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Indeed, Underwood Reminds Us That In The 1926 General Strike, Lord Reith And ...

Indeed, Underwood reminds us that in the 1926 General Strike, Lord Reith and the BBC chose to support the government. However, this is a far cry from 2003 when Andrew Gilligan interviewed Dr. Kelly, a former UN weapons inspector regarding the War in Iraq, leading the BBC to be accused of being impartial and against government decision making. This was further exacerbated by the fact that Dr. Kelly subsequently took his life. Since then, reforms within the BBC with regard to news reporting have meant that many procedures have been formalised within the UK, unlike the freedom that Underwood reminds us is afforded to the US broadcasters. However, the BBC is still associated as having some form of cultural paternalism and a mission to inform, educate and entertain.
US Channels like Fox, owned by the Murdoch establishment, are seen to lean to the right politically and do not offer a completely impartial view or adhere to public service broadcasting beliefs that effect the UK. In 2003 FOX News won a major court battle regarding the deliberate and forced falsification of documentary facts regarding bovine growth hormone to be within the law. The Florida courts ruled that the ‘falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a law, rule or regulation but a policy. Therefore it is up to the station whether or not to report honestly' (Casten: 2003). In a bizarre move, however, the FCC (the Federal Communications Commission), which did little in the aforementioned case, in 2004 demonstrated that ‘traditional American morality' was still intrinsic in US broadcasting when it public ally denounced FOX for showing images of a sexually explicit nature, even though they were electronically covered. The FCC reported that ‘the material is gratuitous, vulgar and clearly intended to pander to and titillate'. The article goes on to say that in this case FOX was fined $1183,000, whereas in the case of deliberately falsifying current affairs reports, the broadcaster was completely morally grounded. In the recent 2006 case, FOX decided not to air a special report regarding O.J. Simpson as it was considered bad taste. Therefore, US broadcasters have a very fluctuating ground of what is morally correct and relevant for broadcast. They are not directly regulated, unlike the UK, and therefore are open to their own decision making.
The US also include more commercial breaks which further segment the television programmes and perhaps negatively effect the quality of the show. US television channels also rely heavily on advertising space and therefore are answerable to advertising companies to a greater degree than the tax paying audience. The only public service broadcaster, PBS, has met with large amounts of criticism after a number of drives and telethons in order to fund the collectivised broadcaster.


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