Every now and then, someone will sneer at me, demanding to know why I, a United Statesian, am so concerned about the BBC, a foreign broadcasting organization. I usually bang out a quick diatribe about various issues, but now there’s a very clear example of why I see the BBC as a problem for people in the US to be concerned about.
Last year, the BBC hired a young German immigrant, Franz Strasser, to produce various “bespoke” video magazine pieces about, mostly, racial issues in the US. First he did a dishonest series about immigration. The US division head also had several Beeboids produce a series of videos about – again, mostly racial – issues in the US in the year leading up to the 2012 election entitled, “Altered States”. One of the installments by Strasser found him making a dishonest race-baiting story about a “racial divide” in St. Louis, MO.
I discussed it at the time here. Please read the whole thing before returning to this post. In summary, my point was that Strasser and his editor deliberately left out the real key to the situation in St. Louis: absolute control of the city for decades by Democrats. Furthermore, nearly half the Aldermen (the equivalent of a city council, the real decision makers on city policy) are African-American. It was 13 out of 28 last year when Strasser did his initial race-baiting report, and there are 12 now. All but one of the 28 people who essentially run the daily business of the city of St. Louis are Democrats.
Why do I care? Because apparently Stasser’s story went viral, and got the attention of racial justice activists and politicians who knew a good angle when they saw it. Strasser’s report became a big hit, got lots of attention, and now there’s a renewed racial dialogue of some kind. What will this change? Not a damn thing. As I explained in my initial post, it’s the Democrat policies which have caused the situation. I submit that it’s simply not possible for a truly racially divided city where the rich white man is keeping the black man down to have 12 Aldermen. Additionally, I say that, if we’re to take the story seriously that white politicians in St. Louis have kept the black man down, this also puts the lie to Jonny Dymond’s and the BBC’s contention that the Republican Party is the racist one, because the city has been ruled by white (and black) Democrats for decades.
This new racial dialogue which will ignore the elephant donkey in the room will only worsen racial animosity in the city. It will increase the anger, the sense of victimization among the African-American community. One only has to listen to the locals in this latest video report to see the obvious. What’s most appalling is that the African-American community really has been victimized for decades: by the Democrat Party and the African-American leaders who have willingly contributed to the destruction of their own people’s futures.
Yet the BBC doesn’t care about that. They see only race, and refuse to admit that Democrat – Left wing – policies might be part of the problem. Now the city of St. Louis is going to be come more polarized, all thanks to the intrusion of a foreign broadcasting organization, one which is actually the official state broadcaster of the UK. And the BBC is clearly proud of what they accomplished here. After all, their report garnered lots of attention, and started a “dialogue” on the very issue they were pushing. Never mind that it’s dishonest and biased. The BBC will tell me that it’s no such thing, of course, and that they got it about right.
Imagine the outcry if Fox News set up shop in Britain and started sending reporters around to try to achieve change, to engage in a bit of social engineering, to highlight issues US natives who work for Fox News thought were important, and reported it all from a right-wing perspective. Yet defenders of the indefensible and worshipers of the BBC have no problem with the reverse situation. The BBC is spending more and more money, and doing more and more to increase their footprint in the US, in pursuit of both filthy profits in the form of advertizing revenue and – more importantly – as Jeremy Paxman put it, to “spread influence”. This is beyond their remit as laid out in the Charter, yet the BBC continues to grow and spread influence unchecked. Everybody’s worried about some silly management culture when the real problem is the attitude of the people making the broadcasts.
The BBC is now having a real effect on US politics. It is an invasive species, a malignant foreign body invading my country. Next time somebody tries to ridicule me for caring what a foreign media outlet gets up to, I’ll point them to this story and leave it at that.
Only just found the new site.
Not sure if this has been posted yet
Could you please put this on the open thread instead?
The real face of the BBC, lie after lie, after lie…
Just now watching BBC news and as a British licence payer I have to wonder why it is that I am supposed to care whether the Americans are allowed to have firearms or not?
BBC, tuck your trunk in.
It is an invasive species, a malignant foreign body invading my country
I feel the same, and I’m in the UK.
If they ran the way they were supposed to, it might have lead us to the cure. As it is, it’s the cancer.
Why is the BBC full of middle aged wannabee revolutionary’s?
Race baiting against your own kind.
These people are mentally ill.
Quite take the point about the United Kingdom’s state broadcaster prod nosing and interfering with American domestic politics.
Two things from the “not a lot of people know that” cupboard:
The British government interfered comprehensively in FDR’s last election via the BSC and manipulative involvement with the Wendell Wilkie campaign.
A considerable number of British regional newspapers are owned by USA Today owners Gannet Inc. who rival News International in reach if not public profile. There are questiona about Gannet’s institutional connections…..
Fox News is entirely welcome to do a piece highlighting social and racial divisions in the uK. And if it strikes a nerve as this rather good bbc report did then all the better for that. Sometimes outside perspectives are good.
You make a good case for why you care so much about the BBC. Although if this fairly innocent and non-partisan report is the best example you have then I don’t see that that its influence is particularly pervasive.
Not sure Fox News needs your welcome to do so.
Of course, if it was not to the BBC’s taste one imagines the BBC would devote quite a lot of resources to why not.
And many who might not feel the same way would have to uniquely fund that, just as they never had the Fox piece.
‘apparently Stasser’s story went viral’
£4Bpa media monopolies with a vast twitter army can do that.
Policy by propaganda. Seldom works well.
Jim’s opinion that Fox News would be welcome places him in an extreme minority. The evidence of so many people warning about the perils of scrapping the license fee leading automatically to a British Fox News cannot be ignored.
The problem is Jim is that the report isn’t non partisan.
As I commented on David’s original thread, the original report cited the Manhattan report as part of the his article.
In that report there were two tables, namely, long run segregation table and the most segregated cities. Now to me they sound like they do what they say on the tin, yet oddly enough, St Louis is on neither.
My comment at the time was that the real question was who are the people who keep telling you they’ve got your back if only you’ll keep voting for them, only to find nothing improves.
Back to what I see as David’s point is that the report seemed to have a “design” to it to paint a picture backed with academic evidence. Trouble was that academic evidence wasn’t really supporting the argument made. Now I can’t prove it, but that dissonance suggests that the author was hoping that people wouldn’t go and check. They just wanted to throw it in there and hope the fact that it was quoted would be enough.
A similar thing happened on R4 the other day in a piece on a car park in Preston. One of the interviewees was calling for this car park to be demolished. The interviewer claimed that a survey of Preston folk said the majority loved it. The interviewee asked her which survey was this.
She had to admit, she didn’t know which survey, just that there had apparently been one.
‘…The interviewer claimed that a survey of Preston folk said the majority loved it. The interviewee asked her which survey was this….’
The favourite BBC opening gambit : A Lot of People Are Saying.
To which the best counter is : How Many? This is known, at least in my house, as the Paddy Crerand Counter
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p012ctfh
Restoring Britain, I don’t believe that Strasser and his editor were hoping people wouldn’t check to see whether the evidence backed them up or not. I believe that they had no idea. I’m quite certain that they saw the situation in purely black and white terms. Literally and figuratively.
They don’t see how the decades-long rule of the Democrats could have been a problem, nor do they see that having 12 or 13 African-Americans out of 28 total Aldermen kind of undercuts the white supremacist theory. Sure, it’s not quite representative of the 51.2% of the population who list themselves in that category, but they apparently don’t agree that it’s hardly a sign of oppression. Their partisan and juvenile racialist bias prevents them from seeing what’s right in front of them. Judging from the reaction of the bien pensants and the activists in St. Louis, they’re not alone.
Non-partisan? Nonsense. How about “crypto-partisan”? I have to assume from your statement that you didn’t actually read much, or any, of my post about Strasser’s original piece. If one is going to do a piece highlighting social and racial divisions, one ought to at least make a gesture towards discussing the cause or causes instead of merely wringing one’s hands over the effects. To censor the political reality of the situation – both the iron-clad rule of Democrats and the healthy representation of blacks at the top – is a failure of journalism.
Granted, proper journalism has very little relation to what the BBC gets up to in the US these days….
Your last 2 paragraphs were very poignant. Thank you
light race relief :
http://gawker.com/5971346/the-django-moment-or-when-should-white-people-laugh-in-django-unchained