When I got in front of a computer after arriving in Oxford, one of the first things I did was get on Twitter and follow BBC. I suspect I'm not the only one who did this. Like lots of people my age (or not my age), I get much of my news online. Although it's not entirely rational, I've been surprised by how similar British news coverage has seemed so far to American news coverage. Especially in the form of a tweet, the common elements are obvious: brief lede explaining the gist of the story followed by a link to an article. Clicking through, you can recognize an inverted pyramid style of writing, a careful citing of sources, a clear attempt toward impartiality -- all hallmarks of American journalism.
Looking at BBC's Twitter and website got me thinking, though, about an American equivalent. The obvious answer might be something like CNN, being a major national news network, but the comparison that's most readily come to mind for me is actually the Associated Press. Like the AP, BBC manages separate accounts for news categories like world news and sports. And maybe it's the journalist or the anti-capitalist in me, but the first source I would think of as thorough and unbiased is the Associated Press. That brings up, of course, a key difference between the AP and other news sources like CNN or Fox or even the New York Times. When we want news from CNN, we visit CNN.com. AP's website? AP.org. Sure, the organization is owned by news companies. But it remains a nonprofit organization. And I think that's part of the reason for what may be a more implicit trust on my part of news from the Associated Press.
Unlike CNN or Fox or MSNBC, BBC is not, in the traditional sense of the term, a business. Also unlike any news stations in the United States, BBC is funded by the government. I know we've discussed some of the risks of receiving the news from a government-funded organization, but is that any worse than relying on for-profit companies to tell us what's happening? A lot of Americans have no idea just how tangled our web of media ownership is. It still seems crazy to me sometimes that someone let Disney buy ABC. Surely there have been some conflicts of interest since then. Meanwhile, BBC is in the midst of reporting a government abuse scandal. Do we take everything at its word -- at least as much as we would do if it weren't a story on the government? Is it better to have a media that is largely for-profit or a media that is largely funded by the government? And does it make an actual difference in day-to-day reporting?
It has always been perplexing to me how the BBC is funded by the government and credited as the go-to news source in the UK. Something I have learned since I've been over here is that Brits pay a mandatory tax of $230 a year to the British government for a TV licence. It is considered a criminal offense to try to evade it. PBS is funded by the government and through viewer donations and Americans don't have to pay a tax to see the programming. So what I want to know (and hopefully can tell before the end of our trip here) is exactly how involved is the government in what the BBC reports. Are UK readers being framed on select issues? And maybe PBS in America would thrive from a mandatory tax like the one imposed here in Britain?
ReplyDeleteI think to a large extent our commercial media organizations recognize that there is value in maintaining credibility, avoiding censorship, etc. That value might be calculated business value, but I still think it is present. If we cease to trust news media (which we kind of are already) they lose viewers, or more importantly, audiences to sell to advertisers (if that statement leaves you queasy, it has the same effect on me), but by some device, I'm confident that I am getting the news from MSNBC or Fox News, even if it comes with a heavy bias to the left or right.
ReplyDeleteI am less trusting of Newspapers without subscriptions now since they are also profit driven organizations, but ones that are struggling to stay afloat, with the exception of the few subscription publications like the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The FT. It can be easy to hold a reasonable amount of integrity in reporting when you're as profitable as, say Comcast. But when the L.A. Times is struggling for money (as they are) and they are running advertisements on the front page of their paper (as they have) I begin to wonder how easily advertisers can influence them, by saying "run this story and we'll pull our ads from your paper."
A government-run news provider certainly seems odd (and suspicious) to me, and probably to most Americans. However, something that I've learned in my time here is that a) British people LOVE the BBC, and b) they actually seem to trust its credibility more because of its federal funding. The people here seem to be less suspicious than American are in general toward journalism. We'd expect a government-sponsored news outlet to be a big propaganda operation, but in actuality they totally bash their politicians in the news. That seems to be where their suspicions lie. I've also learned that news consumers here have a much closer relationship with specific journalists, and they trust what these journalists write. I'd equate it to having numerous Anderson Coopers. These differences in American and British journalism are interesting, and I'd be curious to know which system is better in the long run.
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