Gary Lineker’s treatment exposes fact that image of warm, fuzzy BBC was always a lie
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Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
Writing on the Guardian’s Sportblog, Jonathan Liew skewers the notion of the BBC’s “impartiality”.
The BBC’s reaction to Lineker, he argues, has been entirely in keeping with its proud 100-year history of suppressing non-establishment viewpoints.
But while things like this used to take place behind closed doors, now they are being challenged openly as the Lineker affair calls into question what impartiality means in practice.
As Liew asks, “Why carry on pretending that cruelty and empathy are equal arguments deserving equal weight?”
This article was originally published by the Guardian on Mon 13 Mar 2023. Read the original here.
Gary Lineker’s treatment exposes fact that image of warm, fuzzy BBC was always a lie
For the right, the BBC has always been a safe space. Now this space is being contested – and it scares the life out of them
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Lord Reith made it quite clear right from the start .. ‘the role of the BBC is to support the government ‘.
Nothing has changed. The BBC is no more independent than CGTN, the Chinese public broadcaster.
We need to ask more questions to really start to lift the veil on this…
For starters, who, who exactly from the government contaced the BBC. A name would be revealing.
Then, who exactly did they contact ??
What are the actual mechanisms whereby this govrnment control takes place ?
Etc etc
The test of media ‘impartiality’ is, surely, how Jeremy Corbyn has been ‘cancelled’, over the past three years.
The last time I saw him on television, he was being attacked by 4.5% Kendall, repeating the lies of ‘anti-Semitism in his Labour Party’, with Robert Peston floundering, straining – and failing – to moderate the conversation, through lack of knowledge. Lack of research. Unforgivable, for any journalist of his standing in the media world.
Last night, on Channel 4 News, Anneliese Dodds was repeating the same lies – once again – unchallenged.
It seems to have eased off, now, but it’s only a matter of weeks since his name was cropping up on any – and every – current affairs discussion programme, followed by the anti-Semitism lies. Never any sign of Jeremy Corbyn, himself, to defend himself, and his Labour Party. Just a good old gossip about his ‘failings’.
There is no one who can credibly claim that any of that is/was impartial, yet, on it goes – unchallenged.
A reminder – throughout this Gary Lineker debacle, there was one politician who gave his full and unequivocal support to Lineker’s Right to Freedom of Expression, with nary a waver.
No ifs, no buts – no U-turns.
Jonathan Liew, Gary Lineker et al. would do well to take note and remember that.
The Guardian is in no position to take the moral high ground. They endorsed the smear campaign against Corbyn, helping to make his 2019 defeat inevitable, and barred Steve Bell from criticising Israel in his cartoons. They haven’t really changed since 1968 when, at a time when The Times was denouncing Enoch Powell’s Rivers Of Blood rant as “an evil speech”, they were assuring their readers that “Mr Powell is not a racist”.
I would like a journalist to investigate the complaints sent to the bbc over the last 10 years and find out what the subjects of complaint are, we get robot replies that do not resolve anything and surely if the messages are of similar direction, their impartiality, then the public have got a point.