The BBC’s latest entry from their journalists following the US elections tells us far more about the BBC than it does about the campaign. Gavin Hewitt’s (following Obama- did we scare off Justin Webb?) is a long and lyrical piece including lines like the following:
“What I can attest to, however, is enthusiasm. The kind of enthusiasm that keeps you standing in a queue at a polling station in Franklin county in Ohio today for five hours. The enthusiasm that persuades you to bring your children with you on a beautiful autumn day to the polling station, knowing they will be bored.”
Matt Price meanwhile, following McCain (guess who the senior journalist is between Price and Hewitt so who got the short BBC straw) offers a terse little piece. Its BBC headline was promising- “breaking stereotypes” – so I assumed something a bit different from the usual snide comments. In fact it sets up a video which is pure Obama commercial. It accuses those who are against Obama of racism. It says McCain simply favours the rich. The BBC journalist who is supposed to cover McCain puts forward the argument for Obama from the mouth an apparent middle-American he’s come across. He claims it is “what this election is all about”.
Two BBC journalists, apparently balanced missions. One, and only the One’s, side of the story.
Update: Price video here. “I have a lot of friends that… they’re ignorant, they’re not going to vote for him because he’s black”. Oh yes, breaking stereotypes with the McCain campaign indeed
mamapajamas
here’s obama’s birth certificate:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/12/11012/6168/320/534616
The worst “red herring” in the election has been the suggestion by Andrew Sullivan and at Daily Kos that Sarah Palin’s son Trig was not actually her son – that he was the child of her daughter.
A really filthy smear. Which has been sustained right till the bitter end by Andrew Sullivan. And a smear that Justin Webb and his skewed blog gave plenty of room for. People there are still trailing the smear.
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The adverse findings of the original Palin Troopergate investigation / rigged Star Chamber trial were given headline status by the BBC, and they kept harping on about it.
The latest findings in her favour by the Personnel Board, which say there was no offence and that the earlier investigation was wrong in law, have been covered very fitfully by the BBC. Probably given about 10% of the coverage / mantions that they gave to the earlier findings at least as far as the World Service and Radio 4 (the news channel) are concerned.
As the BBC is likely to be spending a huge amount of our money tonight on the results – but will be mostly clueless !, here is a useful guide to the hour-by-hour election results tonight – the first scenario is what might emerge if Obama is winning, the second is how things might look if McCain is winning :
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/11/3/optimistic-election-night-scenarios-for-barack-obama-and-john-mccain.html
And here is an article suggesting that Obama is toast – focussing (as I am) on Pennsylvania and Ohio, and the coal belt :
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/toast/
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re Troopergate – the BBC has FAILED to report that the Personnel Board has strongly criticised the earlier (partisan) investigation :
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/03/breaking-palin-exonerated-by-personnel-board/
And here is an article
The one campaign that the mainstream media showed was that in favor of the left-wing illuminati. Who knew there was another party running?