. It’s difficult to predict just how bad the BBC coverage of Bush’s visit to the UK will be. The trouble is that they have a lot of room for manoeuvre given the range of groups that might be evident in the anti-Bush, anti-war protests. I’ve already indicated one problem- there are those who don’t like Bush (for example anti-death penalty people) and there are those who don’t like the war. There are also those who don’t like people rocking the boat (for instance certain overweight Conservatives), and angry europhiles who didn’t like the contretemps with the French (sometimes overweight Conservatives too). There are ‘colourful characters’ like Galloway (still under a legal cloud) and Tony Benn who have Baathed together and so are quite close in some regards, and oddbods like Clare Short desperate to be accepted again as a ‘darling’ of the Left. With this range of delicious options-and I’ve offered just a sprinkling-(who will typically be ideal commentators on the fringe of things rather than marching) to choose from, the BBC’s coverage will probably be uncontroversially lurid at times. Mark Steyn sets a realistic , maybe even pessimistic, tone. By the end of it all Bush will no doubt feel like saying, ‘I’m a celebrity too, get me out of here’.
Update. Early sniper fire from David Loyne on BBC lunchtime News: Apparently the controversy over Bush’s visit is because ‘Nobody expected the War to go as badly as it has’. Which War? Badly for the British? Currently? Whose expectations? Surely he can’t mean the ’20 days to Baghdad’ War?
Don’t know if you read this article which has quoted Ms. Doucete as follows :
Ms. Doucete, who refers to homicide bombers as “honor” killers, believes “her job is to translate” rather than simply report the news, because “Israel is led by a Prime Minister who believes that it is not Israel’s policy that is wrong, just that they have to explain it better.”
Your Taxes for PLO Propaganda
By David Bedein
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 29, 2003
http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10535
Screwed up and did not complete my comment.
Following from the above comment ;
What can one expect from the BBC in general if their anchors, reporters or journalists are so arogant.
What is also important along with the “translating” is the “filtering” ( as Mark Steyn describes the leaving out of select bits) of the news and placing some fact without any context.
Unfortunately I have not found ways of “bookmarking” BBC World Service to substantiate some criticism of its report on whatever.
BBC Online reporter Tamsin Smith has just referred to a group of Italian pro-Saddmites (who are raising money to provide arms for the “Iraqi resistance) as “anti-war militants.”
One of the Beeb’s favourite tricks is to put a Forum in place and ask a loaded question. They’ve already got a “What do you think of the Bush visit” one running. This is done to garner/generate comments that they can use to show that they aren’t biased: “See,’the public’ thinks the same way.”
I used to post to BBC Forums in an effort to get a small voice of realism heard. After a while they stopped even acknowledging receipt of anything I sent. Like pulling the bedcovers over your head. Twerps!
PB, Calgary Alberta
Following on from Patrick’s comment above, have you noticed that the online polls that used to be run frequently on the BBC News site don’t seem to happen much at all now?
Quite often these poll results seemed remarkably ‘sound’ (i.e. not tending towards the left), if a little metropolitan in their outcome – probably a reflection of the tendency towards affluence and education among Internet users as a sector of the population as a whole.
Still, if you aren’t getting the right poll results, stop taking polls – public service broadcasting at its best 🙂 Remember, it’s not our BBC, it’s their BBC, to paraphrase their trite self-advertising.
Speaking of polls..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,1271,-3399444,00.html
Both the Bush visit and the Iraq war have majority support in the UK.
the website is terribly biased. If you click on the Bush visit then you’re greeted with the SWP campaign poster with the blood splats. They have photos of the protestors and present it as a merry day out, talking of merriment beneath overcast skies. I actually complained because I thought it was too bad. Like PB I’ve given up trying to write comments on the forums. They never get published, and they always seem to highlight those that fit their slant on the story.