Pak Sahafat – British government media (BBC) employees plan to stop working on May 5th, coinciding with the city council elections, in protest against the austerity policies of the managers of this organization.
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) announced on Friday that BBC executives have asked local radio stations to share their programs across the network from 2pm. In this way, it is expected that more than 100 hours of local programs of each radio station will be reduced to 40 hours per week.
According to the National Union of Journalists, the plan will result in a large number of BBC staff being made redundant and other journalists will be forced to reapply to keep their jobs. The BBC claimed that this decision was taken in line with the organization’s goals for modernization.
However, this is the second strike by government media workers during this month (March) to express their protest against the decisions of the organization’s managers in the shadow of the difficult economic situation. Protesters on the 15th of March also stopped working at the same time as the government’s budget bill was presented to the parliament.
“Paul Sigert” from the National Union of Journalists issued a statement saying: “Neither did the advent of video destroy radio, nor will digital technology do so. We know digital services need to be improved, but the decision should not come at the expense of local radio, which is at the heart of the BBC’s public service.”
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He added: The reduction of more than 100 hours of local programs per week for each radio station to 40 hours is unacceptable. People want local, relevant news available, and members of the National Union of Journalists are ready to fight back.
Sigert warned: “When local radio no longer broadcasts local programmes, it will be destroyed and BBC bosses have no right to destroy a mechanism that has existed for more than 50 years.”
Of course, this decision is taken while, according to the research conducted by the Times newspaper, a large number of British people have lost their trust in the BBC. Half of the UK population has decided that the BBC no longer represents their values ​​and is not worth watching.
The decline in the popularity of the BBC becomes more colorful and prominent when the investigation of the British media activities monitoring body known as Akfam shows that this media network behaved lower than its competitors such as ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky in terms of impartiality.
According to the research conducted, 54% of adults in England believe that BBC news is not biased. Also, the research of the Yugav polling institute indicates that 44% of the British people believe that this media network reflects their values ​​incorrectly.