Those Who Hate The Government, Taxes, And The Media Will Be Appalled By What I Just Saw...

As part of the launch, I have the privilege and pleasure of
visiting our team in London and talking with many members of the
British media. I'm also getting a firsthand look at a part of
East London known as the "Silicon Roundabout," where many of the
city's tech startups are located.

(It's cool! Looks like a cross between Williamsburg, Brooklyn and
Berkeley, California. There are universities, cafes, sleek new
apartment buildings, street football games, and old "Iron Monger"
factories.)

This morning, Simon Jack and the team at the BBC's "Today"
program were kind enough to host me for an interview at the BBC's
stupendous headquarters in downtown London.

The BBC is a remarkable organization. It's the oldest and biggest
national broadcasting company in the world. It has 23,000 staff.
The building I visited this morning, a gleaming, glass-filled
tower with an open core, houses more than 5,000 journalists
producing top-notch journalism across radio, television, and
digital.

The hollow core and central staircase leading to
newsroom after newsroom. The headquarters houses more than 5,000
journalists in all.Business
Insider

The BBC would be the envy of any media organization. The size and
stability of its budget and relative freedom from commercial
concerns (see below) allow it to produce an extraordinary amount
of exceptional journalism and programming.

But it's also controversial.

The BBC is established and largely funded by the British
government, as the vast majority of its budget comes from a tax
on British television users.

Everyone who watches TV in Britain, even those who pull signals
out of the air, has to pay a tax of 145 pounds (about $200) a
year to fund the BBC.

Avoiding this tax is a criminal offense.

According to
Wikipedia, in 2012, "'more than 204,000 people in
the UK were caught watching TV without a licence during the first
six months of 2012'. Licence
fee evasion makes up around one tenth of all cases prosecuted in
magistrate courts."

Not surprisingly, because of this source of funding, the BBC's
very existence is controversial. And the organization is
perpetually under intense scrutiny for signs of bias in its
reporting.

In the United States, where many citizens reflexively hate the
government and taxes of all kinds, and where most media
organizations (including the small and modestly subsidized
National Public Radio) are viewed by some conservatives as
liberal propaganda networks, the existence of the BBC would be
almost unfathomable.