A climate of imbalance

Sometimes the BBC’s bias still has the power to shock. Perhaps because they just assume that this bias is ok; they know it and they think it’s ok. Reading this article about drought and farming dificulties in California, the story came down to an environmental clash over some fish. The BBC report:

It’s not just drought. The reservoir is fed from the the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, an threatened estuary that is home to a tiny fish called the delta smelt. Environmentalists say the smelt is essential to the food chain, and that a decline in smelt populations has led to falling numbers of bigger predator fish like salmon and bass. Late last year, the US government’s Fish and Wildlife Service argued that pumping water out of the delta harmed the smelt. A federal judge ruled water supplies to Central Valley farms should be reduced, in order to protect the fish. Farmers are challenging the water restrictions in court. They are a well-organised lobby with powerful support.

Notice how “environmentalists say”, federal government acts, and local farmers “are a well organised lobby with powerful support”. Yeah, Beeb, environmentalists aren’t a lobby, they are professionals right? Who just happen to have a massive international industry and lobby behind them. And obviously it’s the local farmers with the powerful support (sounds fishy to me) because that’s why they’ve just lost this years crop and are left challenging in court.

What a travesty. Oh, and I also intensely dislike the BBC’s attempt to generate a Steinbeckian scene out of this story by linking it to that of Latino migrants towards the end.

PS: somehow the indefatigable BBC journalist failed to mention the sterling work of totally impartial and unfishy environmental “organisation” Save the Bay, advised by nobodies like these and directed by disinterested public spirits like these. (including people from Wells Fargo and Cisco, two of California’s biggest companies and employers).