MUSEA: Rumor has it Disney is buying Hadrian's wall and turning it into a theme park ride. UK you don't mind do you?
GRAEME yeah yeah yeah... I bet you consider yourself really left wing. Almost communist in fact. And guess what.... Communism is just one big company! You should be wanking yourself blind over Disney/EMI/Microsoft /etc/etc/etc
MUSEA: So the only 2 alternatives is to let big companies control everything or let the government control everything. NO, time and time again people in capitalist govs have had to stand up to big business. This time is one of them.
Why are you so afraid of free speech and an alt opinion. (The Hadrian Wall thing is a joke to make a point. Truth is Fox is doing a new series of motorcycle jumps. The first, Robbie Knievel is jumping Stonehenge)
GRAEME: What the fuck do you know about the UK? We're not even allowed within a quarter of a mile of Stonehenge because it's such a massive national treasure. I doubt very much that the authorities in the UK will allow something as passe as a bloke on a bike trying to jump it. It's not even that big...
MUSEA: This was another joke.
GRAEME: And by the way the BBC has a strong tradition of supporting indie/alternative/underground music, going back almost thirty years: ...to name but a few. They have also spent lots of time on so-called 'yoof' TV shows, covering alternative arts as well as music. And fanzines get mentioned on the radio as well as TV shows on a regular basis. Before you start slagging us all off because we live over here and are obviously vastly intellectually inferior to you, I suggest you do some research. Come back in a year or two.
MUSEA: But you're avoiding my question. Is everybody there afraid of calling the BBC and asking a couple questions? What do they do to you? You sound like you are afraid to ask them.
RHODI: Do it yourself please, we know the answer, as we've explained.
MUSEA: Good idea. I've asked the group to ask the BBC (big bad corporation?) 3 simple questions. I really haven't got a straight answer from anyone about those 3 questions, and you seem to me, to be afraid to ask them yourselves.But I will:
BBC News,
I would like to ask if the BBC has covered any of these topics in recent months. And where I could find those articles.
1. The continuing mergers of more and more of the media and arts into fewer and fewer conglomerates.
2. The 'zine revolution in publishing.
3. The Art Revolution that started in Dallas in '92. Thanks Art S Revolutionary (Tom Hendricks, editor of the zine Musea)
112374.474@compuserve.com
BBC: Thank you for your email.
Please use our search facility to locate related articles.
Regards BBC News Online
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
BBC News,
A couple times I have sent an e-mail asking some simple questions about your journalism policies. No replies. Is there no way you'll reply to readers concerns about fairness in your reporting?
BBC: Hi Tom,
Thanks again for your email and sorry for the delay in responding to your earlier query:
Our business team has covered in some depth the Time Warner/AOL merger in the US, as well as the possible merger of the three major ITV companies in the UK; however, we would recommend you use the site's search facility at: http://news.bbc.co.uk as there are a
great number of stories in our archive on these issues.
We haven't covered the other topics you refer to recently, although - again we would recommend you use the site's search engine. Regards BBC News Online
MUSEA: As suggested by the BBC, I did check their site search engine. Here's what I found. NO stories on the 20 year zine revolution (that means that all the thousands and thousands of fanzines, punk zines, perzines, etc written during the last 20 years have been treated as totally invisible). NO stories on the art rev. from here in Dallas.
And very little on anything related to Corporate Art, excluding business press release type stories. Though before the sale of EMI this: "Britains Pop Heritage For Sale?"
Summing up, Britain has the same mess the U.S. has. A handful of corporations are ruining all the arts by consolidation and the media refuses to talk about it.