Visiting the
British Broadcasting Company is something I have been anticipating since the
moment I sent in my UGA at Oxford Study Abroad program application – last
December. Needless to say, by the time we finally arrived that Thursday a
couple of weeks ago, I was rather, rather excited.
During the tour,
as we were looking out at the gigantic (awesome) newsroom, the tour guide
compared the BBC to America’s CNN. This made me think of other news
organizations we have in America – and there are quite a few – and imagine what
their news operations look like. We have CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC News…and the
list goes on.
We’ve discussed
in class, and it’s been mentioned in previous blog posts, what the pros and
cons are of having a government-sponsored news organization like BBC, as well
as what the BBC’s equivalent would be in America.
But I have a
different question – where do British people go for their TV news, besides BBC?
The British, for sure, love their BBC. Who wouldn’t – it’s awesome. But are
there many other big-name news channels here?
Another topic
that has come up in class has been the dangers of choosing a blatantly sided news
source simply because it caters to and reaffirms one’s views. My dad, an über conservative, drives me crazy by refusing
to get his news from any place other than Fox News. Clearly, this can be a
problem, when one so rarely sees another side of the story and equally rarely
changes their views on issues because of it.
But. We at least have
that luxury – to be informed the way we would like to be. The liberals have
their MSNBC, the republicans their Fox, and then CNN is there to provide middle
ground. We’ve got plenty of options when it comes to choosing a news provider
in America. The UK, however, seems to have a much limited list of choices.
The question I’m left
with is:
Which country’s news
consumer, in the end, is better off?
Lauren, I have found myself asking the same question about BBC. It's an excellent news source, and I can see why the locals seem to rely on it so heavily. But am I missing something? Are there other stations just as popular? I think you raise an interesting question that I hadn't thought of before about the luxury of choice. We are privileged to have so many stations from which we can gather our news, but I think most of us still tend to follow one or two specific stations without paying much attention to the others, like you said. While it is nice to have such a range of options, two different Americans could conceivably be confronted with two completely different set of facts, depending on how their chosen news station frames particular stories. I think this may be contributing to the complete polarity we see in our political system today. Many people complain that politicians are unable to "reach across the aisle" and work with their bipartisan colleagues, but we aren't even willing to step our of our comfort zone enough to consume media that may be counter to our political views. Perhaps the singularity the BBC provides the Brits prevents the political system here from becoming as polarized.
ReplyDeleteI have been curious about this too! I know I don't have a television in my room to be able to readily flip through stations and search for other sources of news here, but you would think that there would be at least one other big name in news coverage for the UK. BBC is a great organization and their coverage spans topics of news, sports, and even many forms of entertainment. They claim to be impartial, but can anyone really be completely unbiased in news coverage? If not, the lack of a news competitor could pose a serious problem since the entire population is only hearing one side of the story. Which also raises the question of if this side is fair or not, considering the organization is government-sponsored.
ReplyDeleteI also started thinking of the power that the BBC holds and the apparent (to me, at least) lack of other news sources. I personally think partisan/opinionated media can be a really great resource as long as it isn't someone's primary or only channel for news, as it can both help you learn a lot about both sides of issues in more depth. Plus, for the politically knowledgeable, it seems like a good platform for more intensive discussion. And I agree with Katy that news coverage doesn't seem to lend itself to the ability to be totally unbiased, so it seems as if more options would be helpful. However, the BBC is incredibly successful and supported for a reason, I guess. Maybe people simply choose other sources for more opinionated content, and use TV broadcast news as a pure information source instead. I would be very interested to see how the British public feels about the roles of different media and about our abundance of politically oriented news.
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