Evangelion

A-M, Monkeybot and Jane Bovary - these are all excellent points.

99Percent, what you appear to be overlooking is the very simple fact that a commercial station has a pre-written agenda: to pull the punters. It has absolutely no incentive to provide objective, intelligent, material with a corresponding analysis. It exists to make money, and it will do that in any way possible. Content is important, yes - but the quality of that content need not be very high. Indeed, history has shown that the lower the objectivity (and quality), the happier the punters will be.

Yes, people are stupid. They switch on to whatever makes them feel good; whatever entertains. And today's commercial media stations will definitely do that for them.

By contrast, a state-run media source has very little incentive to make money, and no real need to do so. Its content is easier to police than a commercial outlet, and taxpayers like to get value for money, so the onus is on its directors to beef up the quality and ensure that it remains consistent.

Historically, the ABC has been the thorn in the side of the Australian government - regardless of who's in power - and so it remains today. The "state agenda/propaganda machine" argument just doesn't have any credibility in this case.

Save it for the black helicopter spotters.

victorialis

Amen-Moses -- agreed about Radio 4. I don;t think there's even a BBC substitute. Radio 4 run circles around the BBC's 24-hr rolling news channel, which is a bit silly and more like SkyNews all the time.

I don't look for "objective" reporting anywhere. There's no such thing; story selection alone builds in a bias (what gets reported and what doesn't). I expect to make my own judgments, having already accepted two facts: that I can't know everything and neither can anyone else.

While I take 99percent's point about statism, I'm not sure what the corresponding non-negative and desirable "ism" would be in this case. Consumerism? (thank you, no.) Internationalism? Multilateralism? There will never be a broadcast outlet for either of the latter two that we will find any more satisfactory than the public broadcasters we have now.

It used to be that the airwaves were considered to be held in public trust. The BBC operates in large part as though that were still the case. Sounds like ABC and CBC do too.

Have we an alternative for what used to be called a "public good"? If not, what's the proper agenda for a public broadcaster?

excreationist

meritocrat:
You didn't do very much to defend what you've said in the thread you've started... that causes me to take you less seriously...

meritocrat

It should be privatised.

Logically it would be up to the owners to determine.

Why are taxed needed to fund a private company? It certainly shouldn't be subsidised.

Because I don't believe that should be the proper role of the state. Government's role should be to protect the rights of the people.

LymanLover

So you are letting your beliefs about private efficiency vs. state efficiency get in the way of what is obvious to nearly every poster on this thread: that the BBC/state owned media provides a highly valuable service that cannot be replicated by private media companies owing to their own allegiances, i.e. profit through selling viewers to advertisers.

The private model currently used in the States does not provide the types of information that should be the norm in any liberal democracy worth a damn.

If you could show us a model through which the BBC could be privatised and yet provide the same level of quality that it does now you would have significant a booster to your argument.

Good luck.

emphryio

Concerning 99pecent's misconceptions:

Yes, many libertarians think only stupid people could possibly not become well informed despite corporate media.

Actually unless you have lots of free time and manage to eventually stumble across the right material on the internet, you literally have to be all knowing to somehow get informed with only sources such as Fox, CNN, etc.

You see when they simply don't tell you the important stories at all, you can't just magically "grab" them out of the air.

Of course simply looking at reality makes this obviously clear, but over and over again libertarians do not do this.

Anyway I appreciate hearing about CBC, ABC, etc, but I have to comment that the attempts to describe the media's profit driven agenda have been oversimplified once again throughout this thread.

It most certainly is a lot more complicated than sensationalism and getting ratings. If that were all it took, Greg Palast's truly sensational (bigger than the Watergate break in) story on the disenfranchised 94,000 in computerized Florida voting scam might have gotten mentioned a bit more don't you think?

Or how about the fact they are computerizing the voting for the entire nation in 2004? Wouldn't that be a sensational story? Yet, you probably haven't heard about it anywhere in the mainstream. The reason being it's far more complicated than "ratings".

Herman and Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" is the number one book on this subject, although many more are now being written.

I'm not going to explain it all, I'm sick of doing so on a one by one basis.