Many serious news followers have for a long time watched the BBC's news services with some concern.
BBC World Service is listened to and trusted by millions around the globe.It has been accepted as the yardstick for objectivity and truth and generally good coverage. On television BBC 24 inherited much of this image and many around the world, particularly in less developed areas with poor news services of their own trust it implicitly.
One of those places is Kenya. However during the run up to the recent elections there were many comments that the BBC's people spent much of their energy looking for the dark side and the when they couldn't find much of that moving instead to dwelling , speculating and projecting from the previous election four years earlier when the aftermath did go go spectacularly wrong. Good news seems of little interest to the BBC teams. The same has been observed on numerous other occasions around the world over a number of years, both at home and abroad. Calm objectivity has often been cast aside in the interest of a more racy story, especially if established orders are under pressure. Right of centre politics also seem to give many of its commentators a kind of indigestion which makes it difficult to achieve a truly level playing field for all shades and angles of opinion. It is an arrogant institutional thing and seemingly all pervasive.
Today Twiga has read two online reports of unrest in Bahrein in protest at the F1 race there tomorrow. BBC has been reporting "tens of thousands" on the streets. Al Jazeera has been saying "around ten thousand". There are huge differences between the implicatations of these numbers. Getting them right is vital to objectivity and objectivity is essential for trust, the rock upon which the world believed BBC news was firmly and irrevocably anchored. If trust diminishes the corporation has little to offer and it should reasonably expect the wrath and rejection by those faith in it had been total.
Whichever figures are right on this occasion, those who rely on accurate and informative worldwide news are increasingly concerned at the diminishing quality, breadth and reliability of BBC reporting. It looks as if, apart from being financially "thrifted" it is simply being dumbed and slimmed down while hiding behind the facade of its old hard earned image to keep its audiences. In the end this won't work. People are not stupid. Once the trust has gone it will be very difficult and take years to rebuild. For broader global coverage ,greater breadth, depth, better analysis, many are turning to Al Jazeera, something they never expected to do when it was launched only seventeen years ago in 1996. Nobody would then have believed that the Qatar based organisation would elbow the BBC services aside. All the indications are that it is now doing just that.
BBC World Service is listened to and trusted by millions around the globe.It has been accepted as the yardstick for objectivity and truth and generally good coverage. On television BBC 24 inherited much of this image and many around the world, particularly in less developed areas with poor news services of their own trust it implicitly.
One of those places is Kenya. However during the run up to the recent elections there were many comments that the BBC's people spent much of their energy looking for the dark side and the when they couldn't find much of that moving instead to dwelling , speculating and projecting from the previous election four years earlier when the aftermath did go go spectacularly wrong. Good news seems of little interest to the BBC teams. The same has been observed on numerous other occasions around the world over a number of years, both at home and abroad. Calm objectivity has often been cast aside in the interest of a more racy story, especially if established orders are under pressure. Right of centre politics also seem to give many of its commentators a kind of indigestion which makes it difficult to achieve a truly level playing field for all shades and angles of opinion. It is an arrogant institutional thing and seemingly all pervasive.
Today Twiga has read two online reports of unrest in Bahrein in protest at the F1 race there tomorrow. BBC has been reporting "tens of thousands" on the streets. Al Jazeera has been saying "around ten thousand". There are huge differences between the implicatations of these numbers. Getting them right is vital to objectivity and objectivity is essential for trust, the rock upon which the world believed BBC news was firmly and irrevocably anchored. If trust diminishes the corporation has little to offer and it should reasonably expect the wrath and rejection by those faith in it had been total.
Whichever figures are right on this occasion, those who rely on accurate and informative worldwide news are increasingly concerned at the diminishing quality, breadth and reliability of BBC reporting. It looks as if, apart from being financially "thrifted" it is simply being dumbed and slimmed down while hiding behind the facade of its old hard earned image to keep its audiences. In the end this won't work. People are not stupid. Once the trust has gone it will be very difficult and take years to rebuild. For broader global coverage ,greater breadth, depth, better analysis, many are turning to Al Jazeera, something they never expected to do when it was launched only seventeen years ago in 1996. Nobody would then have believed that the Qatar based organisation would elbow the BBC services aside. All the indications are that it is now doing just that.
