the BBC is required by its charter to provide a “balanced” view and this often result in unbearable smugness and vaulting to “we are the ultimate arbiters of truth”
this is a big pity, because the alternative is Fox News / GB News
I find this hilarious; the BBC has rarely provided a balanced view on many things. Indians (at almost every point in the political and social spectrum) will easily notice the bias and smug holier-than-thou attitude on India-specific news/opinion.
It's pretty clear that newspapers around the world are now decoupling from the actual wishes and necessities of their subscribers/licensees. The latter are not to blame, especially when they are willing to pay for their news.
Plus I don't have to read the BBC if I don't want to, but media literacy, combing through nonsense and finding the actual necessary bits, etc. are important, and that needs me to read news from different sources and countries, including that of BBC sometimes.
You say this like it is a bad thing.
The BBC journalism is rather good and quite rightly seeks to be as impartial as possible. To compare the likes of Rupert Murdoch as a credible alternative to be BBC (or indeed, any news media which lacks a 'fairness doctrine') is simply idiotic.
I believe in an active, pluralist and free press.
Simplistically, this should emerge spontaneously from a free market in publications and subscribers. But newspapers are prone to capture by rich folk who can then manipulate political destinies (Heart, Murdoch, Bezos).
Realistically, a state funded media channel such as the BBC is a good balance to that, but it is idiotic cant to pretend that a “neutrality charter” is meaningful since such organs tend to become captured by “dinner party activists” and foster groupthink about what neutral is. So I agree with the top comment that the BBC has a tendency to be a righteous preachy outfit.