There seems to be a clear pattern of negative posts about the BBC. Certain accounts are at it on a daily basis. I find myself wondering why.

Some motives for such behaviour I could think of are:

  • The BBC wrote a story that hurt them
  • Reporting did not reinforce their world view
  • They expected the BBC to be perfect and inevitable failures to meet that standard lead to disappointment
  • They found the style of reporting annoying
  • Perhaps some reporters were annoying

I’m sure that list is nowhere near exhaustive as my imagination is rather limited.

A cynic might think that something deeper is going on, for example, a systematic campaign to erode trust in the BBC. Perhaps such a campaign is not just limited to feddit.uk communities, as mightily influential as they are, and could be happening across social media.

Such a cynical person might further wonder what groups, organisations, or perhaps even states with well resourced intelligence organisations might want to mount such a campaign.

I’m not a cynic, and as mentioned don’t have much of an imagination, so such thoughts don’t even cross my mind.

I’m simply wondering why some people hate the BBC so much. For me it, with all its failings, is one of the best public broadcasting organisations in the world.

  • JohnSmith@feddit.ukOPEnglish
    45·
    9 hours ago

    The BBC’s coverage on certain issues (asylum seekers, trans, disability, etc) has been inexcusably bad and has been for a while.

    When I compare the BBC and for example The Guardian reporting on such topics to, say, The Telegraph and any of the trash tabloids I see a big difference. The latter quite often push an agenda or try to engineer rage engagement, whereas the former don’t.

    I think a much bigger problem and the root cause for how BBC reporting comes across in the kinds of topics you mention is the abysmal quality of political discourse in the UK. Too many bigots have gained too many supporters, which has given them too loud a megaphone.

    I don’t think it is the BBC’s or any other journalistic organisation’s job to take that megaphone away. Their job is to report facts and ensure countering perspectives are being aired on all important topics.

    I think it’s perfectly fair to hold the public broadcaster to a high standard.

    I agree. For me the standard I expect is reporting facts and different perspectives so that I gain information and can make up my own mind.

    … quality of their journalism has plummeted since, the whole thing needs serious reform …

    Here I disagree with you, although perhaps only on the seriousness of the situation. Any big organisation will have aspects that need reform, including the BBC. I don’t agree that their journalism would have plummeted substantially. It is the political discourse that has gone to the gutters.

    You wrote them out, so the thoughts clearly did cross your mind? I don’t even know why you’re trying to deflect this, it’s not unreasonable to think foreign intelligence would try to undermine trust in the BBC, they’d be dumb not to.

    I can see that I should have added /s to that and couple of other points in my post.