- Written by: Kamran Mofid
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Photo:buzzfeed.com
Following on from my recent Blog, “Can the Media be for the Common Good?” (Sunday 27 May 2012), I now wish to shed some light on why I love the BBC, as well as my love for the Guardian that I had highlighted in that earlier Blog.
Given the values I believe in, I have always loved the BBC. However, recently this appreciation has become deeper, reflecting on what might have happened if Murdoch had won over the BBC.
I got to respect the BBC more than ever, when I heard James, son of Rupert, making the statements noted below:
"The only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit."
"…a “dominant” BBC threatens independent journalism in the UK.” “The expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision.”
“The scope of the BBC’s activities and ambitions was “chilling, and organisations like the BBC, funded by the licence fee, as well as Channel 4 and Ofcom, made it harder for other broadcasters to survive”- James Murdoch, Edinburgh Television Festival Lecture
Now I wish to invite the young James to be good enough and listen to words of wisdom below:
As it has been noted by many, “Because of the unique way the BBC is funded by the taxpayer, the BBC is able to some extent to focus their news on what is important rather than simply what would be the most populist news…
The BBC therefore has an ethos where they are responsible to the nation, not the shareholder, and certainly not the owner or the government of the day. They see themselves as answering to the nation. Of course, like any organisation, they also have a degree of loyalty to the organisation itself, but you’re not going to get a situation where the BBC’s political reportage is slanted in favour of one particular party because the director general wants to see them elected. The BBC does not have any axe to grind in this manner. They can — and will — tear down anyone from any political party if they have the relevant information about them…
…but for me the key points are trustworthiness and quality. I trust the BBC. I presume they will get it wrong from time to time, but I trust that their intention is to lay out the facts in a plain and clear manner, and not present things with a bias that suits their own political agenda. Compare this to Fox News which has been accused of bias. I don’t want to hear the news that News Corporation wants me to hear.”
In short, the BBC is brilliant and I love it. It’s not perfect, but it is far better than any of the alternatives, especially Fox News. And whilst at it, James should also read the following and then compare it to the profit- only-driven mumbo jumbo:
“The only reliable, durable and perpetual guarantor of independence is not profit, nor who you know. It is integrity.”— Mark Thompson, Director General, the BBC
Read more:
20 reasons why I love the BBC
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/tvandradioblog/2007/oct/18/20reasonswhyilovethebbc
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
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"There is precisely zero chance of austerity working. It is the same as thinking you can escape from gravity by waving your arms up and down."
“Last week was an awesome warning of where go-it-alone austerity can lead. It produced some brutal evidence of where we end up when we place finance above economy and society. The markets are now betting not just on the break-up of the euro but on the arrival of a new economic dark age. The world economy is edging nearer to the abyss, and policymakers, none more than in Britain, are paralysed by the stupidities of their home-spun economics…
It could hardly be more sobering. Money has flooded out of Spain, Greece and the peripheral European economies. Signs of the crisis range from Athen's soup kitchens to Spain's crowds of indignados protesting in the streets against austerity and a broken capitalism. Youth unemployment is sky-high. Less visible is the avalanche of money flowing into hoped-for safe havens in the US, Germany and even Britain.
We live in the aftermath of one of the biggest financial and intellectual mistakes ever made. For a generation the world, with the London/New York financial axis at its heart, surrendered to the specious theory that lending and financial contracts could grow many times faster than the underlying economy. There was a blind belief that in a free market banks could not make mistakes. Free markets didn't make mistakes – only clumsy bureaucratic states made economic mistakes. Or so they said. Financial alchemists, guided by the maxims of free market fundamentalism, could make no such errors.”…
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
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Dear Ms. Lagarde,
Recently you registered your utmost anger and frustration with the tax-dodgers in Greece. I say good for you. Everybody should pay their taxes. Those who dodge are the scum of the earth.
Please allow me to remind you of the gist of your remarks from the interview you gave to the Guardian on Friday 25 May 2012.
You blamed the Greeks collectively for causing their financial peril by dodging their tax bills. You stated that, "As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax".
You then remarked that, you “had more sympathy for poor African children with little education than for jobless people complaining about austerity measures in Greece”.
Before I put my questions to you, I wish to note that, while no one would deny that tax-dodging in Greece is a very serious problem, nonetheless you failed to make a distinction between those who pay their dues, the less well-off wage earners; the working class, who stand in contradistinction to the super rich who find legal and illegal means, to avoid paying their taxes. Therefore, I am sure you will agree with me that any attempt- perceived or otherwise- to stereotype any people, civilisation, or culture, is deplorable and should be avoided at all costs.
There are also those who are angered by your failure to mention the catastrophic shortcomings of those economic fools in Europe as a whole who kept silent, whilst the going was good and said nothing about the prevailing neo-liberalism, crony capitalism, debt-financed expansionism and more. They turned Greece into an ideal laboratory for the most brutal neo-liberal experiment, for which they, too, must be held accountable. To pretend otherwise and blame it all on the tax-dodgers alone is nothing but an affront to humanity and justice.