#War 028- BBC's dumbed-down 'Six O'Clock News'

John Simpson joins attack on BBC's dumbed-down 'Six O'Clock News'
By Louise Jury Media Correspondent
Friday, 29 March 2002

The BBC's Six O'Clock News programme is coming under increasing fire from some of its most senior staff over its "tabloid" selection and presentation of stories.
The BBC's Six O'Clock News programme is coming under increasing fire from some of its most senior staff over its "tabloid" selection and presentation of stories.
John Simpson, the BBC's world affairs editor, added his voice yesterday to what has become a chorus of disapproval over the populist bulletins said to reflect the bright and breezy style of the BBC1 controller, Lorraine Heggessey. He told BBC news chiefs at an internal seminar that he saw "little point" in approaching the show's editors for funding to cover foreign stories because of a lack of interest.
His comments follow criticisms from the senior presenter Kate Adie and the former BBC correspondent Martin Bell, and persistent discontent from established BBC staff.
Ms Adie told a recent conference that the 6pm bulletin was becoming "increasingly tabloid. Health scares, education crises ... it's far more tabloid than it used to be".
Mr Bell complained: "BBC1's Six O'Clock News seems as if it has inherited the values as well as the audience of [the soap] Neighbours, which so seamlessly precedes it."
The programme has undergone a shake-up since the general election with the appointment of a new editor, Jay Hunt, who is regarded by critics as anti-intellectual and showbusiness-driven.
Insiders admit that internal dissatisfaction with the programme stems partly from her style of management, which has seen long-serving producers sidelined and promotions for favoured correspondents, such as Richard Bilton, the environment reporter, or the recently appointed entertainment correspondent, Robert Nisbet.
A BBC news source said: "They're not interested in international news, they're interested in silly consumery and showbusiness stories. They don't want anything complicated, so there's discontent from established correspondents."
However, Mark Damazer, the BBC's assistant director of news, insisted that Ms Hunt had done a terrific job. "She has taken the BBC news into territory that is important and interesting and valuable with real verve and panache," he said.
The style of Six O'Clock News took into account that people watching were often distracted by such things as children and tea-time, and the show had been adapted accordingly, Mr Damazer said.
"We don't want to make it unbearably facile, but we need clarity in story-telling," he said. "It is not that we've abdicated from foreign news on the Six or anywhere else – there's a lot of it around and a great deal of it is imaginative."
He defended a trend towards standing specialists in front of a video wall where they offered statistics and film snippets, saying it made good analysis easier. The technique was first used by BBC2's Newsnight, where no one had queried it, he said.
The BBC had sometimes been "sniffy" about showbusiness stories that it should have covered, he said. "When Kurt Cobain departed this planet, nobody in the news television room did it. We wouldn't make that mistake now."

#War 027 - Gardners' gimmicks.

Have you noticed how the BBC is dumbing down in all departments. Well even Gardeners' World on BBC 2 has now had the treatment. If the BBC has to decide between quality or dumbing down invariably they choose dumbing down.

So yet another sign of bias!

See Daily Mail article............CLICK HERE.

#War 026 - The value of Easter

The true value of Easter - keeping our shared values together
By Daily Mail Comment

Shared values - even if not accompanied by faith - are more important than ever
Today a dwindling band of us will ............MORE

The above article shows yet another area of BBC bias that of knocking Christianity and over zealously promoting the cult of secularism.

#War 025 - Johnathan Ross

So the BBC was fined £150,000 for allowing Ross and Brand's obscene behaviour on their Radio Show. This is a record fine by Ofcom and confirms the BBC was guilty of breaking its Royal Charter and allowing such a broadcast to go out on air. Interestingly the journalist Charles Moore is to make a stand and has decided NOT to renew his TV licence in protest at the BBC allowing such filth to be broadcast. Watch this space! As you may have read at the start of my blog I have not paid my licence because I went to court and won saying the BBC was institutionally bias and broke its Royal Charter daily.

#War 024 - MP's expenses.

As pointed out in the Daily Mail today while it has now been confirmed that MPs expenses totalled 8 million last year and we have the scandel of Jacqui Smith's husbands porno films subscription being on her expenses the BBC was more concerned with reporting the story about the 'mole' who was trying to sell the MPs expenses list rather than reflecting the public anger on the issue of MPs sleaze.
The BBC only reports the news it wants to and to hell with public opinion. The bias BBC always knows best what we should hear so long as they don't upset New Labour whose ideology they share.