Tag: media

The BBC and impartiality

The BBC was created as a universal service. Its purpose, famously defined by Lord Reith, its founding father, is to ”Inform, Educate and Entertain’.

The Corporation’s modern mission statement updates Reith’s vision: “Our mission is “to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”.”

The key phrases are ‘all audiences’ and that increasingly contentious word, impartial. In an age of division, culture wars and identity politics how can they possibly satisfy everyone with high-quality, impartial output ?

The left arrive at Broadcasting House with demands for representation. All identity groups must be represented in front of and behind the camera. However, the BBC simply cannot satisfy all of the people all of the time.

The right hammer on the BBC’s door with accusations of bias, bias, bias ! Conveniently ill-defined, bias, to them, seems to simply mean the BBC is not properly representing their right-wing views on any given subject. Be that Brexit, the Tory party, immigration, climate change, the NHS. You name it, the BBC is biased, biased, biased.

bias
noun

the action of supporting or opposing a particular person or thing in an unfair way, because of allowing personal opinions to influence your judgment

Cambridge Dictionary

An examination of the facts reveals that the BBC is rarely found to be guilty of bias.

Take a look at how many complaints of bias are actually upheld by OFCOM, the independent body charged with overseeing the BBC and its output. Very, very few. You can look them up here.

At the very least, BBC employees, journalists and presenters arrive at work every day and make an effort to produce unbiased, impartial programmes. They may not always get it right, but thank goodness they try.

The BBC also contradicts one of the right’s fundamental presumptions. It is tax funded and state run, yet it is successful, popular and produces consistenly high-quality output.

This challenges a core right-wing belief that state run enterprises are inherently inefficient and deliver poor-quality services. They despise it and want to destroy it for that very reason.

The BBC is left in an almost impossible position, having to represent all voices while defending itself from accusations of bias.

Can it survive ?

Alan Rusbridger has just written an article in Prospect Magazine about how a right-wing cabal is waging war on the principles that made the BBC great.

Well worth a read.

Super Size Me

Managed to catch Super Size Me the other night.

Basically, Morgan Spurlock does a Michael Moore on the American fast food industry.

He sets himself the task of eating McDonald’s 3 times a day for a month, and super sizes every meal when offered while taking a critical look at America’s culture of obesity.

In America, and elsewhere, there is an obesity crisis. People are simply so fat that it damages their health. Legions of overweight consumers munch through vast portions of sugary, fatty food.

The outrage is that while some in the world starve others die from chronic overfeeding.

Go to an average McDonald’s restaurant and you’ll be offered small, medium, large and super-size portions.

The fast food drinks are huge and are often sold in buckets. The ‘double gulp’, not from McDonald’s, holds an astounding half gallon of soda containing a staggering 48 teaspoons of sugar.

Within a few days, Morgan Spurlock is complaining of what he calls McTummy, the McStomach ache, the McSweats and the McStomach brick.

The huge portions of junk food are making him feel awful. At one point he vomits out of the car window before he can finish his super-size meal.

You soon start to feel for him as he chews his way through 3 squares a day of McDonald’s.

After only 9 days, the menu inevitably gets boring and he suffers depression and finds it really hard going. The thought of McDonald’s morning, noon and night for a month does not appeal !

McDonald’s lure in kids by providing playgrounds, children’s birthday parties and happy meals.

Their marketing emphasises fun at McDonald’s restaurants and their motif is a very recognisable clown.

They target children.

I remember as a child growing up in America in the 70s, a trip to McDonald’s was a special treat. We lived just outside Washington DC and my parents would drive out to the local mall on the Leesburg Turnpike. I remember the McDonald’s there. It had a strange ornamental statue surrounded by thin wires with flowing droplets of oil. Thinking back it was a bit weird. But, hey, it was the 70s !

We would happily tuck into burgers and fries and pester Mum and Dad for more. The golden arches were etched in my young mind as a place of food and fun.

Interestingly, Morgan Spurlock interviews some marketing guru who describes something called ‘brand imprinting for actuation later in life’.

Basically, introduce the brand to children as fun and happy to ensure the logo and brand values stick in their mind. The same ideas as candy cigarettes ! The theory goes that a child who eats candy cigarettes will be more likely to smoke as an adult.

Evil stuff. But it seems to work.

So, McD’s are looking to give kids such a good time that they become lifelong customers.

The impact of all this fast food and super-sized culture is a doubling of obesity in children and adolescents in America in the last 20 years.

This leads to a whole host of diseases and medical conditions including liver problems and diabetes. Basically, too much fast food makes you ill.

Too many fat teenagers and obese children face serious threats to their health by eating junk food. As one contributor put it, ‘you can’t deny these links’.

The programme continues with a look at processed food and Mcdonalds’ ceaseless marketing drive.

McNuggets are termed ‘McFrankenstein’ creations of salt, fat, sugar and processed meat. What goes into them is unclear. But they are manufactured and processed beyond belief.

America has been McDonaldised out and franchised to death. Everywhere you look the golden arches have a ubiquitous presence. McDonald’s is everywhere.

The average US child sees 19,000 food adverts a year. Convenience food and fast food chains are being promoted like never before. It’s big business.

In 2001, McDonald’s alone spent $1.4billion on direct advertising worldwide. Think of all the t-shirts, coupons, kids toys, promotions, TV ads and posters. The McDonald’s brand seems omnipresent.

I’m loving it ! Not.

Any investigation into the diet of American kids has to include school lunches. Here Morgan Spurlock gets close to what Jamie Oliver did to British school dinners.

Both are horrified at the terrible state of the food served up to our school children. School kids are served reheated, reconstituted, packaged foods. Most of which is provided by huge industrial catering companies like Sodexho.

Both Jamie Oliver and Morgan Spurlock discover that diet effects classroom behaviour. In Appleton, Wisconsin, a special needs school serves up fresh ingredients with no frying. No candy or soda is available and the staff are amazed by the changes in behaviour. The kids are more focussed and better behaved. Exactly what Jamie Oliver discovered with his new fresh menus served in Greenwich schools.

Morgan Spurlock takes medical advice and had a full check up before starting out on his McDonald’s eatathon. He soon discovers that his new diet is providing over 200% of his actual nutritional needs. In only 12 days he’s gained a staggering 17lbs. He is soon feeling sick and unhappy as the effects of his high fat diet kick in. His blood pressure reaches 150 over 90 and he starts to talk about a strange addiction to McDonald’s food. His mood goes up and down, but once he starts eating his depression seems to lift. At one point he wakes suddenly at 2am, short of breath suffering heart palpitations.

His medical advisors start to warn his endeavour is rapidly turning into a dangerous experiment. They advise him to stop and warn of the risk of gout, kidney stones and a pickled liver.

Essentially, his liver is deteriorating into pâté. One even advises him to call an ambulance if he starts to feel bad.

His team calls over 100 nutritionists and 95% confirm that junk food is a major contributor to the current obesity epidemic. However, the American food industry is protected by powerful lobby groups in Washington which ensure a favourable Congress. They have enormous power and influence over votes and policy.

By the end of the month Morgan Spurlock has gained 24.5lb and consumed a total of 30lb of sugar and 12lb of fat.

It’s easy to see McDonald’s customers simply as dumb consumers of cheap mass produced burgers and fries. Addicted to huge portions of sugary, fatty food which makes them obese.

In McDonald’s defence, they have dropped the super size option, added salads and healthier options to their menus and publish full nutritional information. Even though it’s sometimes hard to find in their restaurants.

No one is forced to eat McDonald’s and no one really eats it 3 times a day, every day. Too much of anything will make you sick.

However, Morgan Spurlock’s experiment highlights a real problem in a dramatic way. The fast food restaurants are serving up vast portions of cheap, fatty food which is causing obesity and illness among their customers.

Jeremy Bowen: On the Front Line

Watched Jeremy Bowen: On the Front Line last night. Brilliant account of his experiences as a war correspondent. He presented a well thought out essay on the fear, excitement and personal cost of war reporting.

Bowen’s first war was El Salvador in 1989. He describes the exhilaration and terror of seeing war for the first time. He reveals his apprehension at seeing a dead body and the ‘powerful drug’ of reporting from the front.

He cleverly interspersed his own story of warzone journalism with interviews with other war reporters, colleagues and cameramen. Fergal Keane described his experiences in Rwanda and Allan Little and Martin Bell talked about the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Bowen reviewed his career, through El Salvador, Bosnia, Sarajevo, and Mostar to Beirut and Lebanon. I remember his reports from the Balkans and the Middle East and have always liked his direct, engaging style.

The programme was intelligently presented and examined a number of important questions about war correspondents and how objectivity can soon get lost in the heat of battle. In a world of staged press conferences with grainy footage of precision weapons always hitting their mark, Bowen is spot on to emphasise the importance of independent eye-witness accounts. Without the war reporter how are we to understand what’s really happening on the ground ?

He also devoted time to the personal toll war reporting takes on journalists and cameramen. After a bout under fire, normal life seems very tame indeed. He was candid about his time away from the front line and how it seemed unimportant and dull. This can result in psychological torment, addiction, marriage break ups and even suicide. Journalists are exposed to extreme situations of life and death, horror and exhilaration. They see misery and killing and have to report and comment on it daily. After that, normal life seems monotonous, empty and frustrating.

He was very good on the role of war reporters and what they actually do. They search for stories among the rubble, shelling and gunfire. They select facts and images to illustrate the events and tragedies of war to show what killing does to people. War is about death, and death is a terrible human story. Bowen meditated aloud about how reporting wars is intrusive. “You enter people’s lives at their worst moments. A good day for us is always the worst day or the last day for them“. He’s right. The journalist flies in, comments on personal tragedy and death and flies out again. It’s a terrible intrusion which must play on their consciences. But, as he says, “reporting the truth is essential“.

He concluded by describing his experiences reporting on the war in Lebanon and the Israeli withdrawal. Tragically, his Lebanese driver and friend, Abed Takoush, was killed by an Israeli tank shell on the border. I remember the report at the time. Jeremy Bowen was giving a piece to camera when Abed’s car received a direct hit from an Israeli tank shell. He must have died instantly. It was harrowing to watch, and must have been truly terrible to witness. No doubt some sort of turning point in Bowen’s life. People die in war and death can be cruelly indiscriminate. Be it a tank shell in war torn Lebanon, a teenage drug addict with an AK47 in Congo, merciless Serb shelling or El Salvadorian rebels on a killing spree. War is a monstrous meat grinder which devours the young and the innocent.

Jeremy Bowen is a great journalist and a thoughtful war reporter. We are lucky to have him and his experience on our screens. In the age of ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ independent war reporting is as important as ever.

Sir Peter Ustinov

Sir Peter Ustinov died yesterday.

It’s sad when such a talented person leaves us. He was a fabulous raconteur and gifted actor. He seemed to make things look effortless…

I remember hearing his “audience with….” on the radio.

Ustinov’s account of his first day at school had me howling with laughter…

"When I came into my first classroom at the age of 6, there was a large oleograph of Jesus Christ holding a Boy Scout by the hand...

...and pointing out the extent of the British Empire on the map. 

As a small foreign boy I was outraged by this."

You need his wit and delivery to make it really work.

But is still cracks me up !

Here’s An Audience with Peter Ustinov from 1988. Well worth a watch.