Ah, that usual theft and subversion of anything remotely successful.

If the Beeb had plans of creating a forum for putting the spheres of grassroots activism and politicians power broking (explained by pontification) into real and public contact with one another, it would be amazing. Just think: they could reserve two seats on the Question Time panel for activists selected by and from the grass roots by a transparant system of webbased decision making to give the pols a hard time and an entirely alternative viewpoint. The idea that we non-professional politicians are only qualified to give questions and comments from the audience is a form of deference that some of these guys who talk absolute violently racist gibberish do not deserve. When the Home Sec is doing his latest crusade against asylum seekers, who here wouldn't want to see an articulate and very illegal immigrant face up to his lies on camera. He would then be arrested and deported that evening.

[Of course, if the BBC arranged embarrassing moments for politicians like this, they would immediately be destroyed, so they must always give unreserved deference and protect them from the public.]

If the beeb is going to do it as a way of servicing separate sectors of entirely different "markets", then it is a waste of time. We can talk to ourselves already without their help.

i won't worry- the BBC will still stay an institution no matter what forms it takes. It will still back Blair to whatever war he wants to wage next and alternative voices will still be neutralised by smashing the most of conservative contradiction in the next line due to their alleged policy of "unbiased" reporting.
However, this thing can only be helpfull. If activists and grassroot campaigners will prefer to use a BBC service instead of using more commercial, for-profit ones, it could still be helpfull. However, I doubt BBC will take on to offer alternatives to commercial businesses such as yahoo geocities/hotmail etc. so if it won't benefit the grassroots groups they won't use it much, anyway.
Also it will still be interesting where and how the BBC will relate its editorial policy- how they are accountable about how they use the content of grassroot campaigns which is published and where they will draw the (editorial guide) line.
Very very intersting. I am thrilled!

the BBC? hahahahahaaa haaa haa hahahaha.

sorry.

I wouldn't use it. The BBC have shamed themselves over the coverage of Iraq and have shown they have no committment to free speech, free reporting and disseminating information.

The idea of them trying to do an 'Indymedia' is ridiculous.

and actually, not that funny, just disturbing.

British Butchers Co-operations

The initiative is designed to counteract "widespread political apathy" and "low voter turnout"

But didn't we just see (Feb 15th) the biggest political demonstrations in UK history?

Not that you'd know from BBC coverage, which was atrocious.

Hasn't it dawned on the BBC that many people don't vote because they are totally disillusioned with the lying scum in Downing Street and Westminster - Tory, Neo-Labour, Lib Dem, they are fundamentally the same. And where there is dissent, the BBC looks the other way and ignores, marginalises or denies its existence.

They worry about declining audiences for their political programming - but is thst surprising when most of it appears to have been scripted by the Downing Street spin machine?

I've lived most of my life in Canada, but spent a year and a half living in Ireland - where of course I could watch the Beeb 1/2 to my heart's content. Far from perfect though it may be, it is quite simply vastly superior to CNN, Fox, ABC, etc., etc. - and all the rest of what passes for television news in the United States.

It could be a lot worse. You guys really have no idea what bad or biased media is. The BBC does enough to, for example, constantly be accused by Zionits of being anti-Semitic. Dissent even to such a mild agree is completely absent from American stations, which fall all over themselves to fawn over the president at every available opportunity.

chris

How the BBC have covered the 12th April demonstration is as follows; 1)They have claimed that about 20,000 demonstrators has attended the demonstration. The reality was between 200,000-300,000. Otherwise why 2) Only broadcast the pictures from Hydepark when most people have left?

I suppose this is what is called free media and free country. Free media (BBC & ITV) because the journalists are free to broadcast what ever the filthy western system allows them to transmit. Free country because the rulers of the country are free to appoint the people who know how it must run.

DEATH TO THE ENEMY OF HUMANITY.

Oh crap, so what someone above is really saying is that compared to one of the worst media's in the world, the BBC is not that bad? I feel comforted. but the BBC is travelling down the CNN etc path. It seems to be running.

Canada...got top 5 in a study done about 6 months ago to see which countriies had the best free press....US did not rate highly, nor did UK