Post by Teddy Bear on Feb 27, 2007 21:05:17 GMT
Review in today's Independant on a new book where the title says it all.
'Scrap The BBC!' by Richard D North
An idiosyncratic polemic against state involvement in broadcasting
By Robert Hanks
Published: 27 February 2007
Richard D North doesn't much care for the labels "contrarian" or "maverick", which suggest a self-regarding tendency to cock a snook at received wisdom. North, I'm sure, is sincere. But knowing that the steak he is tucking into came off a sacred cow is all the mustard he needs. A pioneer of ecological journalism, he became frustrated with what he saw as the platitudinous, complacent streak in green thinking, an unwillingness to confront contradictions and consequences. So he has ended up defending causes as unfashionable as big oil and the fur trade.
This polemic against state involvement in broadcasting is of a piece with his recent work. North's case for scrapping the BBC - the subtitle's "10 years to save broadcasting" refers to the time before the next Charter renewal - falls into two parts. First, the BBC's status as a subsidised, regulated broadcaster is irrational and harmful. We don't think newspapers should be publicly owned, or distributed free in return for a compulsory levy. The BBC's insulation from market forces is unfair to commercial broadcasters and inhibits innovation. Moreover, it is funded by a regressive tax with a disproportionate impact on the poor. The second part revolves around the quality of the BBC's journalism, which North regards as smug, careless of proper divisions between reporting and comment, and inclined to toe a dull, left-liberal line.
The book is an idiosyncratic blend of the irrefutable, the slapdash, the witty, the annoying and the plain wrong. That the BBC's structure and funding arrangements are irrational is obvious. It is unclear how much this matters: given the BBC's success over time, are there pressing reasons for abolition, rather than tinkering? Nor does he adequately make the case that the BBC's flaws are a product of its constitution: many of his complaints apply just as strongly to independent television and print journalism. However, North's strictures on BBC journalism (especially his bugbear, the Today programme) are by and large spot on, and often funny.
North ends with a short, shrewd and warm-hearted account of his life in journalism, probably the best reason to buy the book. There are several others; and while they may be outnumbered by reasons to chuck it across the room - well, the exercise will do you good, physically and mentally. For all his flaws North is, to borrow a phrase of his own, horribly bracing.