Journalism has become spineless
this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
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UK Politics
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Not sure what the private media/journalism ownership is here, one of the many things I keep meaning to inform myself about. Obviously the BBC is meant to be an independent, unbiased source of information. In Canada the CBC fulfills the same niche. Neither are safe from outside pressure, or lazy reporting.
The vast majority of private journalism media in Canada is owned by Canadian media holding conglomerate Postmedia(bit too on the nose if you ask me). It's in turn 66% owned by American Media Conglomerate Chatham Asset Management. It's a bit of a piss take, as media in Canada is meant to be majority Canadian ownership. But there it is.
Excellent comment. I try to keep up with who owns what too, but it's kinda like keeping track of food brands. There only so many owners, but the huge amount of brands (news sources) can make it difficult.
It's also a very real problem, especially in rural areas of Canada, and small communities. Small papers are being bought up en masse, and replaced by generic tat "news" with little if any relevance to the communities, and instruction about what is acceptable for print filtering down ultimately from Chatham Assets, which is owned by Anthony Melchiorre, and is closely associated with the GOP. Ergo a Republican vehicle for disseminating approved information. This situation, where local governments of small communities and rural areas that in the past would have a local paper, now are using Meta products and Twitter to communicate with residents and kinda don't have much in the way of options to change that.
It's not a great situation. And I think we'll see that like with food and alcohol, a very small group of almost entirely American companies owns basically everything if you follow the shells to the top.
Obviously the BBC is meant to be an independent, unbiased source of information
Where did you get that idea ?
The BBC is state apparatus.
In a properly functioning Democratic society, a government funded but independent media corps with a mandate for impartiality and ethical journalism, which doesn't feel limited by potential repercussions for reporting unapproved information, is a really healthy, effective and important thing. I'm not saying that the UK is a properly functioning (Democratic) Constitutional Monarchy. One might argue that those words automatically dictate a lack of proper function and health. That's not what I'm saying, or what we're talking about. I bring it up to curb strawman whataboutist diversion.
What I am saying is that if a "state apparatus" like the BBC (/CBC) is set up properly, and isn't being actively subverted, it is an important part of maintaining a healthy and functional democracy. And not automatically a right-thought, public control, propaganda machine.
BBC in particular (who I would expect better from) are particularly anti-Palestinian and propping up Israel's narrative.
The documentary can be see here: kalamullah.com/gaza-how-to-survive-a-warzone DOT html
Reason for the film's removal TLDR narrator is son of a civil servant in Gaza Department of Agriculture. Racist genocide enthusiasts call this son of Hamas official. Aka genocide coverup
Even ignoring the subject matter, it must feel great to work on a documentary only to have some shitty country have your work taken down.
Great to have the producers breach their contract with the BBC by failing to disclose a major contributor’s background when covering a contentious issue. The egg is firmly on the face of Hoyo Films, which is a fairly new outfit.
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The narrator is a child that has lived his whole life under siege
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The narrators father's position in the department of agriculture is literally within the first 5 seconds of the film
To believe Zionist propaganda it is very important that people know nothing, but parrot well. Thank you for your service.
Fuck you, BBC.