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| ▲ | tgma 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Dude, their chief just resigned. Maybe pick another day to shill for the state-funded media? | | |
| ▲ | rileymat2 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'd make the case that the resignations are a good thing. It shows a commitment to journalism as a profession. | | |
| ▲ | tgma 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, one can debate this ad nauseam. I would even concede that on average, BBC is perhaps more reliable than Arab News. However, if your standard is ArabNews not OK because Saudi government funds it, but BBC OK, you might just as well say it in plain English that you simply don't like the opinion of the Saudi government but on board with the UK's (which is a stance that by the way I mostly share, but refuse to preach on a neutral forum like Hacker News as policy.) I would not be surprised that for some stories, Arab News would be a better source than BBC. | | |
| ▲ | tavavex 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | This equation is extremely reductionist in ways that end up giving the Saudi government's stance as much merit as possible, while denying it to the UK every step of the way. The implication of what you're saying is that the structure of the government and the precise way in which it owns a state media outlet doesn't really matter, if there's any ownership then it's a propaganda mouthpiece regardless of all other circumstances. But as far I can see, authoritarian states tend to have a direct path from their governments' sacred opinion to the eyes and ears of the people, there are levers of direct influence within their media industries that let them directly dictate what the journalists will pretend to report on. One can debate back and forth about how the BBC may suffer from the biases of its British writers, implicit pressure from their government, individual cases of bias and even attempts at government overreach, but despite all of it, none of these infractions would rival even 1/10th of what countries like Saudi Arabia or Russia do with their media. Despite all of their countless issues, the UK still values independence far more than what the Saudis could even dream of. Moreover, the BBC is implicitly checked by having neighboring media outlets with no government ownership, while the countries I listed exercise degrees of total control over the entire industry. The BBC may in individual instances be biased towards the current sitting government or pro-British views or whatever, but it is not a blind mouthpiece like these other countries. It's not simply a difference in preferring one ruthless government narrative over another. | | |
| ▲ | tgma 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > This equation is extremely reductionist in ways that end up giving the Saudi government's stance as much merit as possible What I posit is absolutely symmetric, so you are just making this up. I don't understand why the way the government body is elected (or not) is material in any shape or form here. If you are British, sure, perhaps you get a say. I am not and I don't really care what the majority of UK (or rather whoever counts the votes) thinks. As far as I am concerned, it's just another foreign entity who has their interests that are at times unaligned with me. Heck, the bigger and more perceived to be legitimate, they have more power, to the degree they had the audacity and effectiveness to interfere with my country's elections. I don't think ArabNews has such capacity. FWIW, BBC runs a World Service targeting people abroad in their languages. Is that just out of goodness of their hearts? Gimmie a break. A state funded media is always propaganda by charter, sometimes with an ancillary news division. Propaganda does not equate to lies all the time. The best form or propaganda, and the most effective, would in fact not obviously lie most of the times, but be biased when it matters. UK is hardly alone in this. US also has similar apparatus under VOA or NPR or PBS. P.S. I think we are getting out of the core topic. I am not debating reliability of the media per se. What I objected to is the advocacy to always link to someone's preferred media, as opposed to preferred story (either due to the quality of that particular story, website, or original sourcing). | | |
| ▲ | tavavex 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > What I posit is absolutely symmetric, so you are just making this up. What I said was followed by three paragraphs of me discussing why exactly I posited what I did. > I don't understand why the way the government body is elected Who talked about elections? I certainly never brought elections up. What I did bring up, though, is that the Saudi Arabian government dictates directly what is allowed to be a media outlet and who is allowed to be a journalist. They have ways of influencing national discourse that the UK just never had. It's not about how they're ruled (though it is also a side factor), it's that they're a far more overbearing and authoritarian state. This is what the "structure of the government" referred to - now that I read it back, I realize it could've been confused for something else. Running international services of course has a national interest for the government (in addition to a business interest for the company). I never said that the BBC's existence wasn't good for the UK or that it was completely unbiased and independent, in fact I made sure to not paint them as unequivocally good anywhere - merely far better than what they do in Saudi Arabia. Ultimately I never was arguing about the start of the conversation (choosing preferred media vs. preferred story), but the framing of different national media outlets as completely equivalent things, just with different flavors of which party line they follow. | | |
| ▲ | nandomrumber 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | The BBC / UK version is potentially worse, because in the UK they have a situation where elected officials don’t actually run the country. The BBC is independent in so far as an institution of unelected officials effectively run the country: bureaucrats. |
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