Comment Re:BBC / other state broadcasters? (Score 4, Interesting) 132
Ever heard the phrase "Divided by a common language?"
In British English a member of "the government" is not a Bureaucrat with a public service-style salary, it's the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. Where they use "government" we'd use "Administration" (as in: the Obama Administration).
So you basically just said that the Right Honorable David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; actually has control over what the BBC does. He does not. No Prime Minister ever has. And in several recent memorable cases (in particular the run-up to the Iraq War) the Beeb took a stronger line against the Prime Minister (and this in British English, agains the government) stance then our non-governmental independent media did.
Even assuming that you actually meant 'government' in the American sense of a public bureaucracy, it's not really in business. The BBC is pretty much the only broadcaster, and is the only English-language broadcaster, that has 54 African correspondents for 54 African countries. If something interesting happens in Zambia the non-business BBC will immediately have a reasonably intelligent (tho not necessarily pretty) person posting to their website, appearing on their broadcasts, etc. Which is low ratings, and high cost, thus bad business; but tends to produce excellent journalism.
OTOH, Fox and CNN tend to have a stable of a dozen or so photogenic blondes who get air-dropped to trouble-spots, who compare everything to Iraq or Afghanistan because their entire career consists of spending time with our boys in those countries. It's low-cost, and high-ratings; thus good business. Then they juice the ratings more by adding heavy doses of partisanship. The business side gets even better if they can force some extremely dramatic turn of events that will keep people glued to their screens due to the constant potential for mass death.
Currently their business plan to do juice ratings is relatively harmless but incredibly fucking annoying ("Go go Donald Trump!"), but in the run-up to that Iraq War...