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Why Britain spends $410 million on BBC World

 

There is hardly any news operation in the world as storied as the BBC, and that shows in what arguably is its best service: the World Report. The broadcasting corporation’s division was just allotted 289 million pounds, or approximately 410 million dollars, in public funding for the next five years. A writer for a conservative-leaning magazine, The Spectator, believes it is money well spent, and most Britons would probably agree. For information is what makes our modern world go round; so yes, it may not address your daily concerns that in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson is not being allowed to run for president in the Islamic Republic his grandfather founded; or that Greece may exit the Eurozone. Yet Britons know what happens when we listen to the siren song of isolation, for “uninformed” is another name for “ignorant.” And at times when across the Atlantic not a few voices call for ending public financing for PBS and NPR as antithetical to the founding values of the nation, it may be worth remembering that Britain was the cradle of modern capitalism, which coexists very well with state-funded BBC. Information promotes wisdom and its lack, ignorance, and just a quick look at the loudest in the presidential campaign in the U.S. may serve as a sample.

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