Balanced Coverage

: BBC2’s programme on North Korea (screened last night) was an informative, distressing, at times chilling, study of some of what goes on in that wretched country.

Near the end, the programme turned to discussing the possibility that anything might be done about it. “In the other hermetically-sealed land”, was how the voice-over introduced a view of Washington, where, we were told, action would not be taken because, “North Korea has no oil”. Not all the brief analysis of why the U.S. appears less ready to invade North Korea than Iraq was down at this visceral anti-american level, but that these lines were spoken prompts some reflections.

The programme-makers doubtless had to imply some interest in North Korea’s version of events to be let in to film. (Honourably for them, I doubt they’ll be allowed back now this has been screened.) Were the above lines performing a similar function in BBC-land, a necessary genuflection to the BBC’s view of the U.S.? The speculation seems a more-than-fair riposte to the ‘other hermetically-sealed land’ quip.

Of course, had the BBC not already established a very solid anti-Bush record, they might never have been allowed in to film in the first place. The most enlightening (and disturbing) data came from escapees and defectors interviewed outside the country, but what we saw inside – the unanimity of remarks and the patent fear and desire to cut discussion short engendered by the slightest controversial question – also told its tale. So I leave it to the reader to determine whether the tendency of this post is to criticise BBC bias or to grant that it can sometimes serve the greater good.

Meanwhile, though the horrors the witnesses told of may not alter anyone’s view of the rights and wrongs either of BBC bias or of the many other things that we or the BBC complain about here in the west, they certainly put them in perspective.

Galloway Rallies the Troops

. Not, not the British troops, that would require an alternative universe, but BBC militants who are threatening to (heaven forbid!) resign from their posts over the Hutton Report and fallout. What interest he might have in protests supporting them I can’t imagine, but he might just want to maintain something of a media cushion against the multiplying pin-pricks of his own guilty verdict, so he was on hand for the ‘London Free Press’ with his rent-a-gob-for-free-no-oil-required-honest act to say:

“The report is exactly the whitewash and the establishment cover-up that we predicted, with a cherry on top”- which is Galloway-speak for ‘jolly good report- damn you’. Tim Blair presents this snippet as part of a useful item summarising affairs at the BBC.