Speaking ill of the dead

217, the Ivory Towers,

1/12/2006

Dear Wheaty,

True to say that the BBC does have a tendency for the odd bit of navel-gazing. You're right about the endless coverage of Nick Clarke's death. And you could add all the items about shagging "How do you Solve a Problem like Maria?" to what would be a fairly lengthy list of stories about which the BBC lost a sense of perspective. But speaking from the vantage point of the coal-face of the corporation's news output that is BBC Radio Wales (the Sound of Today's Wales), I can say with confidence that for every one piece on something BBC-related there's twenty things about ITV/ channel four/ all the newspapers.

Big Brother, Celebrity Love Island, the future of ITV, the Times going tabloid, a new editor at the Western Mail. The list goes on. Obviously, News 24 is unlikely to cover the revamp of the South Wales Echo... but the point is the BBC as a whole serves as a huge advertising platform for organisations that are its direct rivals at national and local level in a way that no other media body does. You would never see a piece in the Mail about how great the Express is in the manner you'll regularly hear people on the BBC saying how fantastic something on ITV or channel 4 is.

You're right about the truffles, though -- but damn they're tasty.

Love,

Tom