[News] Say's it all

Thunder Bolt said:

No, it's not. I'm very nearly in that age group and look nothing like two doddery old people shuffling along. As I pointed out previously, many old people are exempt anyway because they're on pension credit, live in sheltered accommodation or care home. The blind also get free licenses.
The rest of us pay £2.98 a week. The price of a coffee.

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darkwolf666 said:

Wrong, the TV licence for the blind Is not FREE, the blind MAY qualify for a 50% discount.

Also, what has the price of coffee got to do with anything. We are generalising and talking about those that aren’t loaded and popping out for coffee. Council tax in my area went up by the price of 3 cups of coffee per month. My prescription is now nearly 4 cups of coffee per month, maybe I should give up coffee.

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Biscuit said:

So you're tarnishing the whole reputation of the BBC (which employs 21,000 people) because of the actions of one or two of its producers on one specific program. That doesn't seem fair to me.

The BBC has a balancing act in regard it's remit to inform and entertain. When a program can do both, great. But sometimes it can be a struggle to get that balance correct, especially on political programming. It can sway all too easily towards 'entertain' - and be criticized for lack of levity, or to the 'inform' side - boring, switch over to ITV. At the end of the day, the Beeb is made up of individual journalists who'll all have their own worldview but the vast majority do their best to report the news impartially. Have a listen to how ITV present the same information and you'll hear the difference in the phrases used. The BBC is criticized for bias by those on the left and the right, probably a sign it's striking the right balance, no?

The BBC receiving public funds means that it retains its independence from both commercial and political pressures - that makes it almost unique. I'd much rather that than news outlets owned by Murdoch, Lord Rothermere, the Barclay Brothers and Richard Desmond, but each to their own.

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Thunder Bolt said:

I'm not just criticising Question Time or Newsnight. I have criticised the BBC News on NSC including their reporting of a particular incident, or lack of it, that I was in. I complained but was ignored. Please don't tell me their journalists are trying to be balanced, and give me credit for common sense.

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Biscuit said:

The vast majority of their journalists are trying to be balanced. I maintain it's not fair to pick at one of or two of them and pretend that's representative of the whole organization of 20,000+ people.

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