**** hell!!!!

Is this a taster for the totalitarian state we are about to enter. Do what your told, don’t think for yourself, don’t express an opinion, we own you.

Would it be too much to ask to include a link to what you’re referring to?

Piloted on teachers a few weeks ago. Won’t work there either…

This, methinks – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54723282

The BBC has issued new guidance on social media usage, which will force staff to maintain impartiality.

Seems fair enough. What am I missing?

The BBC will also tell staff to disclose their earnings outside of the corporation on a public database.

**** no.

One assumes the plan is to make all the employees leave of their own accord, giving a reason the shut the whole thing down

Seems fair enough. What am I missing?

The ability to read an article beyond the headline.

David Attenborough is going to be in trouble, all that pesky environmental politics he keeps spouting.

The ability to read an article beyond the headline.

I read it, seems like an employer with impartiality at the core of their mandate issuing some overdue guidance to their employees…

As long as the employees are impartial whilst doing their job, why should it matter what they do in their own time? Or what they earn outside of what the bbc pays them for?

BBC rakes in nearly £5,000,000,000 per year from their TV tax. Of which the treasury gets a chunk.

Which is why there will always be a TV tax.

I suspect the BBC will be a very different, diminished institution 4 years from now.

They will never cure that anti govt left wing rats nest.

brads
Full Member
They will never cure that anti govt left wing rats nest.

I hope not.👍

As long as the employees are impartial whilst doing their job, why should it matter what they do in their own time? Or what they earn outside of what the bbc pays them for?

Because the (presumed) impartiality of the BBCs various broadcast news and current affairs (that’s mainly who this is pitched at) is undermined if the journalists and presenters delivering it then go on Twitter and spout their bias for all to see or take an after dinner gig with some sort of political implications…

It really is something that goes with the job TBH… If Laura Kuenssberg or whoever doesn’t like it they can always do a Person and toddle off to ITN or Sky…

The fact that it specifically mentions avoiding ‘virtue signalling’ (BTW I’m sick of how often this term has been bandied around recently) shows where the political rationale for this comes from quite clearly.

I guess arsehole-signalling is ok though.

They will never cure that anti govt left wing rats nest.

Fingers crossed it stays that way yes.

Intelligent, well educated , well informed men and women who elect to not make the most lucrative career choices available to them not being natural tories. I can’t fathom it.

BBC rakes in nearly £5,000,000,000 per year from their TV tax. Of which the treasury gets a chunk.

Which is why there will always be a TV tax.

The BBC rakes in ~£5bn in total, about three quarters of which is TV licensing. Of that licensing figure, something like a fifth is provided by the treasury to cover the licence-exempt gimmers.

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They will never cure that anti govt left wing rats nest.

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don’t believe everything you read in your daily mail…

I suspect the BBC will be a very different, diminished institution 4 years from now.

The BBC is already a very different, diminished institution from the one it was four years ago.

They will never cure that anti govt left wing rats nest.

You’d prefer a fiercely pro government propaganda machine? Even if that government was left wing?

Why does it matter what the political opinions of a football highlights show presenter are?

^^ Yep, I can’t disagree with that sadly.

They will never cure that anti govt left wing rats nest.

For all the rampant bobbins we’ve seen since the Referendumb, accusing the BBC – as a whole – of left wing / anti-government bias must rate right up there as one the most bizarre and spurious. It’s given exponentially more airtime to Farage and his merry band of arsetrumpets than just about anyone else, and challenged their outright lies so rarely that it becomes meme-worthy when they do. You must think Channel 4 is basically Stalin.

Sure, some of the Radio 4 comedy slots might be a big ‘lefty’ but I’d be astonished if The Now Show featured amongst your regular listening.

Removing my own bias and playing devil’s advocate for a moment, if both sides are accusing them of bias in favour of the other then they’re probably not getting things too badly wrong.

FWIW I think the beeb do a pretty good job of maintaining impartiality, primarily evidenced by the fact that people with both right and left leanings tend to accuse them if opposing forms of bias…

If someone is identified with the BBC’s news and current affairs output, they simply have to moderate their social media blather accordingly. They’ve not been told they can’t use Twitter, nor that they can’t do external gigs, they’ve just been given guidance on what to consider when engaging in such things and how it affects the primary role for which they are employed by the BBC (and, if you like, by extension us license fee payers)…

This isn’t actually all that unusual, certainly not “Totalitarian!”… I just don’t understand all the frothing.

This isn’t actually all that unusual,

Does your boss require you to reveal all your outside earnings? That just seems like a way of generating ill feeling towards higher paid talent/execs. ‘Why are we paying him £X when he gets £Y from whatever else.’ Like what happens every time the salaries are announced.

This is just a step towards ‘controversial subjects’ becoming ‘whatever the govt disagrees with’.

Reporting from the BBC during that pandemic has been very obviously taking it easy on the government (hasn’t the DG changed recently?).

The issue, as I see it, is that people (see above) don’t understand what impartiality looks like. Do you want the BBS to report facts…… or views? Unfortunately, most people I see complaining about BBC “bias” are actually complaining about their view being exposed as not being supported by facts: ie: having a steady flow of economists reporting that Brexit will be an economic disaster.

It’ll be gone in less than a decade, this is just Enshittify The BBC Pt1. A planned ‘boiling frog‘-style demolition process. The heat and steam will be turned up over the next 6 years until the Beeb is more palatably offed and the public will have had had enough of it. The red top campaign against it has been in full swing for a good many years now.

The ‘official’ story will be like

‘The BBC was a Jewel in Britain’s Crown until the British Public decided that the broadcaster no longer represented English interests in an unbiased way, and has now sadly become a nest of foul, rabid, blood-drinking Marxinism. It has been decided by the Executive that despite every effort of the incumbent Brexit Party Regime to steer Her away from the inevitable rocks of Bolshevism and racial pandering – the BBC has failed the Nation and can no longer be trusted as an unbiased source of news and entertainment. And so, the time has come to look at new horizons. As such, we are somewhat sad to announce that the British Broadcasting Company will be shutting it’s doors and closing the curtains on New Years Eve, Dec 31st, 2027 at 21:30 GMT.

Give or take.

Removing my own bias and playing devil’s advocate for a moment, if both sides are accusing them of bias in favour of the other then they’re probably not getting things too badly wrong.

Or it can just mean they are half way to crazy town.
Plus I always find it interesting the use “both sides” which ignores the centrist grouping.

Ah yes, “balance.” That probably means it’s time for this clip again.

Do you want the BBS to report facts…… or views?

I want them to report facts as facts, and to discuss views fairly. I’ve no issue with someone extolling the alleged sunny uplands of Brexit on Loose Women, I’ve more of a problem with it going uncontested on News at 10.

Remember when investigative journalism existed, and reporters performed due diligence and fact-checked? Halcyon days.

Removing my own bias and playing devil’s advocate for a moment, if both sides are accusing them of bias in favour of the other then they’re probably not getting things too badly wrong.

I’m not convinced of their impartiality or lack of bias. If they were discussing the Earth’s curvature, the BBC would give equal time to some flat Earther in the name of fairness. They have done this for years with climate change for example. They are heavily pro the status quo imho.

Does your boss require you to reveal all your outside earnings?

Basically yep, my employer does want to know if I have any secondary work, mainly in case it conflicts with my main employment, I honestly don’t find it sinister. But then I don’t see grand conspiracies everywhere…

And I think it’s the same case with the beeb, they’re doubtless used to the talent being paid lump sums on the side, they’re probably not so comfortable, I would imagine, if those sums were coming from, say a Russian oil billionaire for example…

Basically yep, my employer does want to know if I have any secondary work, mainly in case it conflicts with my main employment, I honestly don’t find it sinister.

Normally it’s a chat to say that there’s no conflict of interest, and that you are committed to the company. Not a set of accounts, to be made public.

They have done this for years with climate change for example.

Only in your imagination have they.

As long as the employees are impartial whilst doing their job, why should it matter what they do in their own time? Or what they earn outside of what the bbc pays them for?

its about perception of bias whether or not an actual bias exists. would you say the same about judges? or cabinet ministers? or police officers? or any of the regulators (ICO, Offcom, FSA etc).

David Attenborough is going to be in trouble, all that pesky environmental politics he keeps spouting.

He’s not a bbc employee though – so isn’t affected as I understand it…

I want them to report facts as facts, and to discuss views fairly

I completely agree with you. I think what I meant was that people who complain about bias are often complaining about objectivity – and are just put-out that this objectivity doesn’t support their viewpoint (ie: their reasoning is flawed, or they are just flat-out W R O N G).

At a time when the rightists are pushing an agenda underpinned by misrepresentation of facts and outright lies – calling them out on that IS balanced/objective/neutral, it’s not biased towards the left.

A newsnight presenter giving one politician (who is blatantly lying and refusing to give direct answers) a proper grilling, but using a lighter touch on another who is being more honest an open, is not bias….. it’s objectivity. In the same way as taking the piss out of trump more than Biden isn’t biased towards the left – but rightists moan that it is.

Removing my own bias and playing devil’s advocate for a moment, if both sides are accusing them of bias in favour of the other then they’re probably not getting things too badly wrong.

This… My Dad and his increasingly far right cronies call it the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation. The hard line socialists I know think the BBC is a right ring echo chamber… 🤷🏻‍♂️

I’m not convinced of their impartiality or lack of bias. If they were discussing the Earth’s curvature, the BBC would give equal time to some flat Earther in the name of fairness. They have done this for years with climate change for example. They are heavily pro the status quo imho.

Don’t agree entirely, though do agree it is moving right at the moment (very recent phenomenon FWIW)… Unfortunately, if it wants to survive given the governments assertions that it will take control of whatever it wants and limit public information as it chooses, it has to! Sad times if this doesn’t change very soon…

The BBC has traditionally been left leaning not through any conspiracy just that the type of people who go into public service journalism tended to be more liberal. This is being rapidly exterminated though.

At a time when the rightists are pushing an agenda underpinned by misrepresentation of facts and outright lies – calling them out on that IS balanced/objective/neutral, it’s not biased towards the left.

That may be factual. But the popular narrative is the ‘truth’ that matters. Even if it’s a lie or won on lies.

cookeaa
Full Member

Basically yep, my employer does want to know if I have any secondary work,

Does he expect you to put it in a public database? And does he then expect you to knock off for the day and then not go home and go on STW “and express a personal opinion on matters of public policy, politics, or controversial subjects”?

Yup, that social media policy is batshit crazy and completely unreasonable. People should be allowed personal opinions.