Manufacturing The UK's Consent: the BBC under fire

As an unaffiliated, licence fee-paying member of the public I am deeply concerned by the threatened loss of BBC6, and what it represents more widely: a pre-emptive, placatory reaction to the systematic attacks being launched on the BBC by partisan and profit-hungry factions seeking to benefit from its enfeeblement. The main streams of public debate, awareness-raising and artistic cross-fertilisation within the UK media would be lamentably poorer without a strong BBC.

For me, Radio 1 is an unlistenable reflection of lowest common denominator popular trends (with their accompanying unexamined worldview – the tainted wellspring of the widespread public ignorance, apathy and acquiescence allowing our societies to slide toward disaster). However, I must concede that it represents the BBC fulfilling its mandate. Radio 2 is, simply put, middlebrow and staid. Aside from BBC6 radio, nothing else in the British media provides so vital a forum for the exploration, nurturing and promulgation of popular music as art form.

In James Murdoch's MacTaggart Memorial Lecture he attacked the BBC, stating: "In this all-media marketplace, the expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision, which are so important for our democracy". This is nothing less than a vile example of pot-kettle-black doublespeak. If Murdoch had his way we'd have the kind of plutocratic media that allowed that war-mongerer Bush and his bankrollers to steal an election with barely a whisper of protest in their own country. Were our media similar to that of the US, would 1 million marching for peace in London have received much in the way of coverage? The truth is, 1 million would never have been allowed to gather in the first place, as public awareness and opinion would have been carefully managed from the outset, as it was in the States. Just compare Fox News with Charlie Brooker's Newswipe: it's like the Nazi propagandists got to survive and prosper on the slickness of 21st century media. The comparison is justified: the system they promote and perpetuate is equally discriminatory and malignant. It is killing innocents as you read this.

38 Degrees petition: Link

Avaaz petition: Link