据英国《每日邮报》11月11日报道，英国内政大臣塞瑞莎•梅指责英国广播公司(BBC)利用纳税人提供的资金优势，排挤竞争，摧毁传统纸媒。
BBC website is 'destroying' local newspapers and harming democracy, warns Home Secretary Theresa May
Theresa May accuses Corporation of squeezing out local competition
Warns it could ‘dangerous to the health of democratic politics'
Home Secretary is the latest senior Conservative to attack the BBC
The BBC is ‘destroying’ local newspapers by using its taxpayer-funded dominance to squeeze out competition, Theresa May has warned.
The Home Secretary condemned the BBC for using the licence fee to fund websites in direct competition with regional and national newspapers.
And she warned that as papers close, fewer sources of news will become ‘dangerous to the health of democratic politics’.
Mrs May is the latest senior Tory to publicly criticise the BBC, stepping up pressure on the Corporation over its management and spending.
She said local newspapers are having ‘a particularly hard time’, which is being made worse by the ‘BBC's dominant position on the internet and its ability to subsidise the provision of internet news using the licence fee’.
‘This makes it enormously difficult for local newspapers to compete. If the BBC can, as they do, provide all the locally significant news, what is left to motivate the local media to buy a paper?
‘It's destroying local newspapers and could eventually happen to national newspapers as well.’
Speaking to the Society of Editors' annual conference in London, Mrs May warned: ‘This is as dangerous for local politics as it is for local journalism.
Home Secretary Theresa May warned the health of democratic politics would be undermined if the BBC squeezes out local competition
‘Because as a local MP I value the ability to raise issues in my constituency in my local newspaper but also I value its role in disseminating information about what I and local councillors are doing in the area.’
She added: ‘This is a debate that won't go away and I believe the BBC has to think carefully about its presence locally and the impact it has on local democracy.’
Mrs May said she believed ‘a plurality of news sources is essential to our democracy’. She warned if newspapers are forced to close down, the country could be left with a single source of information.
The Home Secretary said: ‘At a national level, we have a healthy number of competing newspapers in Britain and that's something we surely don't want to lose.’
Mrs May went on: ‘A monopoly on the provision of information would be a perennial temptation to malpractice, inefficiency and corruption in exactly the same way almost every other kind of monopoly is.
‘No single source of news can possibly represent the variety of opinion that there is in this country and a monopoly news provider would be far too easily captured by special interests.
‘So competition in the provision of news is essential to democracy and diminishing competition is dangerous to the health of democratic politics.
‘That's why it's important that the internet does not have the effect of making a plurality of newspapers commercially impossible in Britain.’
Mrs May is the second senior Tory in as many weeks to draw attention to BBC's role in the political process after party chairman Grant Shapps accused the corporation of biased reporting and questioned its funding.
He warned that the television licence fee could be cut unless the BBC tackles a 'culture' of secrecy, waste and bias.
Mr Shapps said the Corporation must rebuild confidence following the Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall abuse scandals, controversy over fat cat salaries and pay-offs to stars and senior executives.
相关介绍：
这位英国内政大臣批评英国广播公司利用频道收视费创立新闻网站，直接与地方和全国性报纸展开竞争。
她警告说，报社关门将直接导致新闻源减少，并损害民主政治的健康。
塞瑞莎•梅是又一公开指责英国广播公司的保守党高层人士，进一步质疑广播公司的管理和费用支出模式。
她说各地方报纸现在处境艰难，而它们的境况又因英国广播公司在网络上的主导地位以及它能够通过收视费为网站运营提供资金支持的便利而雪上加霜。
“这为地方报纸与之竞争设置了巨大障碍。正如它现在所作所为，如果英国广播公司可以提供所有地方新闻，那么当地居民还有什么动机去买一份报纸呢?”
“这种做法损害了地方报纸，而且也终将殃及全国性报纸。”
塞瑞莎•梅是在每年一度在伦敦召开的编辑协会大会上讲的此番言论，她警告说;“这对于地方新闻是危害，同样对于地方政治也是危害。”
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