enitharmon | Let's hear it for the BBC

In idle moments I like to stimulate my hackles by reading frootloop right-wing blogs, if nothing else to convince me that I am at least partly sane in comparison to others.

These people, wherever they are in the world, seem to be exercised about one particular thing - that the BBC is in some way 'biased'. The idea is exemplified by this site.

The BBC, apparently, is disproportionately staffed by educated people, women, people from ethnic minorities and people who live in towns. Therefore it is institutionally biased against racism, sexism, homophobia, little-Englandism, blood sports, exploitation of the developing world, and the notion that the world is flat. There are hundreds of people all around the (mainly anglophone) world who have nothing better to do than to scrutinise every word in every BBC uttering for evidence of the above.

Me, I'm happy to let anybody think what they want. But I do believe that an educated, enlightened, thought-out opinion carries more weight than knee-jerk bigotry.

Thank goodness we have a BBC which isn't governed by commercial interests and isn't an uncritical mouthpiede of the state, no matter how hard those interests try to make it otherwise.