahahahaaa.....HAAAHHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!! |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-1-17 12:36:22 AM |