Scrap the BBC!: Ten Years to Set Broadcasters Free - Hardcover

North, Richard D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1904863205 ISBN 13: 9781904863205

Publisher: Social Affairs Unit, 2007

Synopsis

Broadcasters are corseted and cosseted - it's time to set them free. We need to scrap the TV licence and give broadcast journalists the same freedoms their print colleagues enjoy, argues Richard D. North. It made sense 80 years ago to treat broadcasters as special - but not now. "Scrap The BBC!" is a manifesto for the future of broadcasting. North suggests that broadcasters are crippled by the requirement to be impartial. Instead of being neutered but perpetually dissident, they need the freedom to be partisan and even positive.

About this title

Review

An idiosyncratic polemic against state involvement in broadcasting
- North ends with a short, shrewd and warm-hearted account of his life in
journalism, probably the best reason to buy the book. -- Robert Hanks - The Independent

I am much attracted by Richard D. North's ideas in his provocative
new book "Scrap the BBC!" -- Rod Liddle - Sunday Times Charles Moore - Daily Telegraph

North argues against the redundant concept of impartiality and
instead for a diversity of opinion and journalistic "fair-mindedness". Here
North gets it dead right. -- Rod Liddle - Sunday Times

Richard D. North is wrong but romantic.
-- Christopher Bland - Spectator

The test of a good polemic is whether you want to keep reading it
even while you shout in incredulous disagreement with what it says. Test
passed: North's style of argument is so entertaining, and refreshingly
blunt about its own suppositions ("I write this book as a free market
ideologue"), that even the most ardent fan of the BBC might be seduced into
rethinking some opinions. -- Steven Poole - The Guardian

Edition details

• Publisher: Social Affairs Unit
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1904863205
• ISBN 13: 9781904863205
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 219