Now I am going to put it to good, if belated use: a few days ago Dave Holroyd wrote:
BBC America’s 6.00 PM EST (their only evening news report) news coverage of Gavyn Davies resignation was a peach! First selections from Hutton’s summary (3 minutes), then Campbell’s press conference (2 minutes), then the resignation speech (4 minutes) and finally a six minute segment about international reaction to the Hutton reports findings. The BBC America news anchor interviewed two people live: Andrew Wilkie, an ex member of the Australian intelligence service who resigned in protest over the Iraq war and Guillaume Parmentier, head of the French Center on the US, at the French Institute for International Relations. Wilkie predictably presented the case that no WMD meant Hutton was wrong, and Parmentier gave the French government party line. Balanced reporting from the BBC as ever. The show’s produced in the US, Parmentier was in Washington – but no American reaction!
The previous evening, the BBC America 6.00 PM ‘News’ included a 4 minute live interview with a no name professor of history at the American University (based in Washington DC, a third rate liberal arts college). The anchor asked if the lack of WMD’s was a scandal in the US. Answer: not yet, but there might be a scandal if various people (republican congressmen, independents etc.) decided that it was a scandal. The message: it should be a scandal in the US, but wasn’t, so by reporting that it should be, the BBC hoped it might be. Wishful reporting at best. But is it news?
Natalie: I posted this as a comment on one of the posts at Biased BBC. I think you guys need to cover what the Corporation’s up to here in the US. BBC America’s a cable/satellite channel with one 30 minute evening news program.
Please note the last paragraph. So far as I can see the BBC in the US serves as a “legitimator” of the liberal consensus of the American media; an ostensibly impartial outside witness who appears to provide independent support for their view of the world. I don’t think that vast numbers watch it but it is influential.
OT: Khamenei orders end to poll moans
Moans?! In BBCland moans=protest against the suppression of democratic elections.
Caveat: beware the stealth edit, but ‘moans’ has been in the header since Saturday, 7 February, 2004, 22:10 GMT
You know, I agree with practically everything Holroyd said, so why did he have to gratuitously insult American, my undergrad alma mater, as “a third rate liberal arts college”? That level of condescension undermines the very case he’s rightly attempting to make.
They really aren’t much of a legitimator. Virtually no mention of the BBC is made in the US domestic media, apart from our own *spit* NPR (national public radio) and *spit* PBS (“public” television). They rebroadcast news items a-go-go.
NPR and PBS are a formerly government funded (presently non-profit) media outlet which began as educational television but became a middle-mind outlet for the left. Most state universities (in frustration, i guess) have stepped in with broadcasting the educational material with the exception of Sesame Street and so forth.
Other than that BBC America is only watched by an elite for political enboldenment, and by fans of Red Dwarf and such.
BBC world service is carried by both satellite radio systems (XM and Sirius) and although I’m an avid listener, I wonder how many others do as well.
I suppose that at least in radio there is a kind of desparation on the left, in that radio news has been concidered a second rate venue which the right rejuvinated and capitalized on. This might make the beeb a safe harbor for the left here, i suppose.
But XM and Sirius owners are more interested in commercial free music, or are long-haul truckers trying to hear some news. (And I doubt the truckers are warm to british accents in any event.)
I hate those BBC America commercials showing Tony urging us all to come visit our “closest ally.”
Tony, quit financing the BBC’s anti-American spew out of UK government funds and maybe we will.