Mr T
Senior Member
"China reserves the right to make the necessary response to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese media," Wang said at a daily briefing."
That sounds an awful lot like the Chinese government saying that it has a right to tell other countries to let Chinese media operate within their borders. Hence interference in internal affairs.
Not by the British government. The money comes directly from people who pay the licence fee. The money is also collected by the BBC rather than the government on its behalf.
They're not similar in a meaningful way. The BBC does not take its editorial line from the UK government. BBC reporters frequently ask hard questions of ministers or talk about the unpopularity of decisions during reporting. It also invites critics of government policy and members of the Opposition to speak freely.
Whereas CGTN just parrots Chinese government positions. There is not even a fig leaf of balance in its reporting. Regardless of whether or not that is the right thing for China/the CCP, it's not allowed under Ofcom rules.
First, see above. The BBC is not owned or controlled by the UK state.
Second, there is no ban on state media per ce. The applicable rule in this case is control by a political party. In countries like the UK, the state is not one political party. There is also separation of powers, so you can have a national broadcaster like the BBC that remains independent of government.
Whereas in China, as the CCP constantly reminds us, there are no separation of powers and the CCP is the Chinese state. It's also very clear that the CCP sees the purpose of the media primarily to promote and advance its own agenda. The Chinese media is not there to report the news impartially, and they certainly are not there to hold the Chinese government to account. In contrast the BBC very much sees itself as being there to report the news rather than a government's position or that of a political party.
That's nonsense. Al Jazeera is not a pro-UK channel. They're very critical of Israel (possibly the UK's most important partner in the Levant) and even broadcast a documentary alleging that Israeli diplomats and groups lobbied the government to have a more favourable policy on Israel - which isn't surprising, as that's sort of what they do. However, if Al Jazeera was pro-UK it wouldn't have aired any such documentary. It was also very critical of the invasion of Iraq. Again, a pro-UK channel wouldn't have done that.
Completely the opposite. Channel 4 was critical of the invasion/occupation of Iraq, it was not friendly towards the intervention in Afghanistan and it is very much pro-Palestinian.
Not correct. Ofcom said that last year they had reported CGTN was in breach of the rules over their coverage of protests in HK but the sanctions are still being considered, so they did not lead to the ban.
Again, that is not correct.
Peter Humphrey made a complaint after he had returned to the UK. It's not clear when he made the complaint, but Ofcom only that the investigation was being conducted. The investigation was , when CGTN was found in breach of the rules. Again it seems that the sanction is still pending.
Noted, although I don't think CGTN have a newspaper. You might be thinking of the Global Times.
No, it's not.
The rules on ownership/control are important because the UK is not an anarchy where you can do whatever you like. As a democracy it's also necessary to limit the ability of all political parties to dominate the news by having their own TV channels. Otherwise the wealthiest political party would be able to have multiple "independent" TV stations and news channels with well-known presenters drawing in crowds but spreading one-sided views.
You may think that's unreasonable, but it's a consensus in the UK on how we can keep things fair for everyone.
