Denis Boyles does a best /worst of the year list. The Beeb makes the cut in both!
The BBC is the worst in this best of all possible media planets. The Beeb’s grotesque old-Labour bias and blatant anti-Americanism continues apace, despite the mismanagement of the Corporation by Greg Dyke and his sidekicks, all of whom rested the credibility of the BBC on the quality of Andrew Gilligan’s slipshod reporting, captured here by the Guardian.
Pretty sad when the only one bringing up the rear is France 3. All is not lost, though. Boyles is happy to catch the BBC producing an excellent car show.
Actually, to be fair to the BBC (and one must give credit where credit is due), I believe that the French are actually worse. Yes, even though the French can’t quite claim that their talented lying (sorry, that should be analysis) has resulted in anyone’s suicide.
Fact is, no one can sneer quite like the French.
The BBC has been working at it, but they have a ways to go.
I’m sure the BBC will be devastated to be critcised by such a respected bastion of political neutrality as the National Review.
Who gives a monkeys what the more demented fringes of the American (or French or North Korean) political sphere think about the BBC? They don’t pay for it.
There are very legitimate criticisms of the BBC’s reporting and neutrality of ‘opinion’ which are frequently raised on this site, but a failure to follow the worldview of a foreign government which wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting elected if it stood in the UK (be it Bush’s, Shroeder’s or Castro’s) isn’t one of them.
So, the BBC sneer quote is an often infuriating tool for making subtle commentary.
However, consider this headline running today on the web site —
Threat to hospital ‘for US troops’
Is it not an established fact that it is a US military hospital? You’d expect the BBC to qualify the ‘threat’, perhaps. to
I don’t ‘get’ it. Do they employ ‘editors’?
Check it out – according to the headline, “Israeli troops shoot protesters” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3358965.stm).
What did they shoot? Teargas and rubber bullets.
Rich,
It should certainly get up the nose of any British citizen that they have no say in whether they pay for the BBC but it should not be all that difficult to see the implications of slanted reporting by the Beeb and its trickle-down negative effect on the British public’s attitudes toward its most important ally.
Say what you will about ‘demented fringes’, it would make a gigantic difference to you if the American public were to tell its politicians to disengage and let the world go hang itself. This is exactly what Roosevelt had to overcome when Hitler decided to make his moves.
Having endured a steady stream of BBC propaganda via the World Service whilst living in the Middle East, I have seen the negative results of its opinion-laden ‘reporting’ firsthand. Believe me, the damage is not contained merely within the UK. So, in my opinion, this is not simply an issue for Brits. The Beeb is a global institution and its bias is causing harm beyond the shores of Britain.
Precisely.
And given the success of the BBC and its fellow travelers in the media in warping the worldview of people worldwide, it should come as no surprise that commentators such as David Warren, Mark Steyn, and Victor Davis Hanson have come to the same essential conclusion at year’s end (though they have certainly commented on it previously as well). Respectively:
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/SunSpec/Dec03/index105.shtml
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/12/30/do3002.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/12/30/ixopinion.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200312300000.asp
And The Belmont Club blog makes ( http://belmontclub.blogspot.com ) the essential point exceedingly well:
“The fictional demon Screwtape once observed that lies become established where men are too lazy to think about the truth. Screwtape and Crichton forgot to add was that this error is more easily committed where people are sheltered from the immediate consequ
(Apologies — the blog master(s) might want to think about indicating the word cut-off limit!!…)
…consequences of their mistakes. Misjudgements are unforgivingly punished in the primitive world, but they may persist unnoticed for years in cafe society, secure within its city, until the accumulated weight of folly, gathering like a dark cloud outside the circle of petty laughter, crashes inward to demand its due.”
The BBC et al.–and those who support them–may wish to congratulate themselves on their successes thus far.
The question remains: how far will good and decent people allow such successes to go?
Hear, Hear, Kerry, and Barry- and a happy New Year to you both.
What people fail to see is what a priviledged position the BBC occupies among World media- there’s nothing like the Beeb in terms of opinion forming capability anywhere. It’s one of the last great British institutions- however it’s a warped legacy, unfortunately.
Barry- dead right- ‘Misjudgements are unforgivingly punished in the primitive world, but they may persist unnoticed for years in cafe society’.
It’s their cumulative misjudgements that the BBC is unable to confront- much like French or to a lesser extent British diplomacy.
Gavyn Davies, in his evidence to Hutton, described the BBC Board of Governors as the supreme authority. How elevated therefore is their leader – a supreme supremity?
Today’s Times has an article by fellow economist Anatole Kaletsky. He predicts that Hutton’s report will result in the resignation of minor players such as … Gavyn Davies.
Ouch & meow!
Tim Sebastian has produced a year end summary of his Hard Talk interviews.
He sees the most significant part of his interview with the PM of Singapore to be the PM’s ignorance of how many death sentences had been carried out.
Sebastian presses the PM – its an important matter, you should know.
The PM responds by saying that he has weightier matters to deal with.(Obviously the PM’s advisors never expected a foreign journalist to be most exercised about Singapore’s every day justice matters)
Sebastian & the BBC consider the death penalty to be barbaric. They expect their audience to feel the same. It escapes Sebastian’s notice that a UK referendum on the death penalty would perhaps see its re-introduction.
Kerry
I too find the World Service dreadful. Sloppy, amateurish, biased and mostly boring, these days.
There is still no real sign that the BBC recognises the degree of its bias, and the pervasiveness of its world-view across all channels. And the Today programme – the root cause of the Dr David Kelly furore – continues to have a warped choice of what subjects to focus on, who to interview (therefore who to exclude) and how to keep plugging their message by innuendo, sneer, querulous tone.
Roll on Hutton. At the very least, Greg Dyke should resign. No point just Gavyn Davies resigning as Chairman of the Governors. He is a lightwight. It is Dyke who carries the executive responsibiity, as D-G and therefore as editor-in-chief.
Gilligan is certainly toast. I expect Greg Dyke is out buying adult Pampers right now. I’ll vote for any politician that promises to abolish the licence fee.BBC news and current affairs is morally bankrupt; a nation state of dishonesty and elitism, unpoliced and unaccountable. They have torn up the charter, but we are still paying for their propaganda. Which of their presenters will be wearing black armbands after the Iraqis hang Saddam ?