Post by Teddy Bear on Jun 22, 2015 16:56:20 GMT
It's just one example that the fact that those employed by the BBC don't understand the humour in Cameron's wisecrack is why they don't represent the majority of the British public and should be cast off.
We saw the same recently when an aged but successful scientist made a quip about female scientists and was forced to resign because the left don't get it.
Giving the BBC a licence fee is tantamount to paying for our own destruction by third rate visionless minds given the power of propaganda.
Though the author of this article doesn't go to this length, he offers some criticism.
The BBC is not as important as the NHS. Its supporters need to stop being so thin-skinned
The BBC and its uncritical cheerleaders need to get over themselves
By Brendan O'Neill
For an institution that loves sneering at politicians — whether it’s in a barking interview on Newsnight or on one of its smugness-oozing panel shows — the BBC is remarkably thin-skinned when a politician fires back.
David Cameron’s wisecrack about shutting down the Beeb seems to have got Auntie’s blood boiling. It also caused bits of Twitter to go into meltdown (which admittedly isn’t hard).
The gag was uttered on the Tory battle bus, in the run-up to the election. Informed that the BBC was reporting that Cameron had told Nick Clegg that the Tories couldn’t win a majority, Cam allegedly said: “Rubbish… I’m going to close them [the BBC] down after the election.”
Nick Robinson — who wasn’t even on the bus when the sinful words fell from Cameron’s gob — has revealed all in his new book. He says he’s unsure whether the PM was making a “joke or a threat” — not surprising, considering he wasn't there — but claims Cameron’s swipe was “yet another bit of pressure” on the BBC. Cameron was essentially saying “don’t forget who’s boss here”.
To echo Cameron: rubbish. It was clearly a gag. A mickey-take. Comedic hyperbole in a moment of frustration. Like when you say to a mate who’s being annoying: “I’m going to kill you.” You’re not really going to kill him. And Cameron isn’t really going to close down the BBC. To borrow another Cameron comment that caused temperatures to rise: calm down, dears.
Cameron’s Beeb-ribbing joke was a total non-event. Even the Guardian story that tries its best to make it sound like the vocal equivalent of burning the Union flag couldn’t sustain its outrage. Robinson himself is now trying to play down the seriousness of Cameron’s comments (having initially stoked it up).
But the irritation with a politician for daring to make a joke at the BBC’s expense is revealing. It shows how sacralised the Beeb has become, how much it fancies itself as the media equivalent of the NHS: a worship-worthy institution that none may blaspheme against.
Cameron broke the Second Commandment of political life: Thou Shalt Not Mock the BBC. (The first is Thou Shalt Never, Ever Say Anything Even Remotely Critical of the NHS.) Beeb fans increasingly respond to any criticism of their beloved great media leader in the same way a Scientologist bristles and fumes if anyone dares diss L Ron Hubbard.
In recent years, imperceptibly, through the deployment of stern looks from the BBC’s well-fed directors and the threat of 140-character castigation from the Beeb-lovin’ Twitterati, the BBC has come to be ringfenced from ridicule. It’s getting harder to have a debate about the nature and future of this eye-wateringly massive institution, which has nearly 17,000 full-time staff and which last year spent £4.9bn.
Ask an awkward question about the license fee — and whether this archaic form of funding has any place in an era when we have more media choices than ever — and you’ll be branded a loony Right-winger. Fail to defend some obscure BBC radio station or TV channel from being phased out and you’ll be likened to Islamic terrorists. Seriously.
When the Beeb flirted with the idea of halving the budget of BBC 3 and putting it online, one-time funnyman turned Observer columnist Stewart Lee said the aspiring dismantlers of the Great Beeb are “as pernicious as the statue-smashers of so-called Islamic State”. As with everything Lee says, it was hard to tell if he’s being serious — but the view of any stab or jibe at the BBC as cultural terrorism is widespread.
No matter that BBC 3 churns out the kind of yoof TV that is so squirm-inducingly awful that it could only have been thunk up by a 42-year-old man in skinny jeans and a Shoreditch beard. No matter that it is watched by about 27 people. It must still be defended, because it’s part of the Beeb, and the Beeb is holy, sainted, the second greatest thing us Brits ever invented (NHS comes first, obvs).
The BBC and its uncritical cheerleaders need to get over themselves. The Beeb isn’t the NHS (and the media classes’ Sun God-style worship of that institution is harebrained enough). It’s just a media company. Which, like every other media company, produces some good stuff — a few decent dramas, occasionally watchable news reporting — and also hours and hours, days and days in fact, of undiluted dross. Two Pints of Lager. Snog, Marry, Avoid. Those radio panel shows featuring fiftysomething men in cardigans making twee jokes about how much they hate Thatcher when she isn’t even alive anymore. Seriously, we pay for this?
There’s a really big, important debate to be had about the BBC. About how it’s funded, what it’s for, why it has so flagrantly ditched its Reithian principles in favour of churning out codswallop. But such a debate is impossible in the cultish climate that surrounds this institution, when even having a mild, jokey pop at the Beeb can generate headlines. Cameron isn’t shutting down the BBC — but can we at least talk about whether, one day, that might be worth thinking about?
We saw the same recently when an aged but successful scientist made a quip about female scientists and was forced to resign because the left don't get it.
Giving the BBC a licence fee is tantamount to paying for our own destruction by third rate visionless minds given the power of propaganda.
Though the author of this article doesn't go to this length, he offers some criticism.
The BBC is not as important as the NHS. Its supporters need to stop being so thin-skinned
The BBC and its uncritical cheerleaders need to get over themselves
By Brendan O'Neill
For an institution that loves sneering at politicians — whether it’s in a barking interview on Newsnight or on one of its smugness-oozing panel shows — the BBC is remarkably thin-skinned when a politician fires back.
David Cameron’s wisecrack about shutting down the Beeb seems to have got Auntie’s blood boiling. It also caused bits of Twitter to go into meltdown (which admittedly isn’t hard).
The gag was uttered on the Tory battle bus, in the run-up to the election. Informed that the BBC was reporting that Cameron had told Nick Clegg that the Tories couldn’t win a majority, Cam allegedly said: “Rubbish… I’m going to close them [the BBC] down after the election.”
Nick Robinson — who wasn’t even on the bus when the sinful words fell from Cameron’s gob — has revealed all in his new book. He says he’s unsure whether the PM was making a “joke or a threat” — not surprising, considering he wasn't there — but claims Cameron’s swipe was “yet another bit of pressure” on the BBC. Cameron was essentially saying “don’t forget who’s boss here”.
To echo Cameron: rubbish. It was clearly a gag. A mickey-take. Comedic hyperbole in a moment of frustration. Like when you say to a mate who’s being annoying: “I’m going to kill you.” You’re not really going to kill him. And Cameron isn’t really going to close down the BBC. To borrow another Cameron comment that caused temperatures to rise: calm down, dears.
Cameron’s Beeb-ribbing joke was a total non-event. Even the Guardian story that tries its best to make it sound like the vocal equivalent of burning the Union flag couldn’t sustain its outrage. Robinson himself is now trying to play down the seriousness of Cameron’s comments (having initially stoked it up).
But the irritation with a politician for daring to make a joke at the BBC’s expense is revealing. It shows how sacralised the Beeb has become, how much it fancies itself as the media equivalent of the NHS: a worship-worthy institution that none may blaspheme against.
Cameron broke the Second Commandment of political life: Thou Shalt Not Mock the BBC. (The first is Thou Shalt Never, Ever Say Anything Even Remotely Critical of the NHS.) Beeb fans increasingly respond to any criticism of their beloved great media leader in the same way a Scientologist bristles and fumes if anyone dares diss L Ron Hubbard.
In recent years, imperceptibly, through the deployment of stern looks from the BBC’s well-fed directors and the threat of 140-character castigation from the Beeb-lovin’ Twitterati, the BBC has come to be ringfenced from ridicule. It’s getting harder to have a debate about the nature and future of this eye-wateringly massive institution, which has nearly 17,000 full-time staff and which last year spent £4.9bn.
Ask an awkward question about the license fee — and whether this archaic form of funding has any place in an era when we have more media choices than ever — and you’ll be branded a loony Right-winger. Fail to defend some obscure BBC radio station or TV channel from being phased out and you’ll be likened to Islamic terrorists. Seriously.
When the Beeb flirted with the idea of halving the budget of BBC 3 and putting it online, one-time funnyman turned Observer columnist Stewart Lee said the aspiring dismantlers of the Great Beeb are “as pernicious as the statue-smashers of so-called Islamic State”. As with everything Lee says, it was hard to tell if he’s being serious — but the view of any stab or jibe at the BBC as cultural terrorism is widespread.
No matter that BBC 3 churns out the kind of yoof TV that is so squirm-inducingly awful that it could only have been thunk up by a 42-year-old man in skinny jeans and a Shoreditch beard. No matter that it is watched by about 27 people. It must still be defended, because it’s part of the Beeb, and the Beeb is holy, sainted, the second greatest thing us Brits ever invented (NHS comes first, obvs).
The BBC and its uncritical cheerleaders need to get over themselves. The Beeb isn’t the NHS (and the media classes’ Sun God-style worship of that institution is harebrained enough). It’s just a media company. Which, like every other media company, produces some good stuff — a few decent dramas, occasionally watchable news reporting — and also hours and hours, days and days in fact, of undiluted dross. Two Pints of Lager. Snog, Marry, Avoid. Those radio panel shows featuring fiftysomething men in cardigans making twee jokes about how much they hate Thatcher when she isn’t even alive anymore. Seriously, we pay for this?
There’s a really big, important debate to be had about the BBC. About how it’s funded, what it’s for, why it has so flagrantly ditched its Reithian principles in favour of churning out codswallop. But such a debate is impossible in the cultish climate that surrounds this institution, when even having a mild, jokey pop at the Beeb can generate headlines. Cameron isn’t shutting down the BBC — but can we at least talk about whether, one day, that might be worth thinking about?