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That's interesting. Who's the monitor and makes that determination? How do they achieve that "balance"? If they write a scathing story about President Bush, for example, do they have to also write a flattering one of the same length and page position? Just how do they do it?

(Serious question, by the way.)

that they don't have to be fair to GWB as he's not British.

Also, I don't believe that the web site HAS to be balanced but I suspect they wouldn't stray too far from what is considered reasonable over here else we would complain theat "it's not the BBC".

The TV and radio, however, does have to be pretty much balanced in that if they push one mainstream political view then they HAVE to give pretty close to equal time to the opposition view. That really gets strict towards election time when political parties are allotted time according to the electorate size - you can't buy TV time on any channel.

My one caveat is it's OUR balance and not yours, though.

Despite this "balance" they are always criticised by the government of the day and the fact that this is so and yet no government has attempted to radically change the BBC probably suggests that they've got it about right.

It doesn't always work, however, and resulted in the BBC downplaying the anti-Iraq protests because both main parties in Westminster supported the war.

The difference between our Public Service Broadcasting and yours is that the BBC is a mainstream news and entertainment channel watched by many millions and fully funded by the "licence" that has to be paid yearly for every TV set(Tax, really!). The budget for TV and radio is around $10billion pa which also includes the website and world wide broadcasts.

I'll try and find out some more about this and get back to you if you want more as it's past my bedtime.

Have a browse - I'd be interested in what you think.

Neil

has stated that the website should be as much value for money as the channels that we pay for, and as such it is a fantastic resource, for more than just news.

When over in the states last (during the election actually) I gave the bbc.co.uk link to a few colleagues -they were shocked at the content, how unbiased it was, and straight to the facts.
I think its great anyway - the In Pictures section is worth 1 month of license fee alone!

Max,

I end up hearing most of the daily BBC newshour on weekdays.

On a US political scale, I would rate the BBC at least 10 degrees to the left of NPR.
Perhaps 20 degrees left when the story makes GWB look bad.

On stories that pertain to global warming and the environment, BBC news is to the left of any US news source.

Then again, as we have discussed before, Europe in general is far left of the US.
I suspect that in Europe, NPR news would be considered nearly as far to the right as Fox News is in the US.

Chas

You'd be in court and bust inside of a day if you tried that in the UK.
The BBCs, particularly the world service is justly regarded as fair in the main, they have however fallen extremely badly on occasion in ways that would make Foxx look as innocuous as Sesame Street.
Perhaps it's just the contrast, but as they are a non-profit organisation who do not depend directly on advertising, the only thing that stops them being considered a government funded mouthpiece such as pravda used to be is their reputation for fairness.

This is run by manily professors that are all hard-core democrats, and have no concern showing the "right" side of a discussion in a favorable light.

Look at who runs this, and their agenda.

If it wasn't so far left, it wouldn't have the primary liberal following that it has. Of course they don't cater to the mainstream, and are not held accountable like other stations as they don't have to be commercially competitive. Instead of freeing them to be able to show every view it is used as a license to thrill to push their agenda.

While I don't care if they have an agenda and push it hard, the fact that a lot of their funding comes from FEDERAL funding does bother me. If it was all private funds, say what you want and anyone who doesn't like it can change the channel. But once you get money from the government there should be some equality standards they are held to. Unfortunatly, that isn't the case.

I took a look at the 2003 annual report for NPR.

While Federal funding was not broken down as a line item, they do state that less then 2% of NPR's revenues come from Federally funded sources.

The sources include:
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
The National Academy of Arts, and
The National Science Foundation.

Funds from the Art and Science foundations likely cannot be used for general news reporting.

Still, the "large" amount of US tax dollars distributed to NPR is less than $2.5 Million.

As to political view, what do you use as a reference for the political center?

I will concede that NPR has few if any right leaning commentators.

However, the factual news coverage is reasonably balanced. I have not seen any other news source spend as much time on presenting details from multiple points of view.

I did not find stories about the good deeds of US troops in my local paper, CNN, or the major network news.
I did hear numerous stories of how the US presence has been making life better for the people of Iraq on NPR.

For a comparison, look into the FULL details of nearly every story that Rush Limbaugh reports. You will find significant details left out of Rush's version of the story.

I can deal with the bias of commentators. I cannot accept so called news coverage that leaves out facts that are not convenient for the reporters point of view.

Chas