John Roderigo Dos Passos ( / d ɒ s ˈ p æ s ə s , - s ɒ s / ; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his U.S.A. trilogy .
126-566: Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker. Curtis began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of Pandora's Box (1992) marked the introduction of Curtis's distinctive presentation that uses collage to explore aspects of sociology , psychology , philosophy and political history . His style has been described as involving, "whiplash digressions, menacing atmospherics and arpeggiated scores, and
252-515: A libertarian view. I have a more libertarian tendency ... What's astonishing in our time is how the Left here has completely failed to come up with any alternatives, and I think you may well see a lefty libertarianism emerging because people will be much more sympathetic to it, or just a libertarianism, and out of that will come ideas. And I don't mean " localism ". In a 2021 interview, Curtis stated having sympathies to radicalism and that progressivism
378-437: A neoconservative position because I'm saying that, with the rise of individualism , you tend to get the corrosion of the other idea of social bonds and communal networks, because everyone is on their own. Well, that's what the neoconservatives argue, domestically. ... If you ask me what my politics are, I'm very much a creature of my time. I don't really have any. I change my mind over different issues, but I am much more fond of
504-458: A 2012 interview, Curtis remarked on his political outlook stating fondness for libertarian ideas but states his politics are unique and differ depending on the issue. Curtis also rejects being labelled a leftist , calling the idea "rubbish", saying: People often accuse me of being a lefty. That's complete rubbish. If you look at The Century of the Self , what I'm arguing is something very close to
630-722: A censorship apparatus for the inevitability of war. Due to the BBC's advancements in shortwave radio technology, the corporation could broadcast across the world during the Second World War. Within Europe, the BBC European Service would gather intelligence and information regarding the current events of the war in English. Regional BBC workers, based on their regional geo-political climate, would then further censor
756-518: A commercial success. His U.S.A. trilogy, which consists of the novels The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936), was ranked by the Modern Library in 1998 as 23rd of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century . Written in experimental, non-linear form, the trilogy blends elements of biography and news reports to paint a landscape of early 20th-century American culture. Beyond his writing, Dos Passos
882-834: A journalist and war correspondent, covering American operations in the Pacific and the post-World War II situation in Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich and Vienna. In 1947, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters . Tragedy struck the same year when an automobile accident killed his wife of 18 years, Katharine Foster Smith, and cost him the sight in one eye. The couple had no children. Dos Passos married Elizabeth Hamlyn Holdridge (1909–1998) in 1949, by whom he had one daughter, Lucy Hamlin Dos Passos (b. 1950). His politics, which had always underpinned his work, moved to
1008-469: A larger brand: in 2003, BBC Choice was replaced by BBC Three , with programming for younger adults and shocking real-life documentaries, BBC News 24 became the BBC News Channel in 2008, and BBC Radio 7 became BBC Radio 4 Extra in 2011, with new programmes to supplement those broadcast on Radio 4. In 2008, another channel was launched, BBC Alba , a Scottish Gaelic service. During this decade,
1134-607: A news and information service. In 1978, BBC staff went on strike just before the Christmas, thus blocking out the transmission of both channels and amalgamating all four radio stations into one. Since the deregulation of the UK television and radio market in the 1980s, the BBC has faced increased competition from the commercial sector (and from the advertiser-funded public service broadcaster Channel 4 ), especially on satellite television, cable television, and digital television services. In
1260-493: A number of additional channels and radio stations have been launched: Radio 5 was launched in 1990, as a sports and educational station, but was replaced in 1994, with BBC Radio 5 Live to become a live radio station, following the success of the Radio 4 service to cover the 1991 Gulf War . The new station would be a news and sport station. In 1997, BBC News 24 , a rolling news channel, launched on digital television services, and
1386-571: A private college-preparatory school in Wallingford, Connecticut , under the name John Roderigo Madison. His parents later arranged for him to travel with a private tutor on a six-month tour of France , England , Italy , Greece , and southwest Asia, to study the masters of classical art, architecture, and literature. In 1912, Dos Passos enrolled in Harvard College, where he became friends with classmate e.e. cummings , who said there
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#17327875887731512-744: A proposal to cut 4,000 jobs, and to privatise parts of the BBC, disrupted much of the BBC's regular programming. In 2006, BBC HD launched as an experimental service and became official in December 2007. The channel broadcast HD simulcasts of programmes on BBC One , BBC Two , BBC Three and BBC Four as well as repeats of some older programmes in HD. In 2010, an HD simulcast of BBC One launched: BBC One HD . The channel uses HD versions of BBC One's schedule and uses upscaled versions of programmes not currently produced in HD. The BBC HD channel closed in March 2013 and
1638-555: A series of strikes; however, the BBC stated that the cuts were essential to move the organisation forward and concentrate on increasing the quality of programming. On 20 October 2010, the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced that the television licence fee would be frozen at its current level until the end of the current charter in 2016. The same announcement revealed that the BBC would take on
1764-555: A sort of monoculture", he uses tracks from a variety of genres, decades, and countries, as well as sound effects that he discovers on old tapes. According to a profile of Curtis by Tim Adams, published in The Observer : "If there has been a theme in Curtis's work ... it has been to look at how different elites have tried to impose an ideology on their times, and the tragicomic consequences of those attempts". In 2005, Curtis received
1890-590: A volunteer ambulance driver with the American Red Cross in north-central Italy. By the late summer of 1918, Dos Passos had completed a draft of his first novel. At the same time, he had to report for duty with the U.S. Army Medical Corps at Camp Crane in Pennsylvania . On Armistice Day , he was stationed in Paris, where the U.S. Army Overseas Education Commission allowed him to study anthropology at
2016-652: A whole. Dos Passos's political and social reflections in the novel are deeply pessimistic about the political and economic direction of the United States, and few of the characters manage to hold onto their ideals through the First World War. The novel reflects the writer's sympathy, at the time of writing, for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and his outrage at its suppression, for which
2142-606: A young man, visiting Europe and southwest Asia, where he learned about literature, art, and architecture. During World War I , he was an ambulance driver for the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps in Paris and Italy, before joining the United States Army Medical Corps as a private. In 1920, his first novel, One Man's Initiation: 1917 , was published, and in 1925, his novel Manhattan Transfer became
2268-470: Is a literary award given annually by the Department of English and Modern Languages at Longwood University . The prize seeks to recognize "American creative writers who have produced a substantial body of significant publication that displays characteristics of John Dos Passos' writing: an intense and original exploration of specifically American themes, an experimental approach to form, and an interest in
2394-487: Is he tells political stories but at the same time he also lets you know what it feels like to live through them. Most journalism does not acknowledge that people live at least as much in their heads as they do in the world." In a 2018 interview, French director Agnès Varda spoke on her inspirations, "I learned a lot from reading. I learned editing from Dos Passos. I learned the structure of writing from Fontenay . I learned poetry from Prévert . The John Dos Passos Prize
2520-410: Is his politics. He notes again his political inconsistency, saying: I'm emotionally sympathetic to radicalism ... I'm a progressive , I mean that's really what my politics are. I mean, I'm typical of my time, I don't have a consistent set of politics and I always suspect people who do, but I'm progressive so I try and understand what went wrong with radicalism. In a 2022 interview, Curtis reiterated
2646-662: Is known for his shift in political views. Following his experiences in World War I, he became interested in socialism and pacifism , which also influenced his early work. In 1928, he traveled to the Soviet Union , curious about its social and political experiment, though he left with mixed impressions. His experiences during the Spanish Civil War disillusioned him with left-wing politics while also severing his relationship with fellow writer Ernest Hemingway . By
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#17327875887732772-500: Is obviously of paramount importance." Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it. At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with
2898-498: Is responsible for operational management and delivery of services within a framework set by the board, and is chaired by the director-general , currently Tim Davie , who is chief executive and (from 1994) editor-in-chief. The corporation has the following in-house divisions covering the BBC's output and operations: John Dos Passos Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as
3024-417: Is the U.S.A. trilogy , comprising The 42nd Parallel (1930), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936). Dos Passos used experimental techniques in these novels, incorporating newspaper clippings, autobiography, biography, and fictional realism to paint a vast landscape of American culture during the first decades of the 20th century. Though each novel stands on its own, the trilogy is designed to be read as
3150-642: The Archbishops of Canterbury and York came to St Paul's to broadcast to the UK and the world on the National Day of Prayer. BBC employees during the war included George Orwell who spent two years with the broadcaster. During his role as prime minister during the war, Winston Churchill delivered 33 major wartime speeches by radio, all of which were carried by the BBC within the UK. On 18 June 1940, French general Charles de Gaulle , in exile in London as
3276-598: The BBC Television Service ) started from Alexandra Palace in November 1936, alternating between an improved Baird mechanical 240-line system and the all-electronic 405-line Marconi-EMI system which had been developed by an EMI research team led by Sir Isaac Shoenberg . The superiority of the electronic system saw the mechanical system dropped early the following year, with the Marconi-EMI system
3402-490: The British Broadcasting Company , it evolved into its current state with its current name on New Year's Day 1927. The oldest and largest local and global broadcaster by stature and by number of employees, the BBC employs over 21,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 17,200 are in public-sector broadcasting. The BBC was established under a royal charter , and operates under an agreement with
3528-499: The Marquis de Sade , Aaron Burr , and Robert Morris , the libertarian journal The Freeman and the conservative magazine National Review . In the same decade, he published the influential study The Head and Heart of Thomas Jefferson (1954), about which fellow ex-radical Max Eastman wrote: "I think John Dos Passos has done a great service to his country and the free world by lending his talents to this task. He has revived
3654-958: The MediaCityUK development in Salford , with BBC Three moving online only in 2016, the sharing of more programmes between stations and channels, sharing of radio news bulletins, more repeats in schedules, including the whole of BBC Two daytime and for some original programming to be reduced. BBC HD was closed on 26 March 2013, and replaced with an HD simulcast of BBC Two; however, flagship programmes, other channels and full funding for CBBC and CBeebies would be retained. Numerous BBC facilities have been sold off, including New Broadcasting House on Wilmslow Road in Manchester. Many major departments have been relocated to Broadcasting House in central London and MediaCityUK in Salford, particularly since
3780-538: The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport . Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts or to use the BBC's streaming service, iPlayer . The fee is set by the British Government , agreed by Parliament , and is used to fund
3906-521: The 1950s, his political views had changed dramatically, and he had become more conservative. In the 1960s, he campaigned for presidential candidates Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon . As an artist, Dos Passos created his own cover art for his books, influenced by the modernism of 1920s Paris. He died in Baltimore , Maryland. Spence's Point , his Virginia estate, was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1971. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos
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4032-523: The 2025–26 season of the Women's Super League campaign. The BBC is a statutory corporation , independent from direct government intervention, with its activities being overseen from April 2017 by the BBC Board and regulated by Ofcom . The chairman is Samir Shah. The BBC is a state owned public broadcasting company and operates under a royal charter . The charter is the constitutional basis for
4158-467: The BBC announced a BBC News savings target of £80 million per year by 2022, involving about 520 staff reductions. The BBC's director of news and current affairs Fran Unsworth said there would be further moves toward digital broadcasting, in part to attract back a youth audience, and more pooling of reporters to stop separate teams covering the same news. In 2020, the BBC reported a £119 million deficit because of delays to cost reduction plans, and
4284-585: The BBC is subject to an additional 'Agreement' between it and the Culture Secretary , and that its operating licence is to be set by Ofcom, an external regulatory body . It used to be that the Home Secretary be departmental to both Agreement as well as Licence, and regulatory duties fall to the BBC Trust , but the 2017 charter changed those 2007 arrangements. The charter, too, outlines
4410-826: The BBC released minutes of the board meeting which led to Greg Dyke's resignation. Unlike the other departments of the BBC, the BBC World Service was funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office . The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, more commonly known as the Foreign Office or the FCO, is the British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom abroad. A strike in 2005 by more than 11,000 BBC workers, over
4536-440: The BBC suddenly became the primary source of news for the duration of the crisis. The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position. On the one hand Reith was acutely aware that the government might exercise its right to commandeer the BBC at any time as a mouthpiece of the government if the BBC were to step out of line, but on the other he was anxious to maintain public trust by appearing to be acting independently. The government
4662-480: The BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the government's objectives largely in a manner of its own choosing. Supporters of the strike nicknamed the BBC the BFC for British Falsehood Company. Reith personally announced the end of the strike which he marked by reciting from Blake's " Jerusalem " signifying that England had been saved. While the BBC tends to characterise its coverage of the general strike by emphasising
4788-536: The BBC", was priced at tuppence (two pence ) on newsstands, and quickly sold out its run of a quarter of a million copies. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee. By now, the BBC, under Reith's leadership, had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified (monopoly) broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit
4914-464: The BBC's airwaves. In 1937, a MI5 security officer was given a permanent office within the organisation. This officer would examine the files of potential political subversives and mark the files of those deemed a security risk to the organisation, blacklisting them. This was often done on spurious grounds; even so, the practice would continue and expand during the years of the Cold War. There
5040-540: The BBC's censorship office, which surveilled and edited American coverage of British affairs. By 1940, across all BBC broadcasts, music by composers from enemy nations was censored. In total, 99 German, 38 Austrian and 38 Italian composers were censored. The BBC argued that like the Italian or German languages, listeners would be irritated by the inclusion of enemy composers. Any potential broadcasters said to have pacifist, communist or fascist ideologies were not allowed on
5166-450: The BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC News , and from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd. In 2009, the company was awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise in recognition of its international achievements in business. Since its formation in 1922, the BBC has played a prominent role in British life and culture. It is sometimes informally referred to as
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5292-683: The BBC's radio, TV, and online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has also funded the BBC World Service (launched in 1932 as the BBC Empire Service), which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, radio, and online services in Arabic and Persian . Some of the BBC's revenue comes from its commercial subsidiary BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide ), which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and also distributes
5418-522: The BBC, and sets out the BBC's Object, Mission and Public Purposes. It emphasises public service , (limited) editorial independence , prohibits advertising on domestic services and proclaims the BBC is to "seek to avoid adverse impacts on competition which are not necessary for the effective fulfilment of the Mission and the promotion of the Public Purposes". The charter also sets out that
5544-700: The Beeb or Auntie . In 1923 it launched Radio Times (subtitled "The official organ of the BBC"), the first broadcast listings magazine; the 1988 Christmas edition sold 11 million copies, the biggest-selling edition of any British magazine in history. Britain's first live public broadcast was made from the factory of Marconi Company in Chelmsford in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mail ' s Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe and featured
5670-586: The British government's asylum policy on social media. Lineker was suspended from his position on Match of the Day before being re-instated after receiving overwhelming support from his colleagues. The scandal was made worse due to the connections between BBC's chairman, Richard Sharp, and the Conservative Party. In April 2023, Richard Sharp resigned as chairman after a report found he did not disclose potential perceived conflicts of interest in his role in
5796-506: The CBBC Channel and CBeebies Channel. In addition to the television channels, new digital radio stations were created: 1Xtra , 6 Music and Radio 4 Extra . BBC 1Xtra was a sister station to Radio 1 and specialised in modern black music, BBC 6 Music specialised in alternative music genres and BBC7 specialised in archive, speech and children's programming. The following few years resulted in repositioning of some channels to conform to
5922-565: The Communist movement had already begun to change. Dos Passos broke with Hemingway and Herbert Matthews over what he considered their cavalier attitude towards the war, and their willingness to lend their names to deceptive Stalinist propaganda efforts, including the cover-up of the Soviet responsibility in the murder of José Robles , Dos Passos's friend and translator of his works into Spanish . (In later years, Hemingway would give Dos Passos
6048-701: The Corporation's governance and regulatory arrangements as a statutory corporation, including the role and composition of the BBC Board. The current Charter began on 1 January 2017 and ends on 31 December 2027; the Agreement being coterminous. The BBC Board was formed in April 2017. It replaced the previous governing body, the BBC Trust, which itself had replaced the board of governors in 2007. The board sets
6174-660: The GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee. The committee recommended a short-term reorganisation of licence fees with improved enforcement in order to address the BBC's immediate financial distress, and an increased share of the licence revenue split between it and the GPO. This was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee to fund broadcasts. The BBC's broadcasting monopoly
6300-511: The GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufacturers, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd , which was formed on 18 October 1922. John Reith , a Scottish Calvinist , was appointed its general manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. L. Stanton Jefferies
6426-900: The Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival . In 2006, he was given the Alan Clarke Award for Outstanding Creative Contribution to Television at the British Academy Television Awards . In 2009, the Sheffield International Documentary Festival gave Curtis the Inspiration Award for inspiring viewers and other documentary filmmakers. In 2015, he
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#17327875887736552-441: The Prime Minister, maintained the censorship of editorial opinions on public policy, but allowed the BBC to address matters of religious, political or industrial controversy. The resulting political "talk series", designed to inform England on political issues, were criticised by members of parliament, including Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George and Sir Austen Chamberlain . Those who opposed these chats claimed that they silence
6678-544: The Sorbonne . Three Soldiers , his novel drawn from those experiences, features a character who has virtually the same military career as the writer and stays in Paris after the war. Considered one of the Lost Generation writers, Dos Passos published his first novel in 1920, One Man's Initiation: 1917 , which was written in the trenches during World War I. It was followed by the antiwar novel, Three Soldiers , which brought him considerable recognition. His 1925 novel about life in New York City, titled Manhattan Transfer ,
6804-430: The UK's first Independent local radio station, LBC came on-air in the London area. As a result of the Pilkington Committee report of 1962, in which the BBC was praised for the quality and range of its output, and ITV was very heavily criticised for not providing enough quality programming, the decision was taken to award the BBC a second television channel, BBC2 , in 1964, renaming the existing service BBC1 . BBC2 used
6930-436: The United States and Europe in a failed campaign to overturn their death sentences . In 1928, Dos Passos spent several months in Russia studying socialism. He was a leading participant in the April 1935 First Americans Writers Congress, sponsored by the Communist-leaning League of American Writers , but he eventually balked at the idea that Joseph Stalin , leader of the Soviet Union, would have control over creative writers in
7056-439: The United States. Dos Passos's pioneering works of nonlinear fiction were a major influence in the field. In particular Alfred Döblin 's Berlin Alexanderplatz and Jean-Paul Sartre 's Roads To Freedom trilogy show the influence of his methods. In a 1936 essay, "On John Dos Passos and 1919", Sartre referred to Dos Passos as "the greatest writer of our time." American writer Mary McCarthy said that The 42nd Parallel
7182-457: The United States. In 1936–1937, Dos Passos served on the American Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky , commonly known as the " Dewey Commission ", with other notable figures such as Sidney Hook , Reinhold Niebuhr , Norman Thomas , Edmund Wilson , and chairman John Dewey . It had been set up following the first of the Moscow "Show Trials" in 1936, part of the massive purges of Soviet party leaders and intellectuals in that period. In
7308-564: The air and forced the British government finally to regulate radio services to permit nationally based advertising-financed services. In response, the BBC reorganised and renamed their radio channels. On 30 September 1967, the Light Programme was split into Radio 1 offering continuous "Popular" music and Radio 2 more "Easy Listening". The "Third" programme became Radio 3 offering classical music and cultural programming. The Home Service became Radio 4 offering news, and non-musical content such as quiz shows, readings, dramas and plays. As well as
7434-594: The book expresses a deep grudge against President Woodrow Wilson . Before becoming a leading novelist of his day, Dos Passos sketched and painted. During the summer of 1922, he studied at Hamilton Easter Field 's art colony in Ogunquit, Maine . Many of his books published during the ensuing ten years used jackets and illustrations that Dos Passos created. Influenced by various movements, he merged elements of Impressionism , Expressionism , and Cubism to create his own unique style. And his work evolved with his first exhibition at New York's National Arts Club in 1922 and
7560-410: The broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the BBC emphasised service for a national rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but the BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity. John Reith and the BBC, with support from the Crown , determined the universal needs of
7686-458: The challenge of better reflecting and representing a changing UK". Since 2017, the BBC has also funded the Local Democracy Reporting Service , with up to 165 journalists employed by independent news organisations to report on local democracy issues on a pooled basis. In 2016, the BBC Director General Tony Hall announced a savings target of £800 million per year by 2021, which is about 23% of annual licence fee revenue. Having to take on
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#17327875887737812-412: The closure of BBC Television Centre in March 2013. On 16 February 2016, the BBC Three television service was discontinued and replaced by a digital outlet under the same name, targeting its young adult audience with web series and other content. Under the new royal charter instituted in 2017, the corporation must publish an annual report to Ofcom, outlining its plans and public service obligations for
7938-408: The corporation began to sell off a number of its operational divisions to private owners; BBC Broadcast was spun off as a separate company in 2002, and in 2005, it was sold off to Australian -based Macquarie Capital Alliance Group and Macquarie Group Limited and rebranded Red Bee Media . The BBC's IT , telephony and broadcast technology were brought together as BBC Technology Ltd in 2001, and
8064-464: The derogatory moniker of "the pilot fish " in his memoir of 1920s Paris , A Moveable Feast .) Of Communism, Dos Passos later wrote: "I have come to think, especially since my trip to Spain, that civil liberties must be protected at every stage. In Spain, I am sure that the introduction of GPU methods by the Communists did as much harm as their tank men, pilots, and experienced military men did good. The trouble with an all-powerful secret police in
8190-608: The design of weapons . He was subsequently given a post on That's Life! , a magazine series that juxtaposed hard-hitting investigations and light-hearted content. He was a film director on Out of Court , a BBC Two legal series, from 1980 until 1982. Curtis is inspired by the sociologist Max Weber , who, he argues, challenged the "crude, left-wing, vulgar Marxism that says that everything happens because of economic forces within society". Curtis has answered questions on his politics in interviews over his career but has answered inconsistently, making it hard to label his politics. In
8316-455: The division was later sold to the German company Siemens IT Solutions and Services (SIS). SIS was subsequently acquired from Siemens by the French company Atos . Further divestments included BBC Books (sold to Random House in 2006); BBC Outside Broadcasts Ltd (sold in 2008 to Satellite Information Services ); Costumes and Wigs (stock sold in 2008 to Angels Costumes ); and BBC Magazines (sold to Immediate Media Company in 2011). After
8442-808: The fabric of social organisations... which is a sort of moralistic neocon attitude. That's not actually what I think. But you could argue that about most films, I think. I don't know really what my politics are. Curtis cites the U.S.A. trilogy , a series of three novels by John Dos Passos that he first read when he was thirteen, as the greatest influence on his work: You can trace back everything I do to that novel because it's all about grand history, individual experience, their relationship. And also collages, quotes from newsreels, cinema, newspapers. And it's about collage of history as well. That's where I get it all from. Other creative influences are Robert Rauschenberg and Émile Zola . Curtis makes extensive use of archive footage in his documentaries. He has acknowledged
8568-407: The facilitation of a loan to Prime Minister Boris Johnson . Dame Elan Closs Stephens was appointed as acting chairwoman on 27 June 2023, and she would lead the BBC board for a year or until a new permanent chair has been appointed. Samir Shah was subsequently appointed with effect from 4 March 2024. In October 2024 it was announced that the BBC along with Sky Sports signed a deal to broadcast
8694-404: The famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba . The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, the pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among
8820-447: The first fully electronic television system in the world to be used in regular broadcasting. The success of broadcasting provoked animosities between the BBC and well-established media such as theatres, concert halls and the recording industry. By 1929, the BBC complained that the agents of many comedians refused to sign contracts for broadcasting, because they feared it harmed the artist "by making his material stale" and that it "reduces
8946-554: The following year at Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney 's Studio Club in New York City. While Dos Passos never gained recognition as a great artist, he continued to paint throughout his lifetime and his body of work was well respected. His art most often reflected his travels in Spain, Mexico, North Africa, plus the streets and cafés of the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris that he had frequented with good friends like Fernand Léger and Ernest Hemingway , as well as Blaise Cendrars , whose work he translated into English and who inspired him to use
9072-429: The following year, BBC Choice was launched as the third general entertainment channel from the BBC. The BBC also purchased The Parliamentary Channel, which was renamed BBC Parliament . In 1999, BBC Knowledge launched as a multimedia channel, with services available on the newly launched BBC Text digital teletext service (later rebranded as BBC Red Button), and on BBC Online . The channel had an educational aim, which
9198-491: The following year, he wrote the screenplay for the film The Devil Is a Woman , starring Marlene Dietrich and directed by Josef von Sternberg , both exiles from Nazi Germany. It was adapted from the 1898 novel La Femme et le pantin by Pierre Louÿs . In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Dos Passos returned to Spain with writer Ernest Hemingway , whom he had met in Paris in the 1920s. However, his views on
9324-458: The forthcoming ending of the remaining £253 million funding towards pensioner licence fees would increase financial pressures. In January 2021, it was reported that former banker Richard Sharp would succeed David Clementi , as chairman, when he stepped down in February. In March 2023, the BBC was at the centre of a political row with football pundit Gary Lineker , after he criticised
9450-506: The four national channels, a series of local BBC radio stations were established in 1967, including Radio London . In 1969, the BBC Enterprises department was formed to exploit BBC brands and programmes for commercial spin-off products. In 1979, it became a wholly owned limited company, BBC Enterprises Ltd. In 1974, the BBC's teletext service, Ceefax , was introduced, created initially to provide subtitling, but developed into
9576-633: The full cost of running the BBC World Service and the BBC Monitoring service from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and partially finance the Welsh broadcaster S4C . Further cuts were announced on 6 October 2011, so the BBC could reach a total reduction in their budget of 20%, following the licence fee freeze in October 2010, which included cutting staff by 2,000 and sending a further 1,000 to
9702-647: The government. Throughout the 1930s, political broadcasts had been closely monitored by the BBC. In 1935, the BBC censored the broadcasts of Oswald Mosley and Harry Pollitt . Mosley was a leader of the British Union of Fascists , and Pollitt a leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain . They had been contracted to provide a series of five broadcasts on their parties' politics. The BBC, in conjunction with The Foreign Office of Britain, first suspended this series and ultimately cancelled it without
9828-566: The group Young Americans for Freedom . He continued to write until his death in Baltimore, Maryland , in 1970. He is interred in Yeocomico Churchyard Cemetery in Cople Parish, Westmoreland County, Virginia , near where he had made his home. Over his long career, Dos Passos wrote over forty books, as well as numerous poems , essays, and plays, and created more than 400 pieces of art. Dos Passos's major work
9954-536: The hands of fanatics, or of anybody, is that once it gets started, there's no stopping it until it has corrupted the whole body politic. I am afraid that's what's happening in Russia." Dos Passos had attended the 1932 Democratic National Convention and subsequently wrote an article for The New Republic in which he harshly criticized the selection of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the party's nominee. In
10080-420: The heart and mind of Jefferson, not by psychoanalytical lucubrations or soulful gush, but in the main by telling story after story of those whose lives and thoughts impinged upon his. And Jefferson's mind and heart are so livingly related to our problems today that the result seems hardly to be history." Recognition for his significant contributions to literature came 30 years later in Europe, when, in 1967, he
10206-405: The higher resolution 625-line standard which had been standardised across Europe. BBC2 was broadcast in colour from 1 July 1967 and was joined by BBC1 and ITV on 15 November 1969. The 405-line VHF transmissions of BBC1 (and ITV) were continued for compatibility with older television receivers until 1985. Starting in 1964, a series of pirate radio stations (starting with Radio Caroline ) came on
10332-536: The influence of recordings made by Erik Durschmied and is "constantly using his stuff in my films". Discussing his process in an interview with fellow documentary-maker Jon Ronson for Vice , Curtis said his extensive work with footage acquired from the BBC Archives is often led by "instinct and imagination", with the aim of creating "a mood that gives power and force to the story I'm telling". Instead of specially composed music, which Curtis has said "creates
10458-549: The late 1980s, the BBC began a process of divestment by spinning off and selling parts of its organisation. In 1988, it sold off the Hulton Press Library, a photographic archive which had been acquired from the Picture Post magazine by the BBC in 1957. The archive was sold to Brian Deutsch and is now owned by Getty Images . In 1987, the BBC decided to centralize its operations by the management team with
10584-739: The leader of the Free French, made a speech, broadcast by the BBC, urging the French people not to capitulate to the Nazis. In October 1940, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret made their first radio broadcast for the BBC's Children's Hour , addressing other children who had been evacuated from cities. In 1938, John Reith and the Government of the United Kingdom , specifically the Ministry of Information which had been set up for WWII, designed
10710-546: The loss-making consortium, and Reith was keen that the BBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 United Kingdom general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, and with restrictions on news bulletins waived,
10836-716: The material their broadcasts would cover. Nothing was to be added outside the preordained news items. For example, the BBC Polish Service was heavily censored due to fears of jeopardising relations with the Soviet Union . Controversial topics, i.e. the contested Polish and Soviet border, the deportation of Polish citizens, the arrests of Polish Home Army members and the Katyn massacre , were not included in Polish broadcasts. American radio broadcasts were broadcast across Europe on BBC channels. This material also passed through
10962-451: The mid-1930s, he wrote a series of scathing articles about Communist political theory. In his novel The Big Money , he features a character who is an idealist Communist gradually worn down and destroyed by groupthink in the party. As a result of socialism gaining popularity in Europe in response to the rise of fascism and Nazism , there was a sharp decline in international sales of his books. Between 1942 and 1945, Dos Passos worked as
11088-534: The modest, church-going elderly or a member of the Clergy . Until 1928, entertainers broadcasting on the BBC, both singers and "talkers" were expected to avoid biblical quotations, Clerical impersonations and references, references to drink or Prohibition in the United States , vulgar and doubtful matter and political allusions. The BBC excluded popular foreign music and musicians from its broadcasts, while promoting British alternatives. On 5 March 1928, Stanley Baldwin,
11214-734: The montage techniques found in the U.S.A. trilogy. Between 1925 and 1927, Dos Passos wrote plays as well as created posters and set designs for the New Playwrights Theatre in New York City. In his later years, his attention turned to painting scenes around his residences in Maine and Virginia . In early 2001, an exhibition titled The Art of John Dos Passos opened at the Queens Borough Library in New York City. It toured to several locations throughout
11340-575: The near-psychedelic compilation of archival footage", narrated by Curtis himself with "patrician economy and assertion". His films have won five BAFTAs . Adam Curtis was born in Dartford in Kent , and raised in nearby Platt . His father was Martin Curtis (1917–2002), a cinematographer with a socialist background. Curtis won a county scholarship and attended the Sevenoaks School . It
11466-413: The neoconservative interpretation of "The Century of the Self" but added it is not what he himself believes. This time, Curtis states that he does not know his exact politics, saying: [The Century of the Self could be interpreted as] a crystal perfect piece of neoconservative ideology, domestic neoconservatism, because what it's actually arguing is the rise of individualism acted like an acid eating away at
11592-413: The new corporation adopted the coat of arms , including the motto "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation". British radio audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the BBC. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone
11718-584: The news and entertainment media of the year 2010. While influenced by Dos Passos's technique, Brunner's work was also inspired by emerging European literary theory on metafiction . Joe Haldeman 's novel Mindbridge (2014) also uses the collage technique. His short story "To Howard Hughes: A Modest Proposal" (1974) explored a wealthy man reacting to the threat of war by wielding the power of private atomic reaction. The British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis says he has been inspired by Dos Passos and tries to incorporate his technique in film: "Why I love Dos Passos
11844-477: The next year. In its 2017–18 report, released July 2017, the BBC announced plans to "re-invent" its output to better compete against commercial streaming services such as Netflix . These plans included increasing the diversity of its content on television and radio, a major increase in investments towards digital children's content, and plans to make larger investments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to "rise to
11970-413: The notice of the public. Less radical politicians faced similar censorship. In 1938, Winston Churchill proposed a series of talks regarding British domestic and foreign politics and affairs but was similarly censored. The censorship of political discourse by the BBC was a precursor to the total shutdown of political debate that manifested over the BBC's wartime airwaves. The Foreign Office maintained that
12096-559: The opinions of those in Parliament who are not nominated by Party Leaders or Party Whips, thus stifling independent, non-official views. In October 1932, the policemen of the Metropolitan Police Federation marched in protest at a proposed pay cut. Fearing dissent within the police force and public support for the movement, the BBC censored its coverage of the events, only broadcasting official statements from
12222-407: The people of Britain and broadcast content according to these perceived standards. Reith effectively censored anything that he felt would be harmful, directly or indirectly. While recounting his time with the BBC in 1935, Raymond Postgate claims that BBC broadcasters were made to submit a draft of their potential broadcast for approval. It was expected that they tailored their content to accommodate
12348-435: The positive impression created by its balanced coverage of the views of government and strikers, Seaton has characterised the episode as the invention of "modern propaganda in its British form". Reith argued that trust gained by 'authentic impartial news' could then be used. Impartial news was not necessarily an end in itself. The BBC did well out of the crisis, which cemented a national audience for its broadcasting, and it
12474-482: The post, with a note saying 'We regret, etc.'" In the 1930s music broadcasts also enjoyed great popularity, for example the friendly and wide-ranging BBC Theatre Organ broadcasts at St George's Hall , London by Reginald Foort , who held the official role of BBC Staff Theatre Organist from 1936 to 1938. Television broadcasting was suspended from 1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946, during the World War II , and it
12600-466: The public should not be aware of their role in the censorship. From 1935 to 1939, the BBC also attempted to unite the British Empire's radio waves, sending staff to Egypt, Palestine , Newfoundland , Jamaica, India, Canada and South Africa. Reith personally visited South Africa, lobbying for state-run radio programmes which was accepted by South African Parliament in 1936. A similar programme
12726-423: The radio and television divisions joining forces together for the first time, the activities of the news and currents departments and coordinated jointly under the new directorate. During the 1990s, this process continued with the separation of certain operational arms of the corporation into autonomous but wholly owned subsidiaries , with the aim of generating additional revenue for programme-making. BBC Enterprises
12852-406: The right, and Dos Passos came to have a qualified, and temporary, sympathy for the goals of Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950s. However, his long-time friend journalist John Chamberlain believed that "Dos always remained a libertarian ." In the 1950s, Dos Passos also contributed to publications such as the history magazine American Heritage , for which he wrote essays on Thomas Jefferson ,
12978-443: The sales of OBs and costumes, the remainder of BBC Resources was reorganised as BBC Studios and Post Production , which continues today as a wholly owned subsidiary of the BBC. The 2004 Hutton Inquiry and the subsequent report raised questions about the BBC's journalistic standards and its impartiality. This led to resignations of senior management members at the time including the then Director General, Greg Dyke . In January 2007,
13104-469: The staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office (GPO), was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts. But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members. Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in the United States,
13230-427: The strategy for the corporation, assesses the performance of the BBC's executive board in delivering the BBC's services, and appoints the director-general. Ofcom is responsible for the regulation of the BBC. The board consists of the following members: The executive committee is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the broadcaster. Consisting of senior managers of the BBC, the committee meets once per month and
13356-563: The value of the artist as a visible music-hall performer". On the other hand, the BBC was "keenly interested" in a cooperation with the recording companies who "in recent years ... have not been slow to make records of singers, orchestras, dance bands, etc. who have already proved their power to achieve popularity by wireless." Radio plays were so popular that the BBC had received 6,000 manuscripts by 1929, most of them written for stage and of little value for broadcasting: "Day in and day out, manuscripts come in, and nearly all go out again through
13482-519: The £700 million cost for free TV licences for the over-75 pensioners, and rapid inflation in drama and sport coverage costs, was given as the reason. Duplication of management and content spending would be reduced, and there would be a review of BBC News . In September 2019, the BBC launched the Trusted News Initiative to work with news and social media companies to combat disinformation about national elections. In 2020,
13608-523: Was 14, but he refused to formally acknowledge John for another two years. John Randolph Dos Passos was an authority on trusts , and a staunch supporter of the powerful industrial conglomerates that his son expressly criticized in his fictional works during the 1920s and 1930s. After he returned with his mother to the US, Dos Passos was enrolled in 1907 at the Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall),
13734-591: Was a "foreignness" about Dos Passos, and that "no one at Harvard looked less like an American." Following his graduation cum laude in 1916, Dos Passos traveled to Spain to study art and architecture. In July 1917, with World War I raging in Europe, Dos Passos volunteered for the Sanitary Squad Unit (S.S.U.) 60 of the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps , along with friends Cummings and Robert Hillyer . Later, he also worked as
13860-536: Was a commercial success, and introduced experimental stream-of-consciousness techniques. Those ideas also coalesced into the U.S.A. trilogy , of which the first book appeared in 1930. A social revolutionary, Dos Passos came to see the United States as two nations, one rich and one poor. He wrote admiringly about the Industrial Workers of the World , and the injustice in the criminal convictions of Sacco and Vanzetti , and joined with other notable figures in
13986-442: Was a widely reported urban myth that, upon resumption of the BBC television service after the war, announcer Leslie Mitchell started by saying, "As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted ..." In fact, the first person to appear when transmission resumed was Jasmine Bligh and the words said were "Good afternoon, everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh ... ?" The European Broadcasting Union
14112-499: Was adopted in Canada. Through collaboration with these state-run broadcasting centres, Reith left a legacy of cultural influence across the empire of Great Britain with his departure from the corporation in 1938. Experimental television broadcasts were started in 1929, using an electromechanical 30-line system developed by John Logie Baird . Limited regular broadcasts using this system began in 1932, and an expanded service (now named
14238-575: Was among the chief influences on her own work. In the television documentary, The Odyssey of John Dos Passos (1994), writer Norman Mailer said: "Those three volumes of U.S.A. make up the idea of a ' Great American Novel . ' " Science fiction writers have also been influenced by Dos Passos's works. John Brunner's "non-novel" Stand on Zanzibar (1968), which won the Hugo Award , features his technique of using fictitious newspaper clippings, television announcements, and other "samples" taken from
14364-760: Was awarded the True Vision Award by the True/False Film Fest . Curtis's critics have accused him of exaggeration and distortion, even wilful misrepresentation. Curtis administered a blog subtitled 'The Medium and the Message' hosted by the BBC and updated between 2009 and 2016. BBC iPlayer, 13 October 2022 BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation ( BBC ) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London , England. Originally established in 1922 as
14490-519: Was divided on how to handle the BBC, but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PM's own. Although Winston Churchill in particular wanted to commandeer the BBC to use it "to the best possible advantage", Reith wrote that Stanley Baldwin 's government wanted to be able to say "that they did not commandeer [the BBC], but they know that they can trust us not to be really impartial". Thus
14616-671: Was followed by the Government's acceptance of the recommendation made by the Crawford Committee (1925–26) that the British Broadcasting Company be replaced by a non-commercial, Crown-chartered organisation: the British Broadcasting Corporation. The British Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on 1 January 1927, and Reith – newly knighted – was appointed its first director general. To represent its purpose and (stated) values,
14742-479: Was formed on 12 February 1950, in Torquay with the BBC among the 23 founding broadcasting organisations. Competition to the BBC was introduced in 1955, with the commercial and independently operated television network of Independent Television (ITV) . However, the BBC monopoly on radio services would persist until 8 October 1973 when under the control of the newly renamed Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA),
14868-492: Was invited to Rome to accept the prestigious Antonio Feltrinelli Prize for international distinction in literature. Although Dos Passos's partisans have contended that his later work was ignored because of his changing politics, some critics argue that the quality of his novels declined following U.S.A. . In the 1960s, he actively campaigned for Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign and Richard M. Nixon's 1960 and 1968 presidential campaigns , and became associated with
14994-509: Was its first director of music. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved domestic manufacturers. To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to "inform, educate and entertain". The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate. Set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between
15120-596: Was left to BBC Radio broadcasters such as Reginald Foort to keep the nation's spirits up. The BBC moved most of its radio operations out of London, initially to Bristol , and then to Bedford . Concerts were broadcast from the Bedford Corn Exchange ; the Trinity Chapel in St Paul's Church, Bedford was the studio for the daily service from 1941 to 1945, and, in the darkest days of the war in 1941,
15246-543: Was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, as was the prohibition on advertising. To avoid competition with newspapers, Fleet Street persuaded the government to ban news bulletins before 7 pm and the BBC was required to source all news from external wire services. The Radio Times , the world's first and longest-running radio and television listings magazine, was launched by Reith in September 1923. The first edition, subtitled "The official organ of
15372-400: Was modified later on in its life to offer documentaries. In 2002, several television and radio channels were reorganised. BBC Knowledge was replaced by BBC Four and became the BBC's arts and documentaries channel. CBBC , which had been a programming strand as Children's BBC since 1985, was split into CBBC and CBeebies , for younger children, with both new services getting a digital channel:
15498-461: Was reorganised and relaunched in 1995, as BBC Worldwide Ltd. In 1998, BBC studios, outside broadcasts, post production, design, costumes and wigs were spun off into BBC Resources Ltd. The BBC Research & Development has played a major part in the development of broadcasting and recording techniques. The BBC was also responsible for the development of the NICAM stereo standard. In recent decades,
15624-479: Was replaced by BBC Two HD in the same month. On 18 October 2007, BBC Director General Mark Thompson announced a controversial plan to make major cuts and reduce the size of the BBC as an organisation. The plans included a reduction in posts of 2,500; including 1,800 redundancies, consolidating news operations, reducing programming output by 10% and selling off the flagship Television Centre building in London. These plans were fiercely opposed by unions, who threatened
15750-432: Was the illegitimate son of John Randolph Dos Passos (1844–1917), a lawyer of half- Madeiran Portuguese descent, and Lucy Addison (Sprigg) Madison of Petersburg, Virginia . His father was married at the time and had a son several years older than John. As a child, John traveled extensively with his mother, who was sickly and preferred Europe. John's father married Lucy after the death of his first wife in 1910, when John
15876-463: Was there that an influential art teacher introduced him to the work of Robert Rauschenberg . Curtis completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in human sciences at Mansfield College, Oxford . He began a PhD and taught in politics, but ultimately became disillusioned with academia and decided to leave the profession. Curtis applied to the BBC and was hired to make a film for one of its training courses, comparing designer clothes in music videos to
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