– A month ago I asked What’s the difference between an interview and a sketch?, highlighting a lavish News Online puff-piece for George Galloway (“Sir, I salute your courage, your indefatiguability” etc. etc.). A few days later I noted here on BBBC that the continued highlighting of the Galloway ‘feature’ on News Online was well past due for a change.
And, by sheer coincidence, even though the Galloway puff-piece had been featured on News Online’s Politics page for the best part of three weeks, within half-an-hour of my post, it was gone, as if by magic!
Well, fellow BBBC aficionadoes, it has happened again – another piece of leftie-propaganda masquerading as news has become stuck on a News Online index page for longer than is seemly.
The ‘stuck’ article is the specious World ‘wants Kerry as president’, last updated 09SEP04, (allegedly!), featured on the News Online > World > Americas page, where there is a Vote USA 2004 headline summary, which then links to the main Vote USA 2004 page. This ‘stuck’ article has been featured in the Vote USA 2004 headline summary on the Americas page for more than a fortnight – it’s so old now that it no longer even appears on the main Vote USA 2004 page (where it also enjoyed an extended appearance).
Why is it, given that there’s only room for six headlines in the Vote USA 2004 headline summary (and two of those are Key election battlegrounds and Issues-at-a-glance) that the ‘stuck’ article has remained there all this time? Why, especially when there has been so much else going on in the US election campaign (Rathergate anyone?) over the last fortnight? Why does the ‘stuck’ story have so much appeal to the compilers of News Online that it remains on prolonged display?
As last time with the Galloway article, in the interests of thoroughness, I’ve looked at the timestamps on all of the other articles linked to from the Americas page. At lunchtime today (exactly fourteen days since the Kerry article was last updated) there were thirty-two linked articles. Of those, eight were dated 23SEP04, seventeen were dated 22SEP04, four were dated 21SEP04. There were three other articles, dated 13SEP04, 15SEP04 and 18SEP04, respectively, plus the World ‘wants Kerry as president’ article, dated 09SEP04 – much the oldest, as you can see.
Of the other three ‘long lived’ articles, all of them are arguably negative towards Bush’s America – being about, respectively, opposition to the Patriot Act, Religion & Politics in America and the Democrats unwillingness to face Ralph Nader at the polls in Florida (the only one of these veteran articles that still appears on the main Vote USA 2004 page).
This is one of those cases of BBC News Online bias where it’s not necessarily what they’re saying that’s biased – the bias here is the lengthy and favoured prominence given to articles that are in tune with the political views and aspirations of the News Online staff – those who decide what is news and what is in the archive. It’s not big, and it’s not clever, although it is harder to spot and thus easier for them to get away with.
More importantly, since when has stating the bleeding obvious been news in the first place.
What next – ‘poll finds Pope is Catholic’??
I’d ask the al-BBC what the point of it is in the first place. Its a vacuous, pointless exercise. I’m wondering what’s going on here. In the last few months 3 left-wing friends have on seperate occasions told me they believe that because the US President is such a powerful figure, whose actions impact on so many around the world, everyone in the world should have a vote.
The first time I heard it I developed a hernia laughing, by the third occasion alarm bells were ringing. Are the lefty blogs advocating this form of ‘globalisation’ and are they influencing not only the slant of the al-BBC news this kind of bigger agenda?
Carry on, I’m just going to lie down now …
What, so we *don’t* live in a unipolar world with a paralysed, ineffective UN where the US President is the only agent capable of imposing any kind of agenda on the world? I’ll let the neocons know, although I’m sure they’ll be disappointed.
OT: if they try this piece of German TV licensing insanity in the UK, I’ll join you all on the barricades.
Do please read Gerard Baker’s article in The Times today which is exactly on this theme – how all other countries would elect Kerry and not Bush. Could it be that this is because other countries have not experienced 9/11 ?
Nope, this is partly because Bush’s policies have had a pretty negative impact on the world beyond the US (Kyoto, ICC, trade tarriffs, anti-UN etc etc), partly because the principles which make him popular to so many Americans (religious, ‘folksy’, straight talking) are downright annoying to the rest of us and partly because few are yet convinced that the ‘war on terror’ isn’t causing more problems than it solves.
Most people have no idea of what benefits/failures his domestic policy has achieved which is the main point of his job. Most people also have no idea of what Kerry stands for, so he wins by not being Bush.
Personally I’m quite scared of both of them. Is it too late for the other bloke (whose name I forget) to stage a late run?
Rich, let me try to understand, “straight-talking” annoys other nations? Hmmm…I guess that’s just too damn bad.
Donna – you could use a few pounds, and you’re not the brightest tool in the box. What? I was just straight-talking…
Does that help you maybe see why we don’t always like Mr Bush’s straight-talking style?
Bush represents the American people and no-one else. His obligation is to do his best for them and no-one else.
Clinton did not ratify Kyoto, Putin has not, many countries have not. It is a pernicious piece of third world socialism designed to bring down the US economy and therefore is bad for the rest of the world. It should be torn up.
Ditto for the UN. It is an out-dated talking shop for two bob third world dictators to stut and preen and wag their fingers at greater, more successful countries. Bush should tell them to leave his generous country and produce hot air somewhere else.
Doesn’t it occur to anyone that many other countries are burdened by large, statist, socialist news networks pumping out the same left-wing crap as the BBC? If the news networks concentrated on simple facts and nothing else those poll numbers would change in time.
Kerry wins by not being Bush? Have a lok at the polls. Kerry’s campaign is in freefall (rather like him on a snowboard methinks).
Typical Lefty worldview. Can’t create a powerful, successful society on your own — so try to co-opt someone else’s success! What a bunch of leeches.
F**k that, you wanna vote in the US elections? — apply for US statehood and pay US taxes!
Many of which taxes, one might add, have historically gone to pay for the defense of the same Western Europeans who now demonise Bush (and, truth be told, the US itself).
Don’t I know it Greg. But you’ll never get an acknowledgement of that from certain people in THIS crowd (such as john b.)
john b says: “Donna – you could use a few pounds, and you’re not the brightest tool in the box. What? I was just straight-talking…”
Well, john, I appreciate the advice and I think you meant to say “SHARPEST” tool in box not “brightest”. I think my weight is about right (unless by “pounds” you meant money then Hell Yeah! I could use some). As far as not being the sharpest tool in the box, you are correct. No doubt you ARE the sharpest tool.
john b adds: “Does that help you maybe see why we don’t always like Mr Bush’s straight-talking style?”
john, ummmmmmm nope! 😉
And the examples of videos on the site are: Watch speeches from the Democrat convention and watch ads from the campaigns (which has a Kerry ad as the lead and picture…)
Nope no bias there at all. Nothing to see here folks, move along /end scarasm
Our sweepstake in the American History class here at uni is very popular but no-one seems to want the Kerry win options. …….perhaps it is because we are looking at other resources not just the Beebies!
john b,
Sorry but I think you may be too late:
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_world/communications/television_licences.htm#who
My point was that there are plenty of arguably legitimate reasons why non Americans don’t like Bush other than the fact that ‘we haven’t experienced 9/11’ and that we’re all brainwashed by our Communist media.
As Pete says Bush has no obligation whatsoever to consider the views and wellbeing of anyone other than his electorate. I think all of the countries in the survey were democracies. If people feel that Bush is more important than other concerns they should cast their own domestic vote for somebody pledged to oppose the more unpleasant US policies.
btw by ‘straight talking’ I meant the excessive simplicity of some of his rhetoric rather than his admirable refusal to waffle and bullsh*t. ‘It’s good against evil’, ‘you’re for us or against us’. Some of us appreciate something a bit more sophisticated and can understand words with more than one syllable. Or maybe that’s just me.
I saw the “World Election – we hate Bush’ thing.
It is an ONLINE poll, and no, most of the countries are NOT democracies, and most of the countries had less than 50 voters.
http://www.betavote.com/
Not really worth 2 weeks puffing on the al BBC.
Pathetic.
I think that’s a different poll but it certainly raises a few questions. Does the fact that the US sample is pro Kerry even though Bush is going to win suggest that the methodology is biased or that Republicans don’t have computers? How comes pretty much the entire population of Slovenia has voted – have they got nothing better to do? Why don’t people in Monaco like Bush – surely tax cuts for the rich are right up their street? Why are people in the Faroe Islands Bush’s biggest fans? Is there really a country called Svalbard and Jan Mayen?
🙂
And did you see Afghanistan and Iraq?
And check out Congo :-))
“It is an ONLINE poll, and no, most of the countries are NOT democracies, and most of the countries had less than 50 voters.” It’s worth pointing out though that most opinion polls work on smaller samples than those submitted for Iceland or Brazil. I’m not sure about most countries not being democracies either, but that would mean counting them.
Two additional questions: How is Bush “straight talking”? (“Rarely is question asked: Is our children learning?” (http://www.cafepress.com/thewhitehouse/32470).
How do we know how many “pounds” Donna is carrying? 😉
As she’s American the laws of probability suggest she’s carrying a lot.
Another charming ‘Anonymous’ bigot.
The Democrats are supposed to be the working man’s party, but what they have become is the party of the Feminists, the Race Baiters, and the Elitists.
This is why Gore lost so many rural states in 2000 (West Virginia is 2-1 Democrat, for the Dems to have lost there is shocking ineptitude). Northern elitists don’t want “southerners” and “hillbilly’s” to have any say in anything.
If Anonymous is from any developed Western country, the laws of probability also suggest that he/she is carrying a lot more than he/she used to.
No nation in earth elects it’s leader for the pleasure of European leftist far away. They do, after all have a habit of bringing misery and confusion, of deconditioning common sense out of people.
Slightly OT
I dont mind if Donna is carrying a few extra pounds (Hi Donna!). I’d take Anna Nicole Smith over Kate Moss any day
re: World ‘wants Kerry as president’ article, dated 09SEP04 from the Beeb website.
1.)I think what you’re missing here is what the issue is. It isn’t that the “World wants Kerry as President” it’s “What the World thinks”. World opinion is an extremely important story vis a vis the election of the “World’s most powerful man”, and thus merits being prominently displayed on the website for such a long time. Unfortunately for Bush-fans it just so happens that the majority of the world’s voting public want Dubya out in November.
2.)Kerry is running against incumbency, and in the interests of neutrality it is only natural that a Presidential challenger is put in the spotlight a little more by the media, otherwise come election time Americans will vote for the guy whose name they’ve known for four years already rather than anyone else!
(continued from above…)
3.) Any articles which Andrew believes are “arguably negative towards Bush’s America” are not necessarily unbiased but may well be telling the truth!
Stop trying to paint a neo-con fascist picture of the today’s scary world, and try to imagine for just one minute a world without the bbc, which has no commercial imperatives to provide biased reporting. The same cannot be said for Fox News and many other media outlets of the Murdoch big business-orientated empire.
Anonymous
1) It is an online poll, not in any way scientific. Your so-called “world opinion” is irrelevant to the US election – unless the world wants to pay taxes to the USA.
2)”in the interests of neutrality it is only natural that a Presidential challenger is put in the spotlight a little more by the media, otherwise come election time Americans will vote for the guy whose name they’ve known for four years already rather than anyone else”
For your information, everybody knows who Kerry is, and therefore your point is nonsense – in the literal sense.
3) A ‘news’ station avoids bias by providing balance. I have not seen much balance on the BBC recently.
“imagine for just one minute a world without the bbc”
I can’t wait. Your choice of words brings Lennon to mind, “Imagine all the people, who won’t pay BBC tax.”
BTW, using phrases such as, “neo-con fascist,” and “Murdoch big business-orientated empire,” do not help your argument, as they simply underline that you have fallen victim to “Michael Moore’s disease.”
Fox was set up to counter media bias by providing the other side of the argument. Viewers are flocking to their programmes – they have higher ratings than the networks.
Also, are you saying that the BBC does not have a commercial imperative? Then why are they in competition with ITV? Why is the BBC so ratings driven?
I sorry, but I think your arguments are ‘Rather’ stupid.
Go balloons.
Ah, another fearless ‘Anonymous’ commenter! I’m sure it’s nothing but a coincidence that immediately prior to your post that this site’s logs show connections at 12:56:43pm and 01:04:34pm from Energis – whose major customers include the BBC, Boots, Centrica, Tesco, UK Gov. etc. I wonder which one you are!
Anyway, 1) an article from the 09SEP04 is not news over two weeks later – and by this time it’s certainly not a US election headline. Even if it should still be on News Online, it should be on the Vote USA page, not in a summary of headlines on the Americas page.
2) Not sure what point you’re trying to make here, but I’m quite sure that Americans and their news networks are more than capable of making sure that they all know who is standing in their election, BBC or not! It’s certainly not the role of the BBC to boost one candidate more than another as you suggest!
cont/.
3) Quite so, that’s why I say arguably. I’ll leave others to be the judge of me, my motivation and my articles. I’m quite sure that most readers of this blog are intelligent enough to weigh the evidence presented here for themselves – which is more than they can do for ‘Anonymous’ you.
Do spare me your pathetic ‘neo-con fascist’ jibes. I don’t want a world without the BBC. I do want a BBC that is honest, representative and accountable to the viewers. At the moment it isn’t – there are elements within the BBC who see it as ‘their’ tool with which to mould Britain in the image that they desire. The problem with the BBC is that it has no imperatives to do anything other than serve its own commercial and political interests.
JohnP: no, the UK rules say you need a license if your computer has a TV tuner in it, which isn’t the case for most people or (+/-) any businesses.
The proposed German rules say you need a TV license if you have a computer, because you might use it to watch TV over the Internet.
Susan/Greg: I’m extremely grateful for the military and financial sacrifices that the US made in WWI and especially WWII; we in Britain owe our freedom as much to American war vets and to FDR as to our own veterans and to Churchill. Nonetheless, I’m not convinced that running over what happened 60 years ago is a particularly productive line of debate.
Not that I want to get too far off-topic john b, but we also shouldn’t forget the decades after WW2 when it was the commitment of US forces that stopped the USSR from bringing the benefits of communism to western Europe – not necessarily an altruistic sacrifice, but much needed and much appreciated nonetheless.
Whilst I second the above I fail to see why criticising specific policies of the Bush administration shows a lack of appreciation for US sacrifices and finance in Europe. The government and the country are entirely separable.
john b, Rich:
Greg and I were talking about the 60 years after WWII.(Somehow you Euros never seem to remember that one.) Europe reaped the benefits of our blood, sweat and $$$ for decades, then turns around and bites the hand that fed, convinced somehow that “multilateral dialog” and “the EU project” is what kept the Soviet tanks out of Western Europe all those years and helped defang the German monster.
Puts lots of Yanks’ noses out of joint these days. Easy to moan on and on about warmongering cowboys when you don’t have to pull your own weight in the world and haven’t for decades.
We don’t deserve what the BBC and its like-minded media dish out 24/7 – and it’s NOT just aimed at Bush.
Susan
That’s a ridiculous argument. Post WWII Western Europe was shattered, not having had the benefit of the Atlantic ocean between itself and Hitler. The US had a vested interest in providing the finance and military support required to keep Communism at bay, given that a Communist united Europe would have been an extreme threat.
The post war financing certainly benefitted Europe but it was a business arrangement, not pure benevolence. The US benefitted from a vast market for it’s goods and still benefits from assuming an unchallenged place at the centre of the world’s financial system – do you think George could happily run his vast deficits if that wasn’t the case?
Bloody Americans,
All the blood, sweat and £££ it took from the Europeans to civilise the country and 400 years later they’re slagging us off. We should have left the place to those harmless chaps in their wigwams.
Given that our moaning has precisely zero effect on the basis that the ‘sacrifice’ of all that military spending has given you the ‘right’ not to participate in international institutions, why don’t you just ignore it? If this is global dominance from our friendly, Christian, democratic previously European US cousins what the hell is the Chinese version going to be like in 50 years?
Well, Rich, if you are arguing that Europe did not benefit from the last 60 years of US hand-outs, I guess we should have left you to the Soviets then. In fact I’m rather missing the Soviets at the moment — Western Europe circa 2004 is making them look kind of — well, not that bad.
RobbieKeane:
Yup, let’s see how the BBC–Independent-Guardian mindset likes living under the Pax Sinoiana in 50 years. Actually they’ll probably like it — they seem to like dictators, totalitarians and fascists quite a lot — as long as they are anti-American.
Memo to Greg: Did I not call it? A chorus of Euros weighing in about how their current enviable position as part of the wealthy, prosperous Free World has nothing to do with the past 60 years of US patronage. So predictable!
Actually, I don’t mean to be rude about Britain. Britain does pull its own weight, more than any other European country (except the Guardian-reading classes of course.) Britain may have been okay post-war even without us. But the rest of Western Europe. . .
The reform of BBC News Online is long overdue. Its Left-wing bias renders it virtually useless if, for example, you are actually trying to follow the progress of the American presidential campaign.
Susan,
You called it, though frankly you could’ve done a better job of anticipating the obligatory “you-did-it-out-of-self-interest-not-out-of-the-goodness-of-your-heart” rejoinder. Shape up, will you.
Susan,
Once again I’ll stress that I fully appreciate that the US helped Europe post WWII when it certainly had the option of sitting back and seeing what would develop. Would the US be in the position it is now if it had taken that option – doubtful. Europe almost certainly not.
Also a basic economics lesson – financing does not equal handouts. The US put up a lot of capital to fund the reconstruction of Europe but the social welfare programmes which you so despise (bizarrely as they are surely none of your business?) have been funded by the fiendish concept of higher taxes.
Thank you for conceding that ‘Britain may have been okay post war even without us’ but I suspect that your sentiments come from our government’s willingness to agree with George rather than a rigorous economic analysis.
I appreciate that you were probably being flippant in comparing the Soviets with Western Europe but again that is ridiculous. What exactly has Western Europe actually done other than oppose Bush’s policy in Iraq on the basis that Saddam did not present a credible threat (not a particularly controversial opinion given subsequent developments)? Sure the French are economically dodgy – what’s new? The US clearly also has it’s own strategic interests at heart not all of which are in the field of advancing ‘freedom’.
Finally, the wealthy, prosperous free world was driven by European ideals, European inventions and European political systems. I fail to see quite where US ‘ownership’ of these values has sprung from. If Europe has lower growth as we rest on our laurels and enjoy our extremely civilised quality of life then so be it – you guys feel free to work yourselves to death in the cause of ‘success’. Pass the claret.
What exactly has Western Europe done other than oppose the removal of Saddam “on the basis that he did not present a credible threat”? How about oppose it because he was a good customer or owed a lot of money (France, Germany, Russia)? Because it was electorally expedient to bash Bush and the US (Schroeder)? Because a disconcerting percentage of Western Europeans are now soft-headed pacifists who don’t think ANYTHING — with the possible exception of the right NOT to work — is worth fighting for? Because a correspondingly large percentage on the anti-American Left will oppose any US initiative?
Before the war, the European intelligence agencies themselves believed that Saddam had or was working on WMDs. Were Europeans on the street opposed to the war because they had better sources? I don’t think so.
To answer your question, meanwhile, US “ownership” of the values you speak of springs from the fact that, for the last century at least, the US has done more to promote freedom AND prosperity than every other country in the world combined. Indeed, one can rightly ask, what has EUROPE done to promote and defend the freedom of peoples around the world? Very little that I can see, apart from some very good 18th-century British and French political philosophy that was implemented most successfully by Europeans who settled elsewhere.
It’s true that your quality of life is “extremely civilised” — though far less so than in the golden days of the ’60s-’80s, and not at all if you’re among the legion of unemployed or the Muslim underclass that is exploding as the rest of you stop having children.
And that claret you’re enjoying? You can get a better one in the Napa Valley.
Soft headed pacifism? Or a more realistic view of the world as shades of grey rather than ‘good against evil’? To be honest I think that the best course of action lies somewhere in the mid Atlantic between a US approach which fails to consider the possibility that the locals might not actually be eternally grateful and an ‘old Europe’ approach which basically consists of talking lots and doing f*ck all.
Ranting aside, I fully appreciate that the US has been the most important driving force for the global economy over the last century and that Europeans have largely advanced their own quality of life without much in the way of benevolent action.
Having said that I’ve never understood why Americans feel the need to so aggressively thrust their system at others who are perfectly happy and successful. European’s raw economic figures look less impressive not because we have failed to heed the lessons but because we appreciate that quality of life derives from more that GNP per head and growth rates.