– 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.
Hence the fact that Europe’s unemployed are usually better off than America’s own McJobbing underclass. Similarly growth rates might have slumped a bit in the last decade but that’s largely because we’ve been concerned with ensuring that the employed get treated as civilised human beings rather than flogging ourselves to death.
Finally, a claret is a red from Bordeuax. Careful on your loose definitions – you don’t want to perpetuate the stereotype of the unsophisticated American. The Napa Valley has some decent wines which certainly spank the French in the same price range. Like everything though, if you want to treat yourself to some real quality you have to return to old Europe and pay the price for it.
What snobbish nonsense Rich – I bet you can pee higher in your version of ‘old Europe’ too!
Britons are quite keen on flogging themselves to death given the ‘presenteeism’ culture here (but this is not a plea for more regulation or restrictions on individual freedoms to work!).
The guy has claimed that Californian plonk is superior to Bordeaux and I’m the one talking snobbish nonsense?
After 15 pints at the very old European Oktoberfest I reckon I’ll be able to pee higher than anyone. If I can still stand.
You’re both trying to to pee higher than each other – the problem is, it’s not edifying for either of you and it’s troubling for those in the audience concerned about the correlation between increasing pee height and increasing splash radius 🙂
So your unemployed get treated as “civilised human beings” while ours don’t, is that it? Well, I’ve SEEN your unemployed, and while ours typically go without a job for a few months at most (during which time they receive benefits), yours often go DECADES and become, in effect, permanent wards of the nanny state. During those long years, they get their dole checks for doing nothing, leading completely dependent, unproductive lives that, not uncommonly, drain them — slowly and sytematically — of all sense of accomplishment, ambition, and self-worth.
If that’s what you mean by “civilised,” we’ll take uncivilized growth, low unemployment (McJobs or not, at least the people behind the counters at McDonald’s have a purpose to their day and earn their paycheck), and — most importantly — social mobility. When an American falls below the poverty line, he stays there, on average, for six months. When a European is down, too often he stays there.
California plonk? LOL. The dirty little secret of the French wine industry is that even their best wines are overrated, overpriced and, increasingly, no longer over here. There’s a reason Americans buy, and American restaurants sell, much less high-end French wine than they used to: the high-end California wines are better.
That truly is an outrageous statement but in the interest of everyone else’s dry cleaning bill I’ll find another argument.
Rich: Most wines for sale in the UK are very low end brands like Sutter Home or Turning Leaf, etc. Those are not good wines and are not considered as such in the US. (I don’t know why Brits even buy them.) California for some reason does not export its best wines to Europe. But don’t look now — the Ozzies are making fine wines and putting France to shame too. Americans buy not only California wines but Ozzie wines in huge quantities too.
Regarding Western Europe, it’s been a dead weight on the US for a long time, and I can’t wait to get shet of you guys (to use a primitive down-home Americanism.) The intellectual snobbery, the arrogance, the insane, lefist hatred of us that European “intellectuals” (sneer quotes FULLY intended) export all over the world while W. Europe (as you even admit) piggybacks on everything we do economically, militarily and technologically — pfft!
Rich: “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.”
We don’t feel the need “thrust our system aggressively at others,” especially not Europe. What we DON’t like is the constant bragging, bragging, and endless BRAGGING again and again about how “civilized” Europe is compared to our system, without acknowledging that all the fancy welfare programs etc. would not be possible without American military subsidies for the past 60 years. Europe’s a lot like the bratty cousin who lives in the high-rise luxury apartment built by her hard-working cousin rent-free, then comes over and snidely points out that the hard-working cousin (who pays his own way) doesn’t have the latest Armani fashions in his closet. To top it off, the snotty free-loading cousin doesn’t even realize how offensive her attitude is!