Category Archives: pro-Democrat

Shh! Don’t Mention The New Black Panthers

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(Update added)

Imagine if members of a racist anti-Semitic white supremacist group, one of them armed with a nightstick, had been filmed at a polling station intimidating voters on the day of the 2004 presidential election. Imagine that this led to charges, but those charges were suddenly dropped by Bush’s Justice Department even though it had already won a default judgement in the case. And then imagine that two officials claimed that this was due to institutional anti-black prejudice within the Justice Department. Do you suppose the BBC would have made quite a big deal about all of that? Catholic Pope, defecating bears, swimming fish etc – damn right, the BBC would’ve been all over it, making sure that the whole affair got maximum exposure. It would’ve filtered down from BBC news to round-table discussion programmes, topical comedy shows and phone-ins. Oh boy, would we have known about it.

And yet the BBC continues to ignore the New Black Panther story. It’s not part of the BBC’s desired narrative, a narrative driven by hatred of the American right. We’ve been banging on about the Panther story here since polling day 2008 (in the comments and on the blog) but every new revelation that has emerged in the States has been met with silence by the BBC.

A Biased BBC reader emailed me to say that back in June he suggested to the BBC’s Americana programme that they have on as a guest the first of the Justice Department whistleblowers, J Christian Adams. Americana replied that it was “possibly something we could get to before the midterms”. Now a second employee (this one a Clinton appointee with ACLU bona fides) has testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and still nothing from the Beeb. The simple fact is that BBC U.S. correspondents just don’t like reporting on this sort of thing. It goes against their instincts, doesn’t get their juices flowing like a negative story about Republicans. “Nothing to see. Nothing to see. Nothing to see. Look everybody – a witch! And Stephen Colbert!”

This story can only get bigger and I think that the BBC will finally have to report it – reluctantly and with much anguish. As with similar controversies, those who rely on the BBC for their news will be last to know (if they get to know at all) and will receive but a fraction of the full picture. But once again the BBC will have done its job as gatekeeper, restricting the impact of the story on public consciousness by limiting its time in the spotlight.

In the comments on the open thread David Preiser points out that even The Washington Post had the story on its front page today. I’m amused by this from the Post’s article:

“the dispute became a major issue in conservative circles. It has been slow to gain traction among the general public…”

I wonder why that might be, MSM? As David L. Riddick pointed out in July, The Washington Post claimed it had ignored the story due to “limited staffing“. What feeble excuse will the BBC try?

Update September 27. The original version incorrectly identified both Department of Justice officials as former employees. Christopher Coates, who testified last week, is still employed by Justice having been transferred from his previous job as voting chief at the department’s Civil Rights Division to his current position within the South Carolina attorney’s office. He has whistleblower protection for his testimony.

Here’s a segment on the story from The O’Reilly Factor (h/t John Anderson).

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Impartiality Gene?

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BBC editors were clearly concerned that their coverage of Christine O’Donnell’s youthful activities wasn’t getting the traffic they hoped, and so for much of yesterday and this morning this was the main news story on the BBC.co.uk front page (h/t Cassandra):


The carefully chosen “cackling” photo is a nice touch, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, yesterday evening this story appeared on the BBC’s website:

Eight people, including the mayor and ex-city manager, have been arrested after a probe into excessive local government pay in Bell, California.

There was outrage earlier this summer after it was revealed that the city manager was being paid almost $800,000 (£500,000).

The others arrested were former and current council members.

The investigation has looked into allegations of voter fraud, corruption, and misuse of public funds.

Nowhere in the article does it mention any party affiliation of the elected officials involved. No prizes for guessing why. (Read More…)

In July the Orange County Register apologised to its readers when it too had failed to identify the party ties of those in the scandal:

In the wake of the Bell salary scandal, our readers noticed one part of the story has been left out by virtually all media sources, including our related editorials and columns: the political party affiliations of the five city council members who not only failed to protect city coffers, but participated in what amounts to shameless, if apparently legal, self-dealing.

All five council members are members of the Democratic Party.

In its defence the Register claimed that Bell voters are represented only by Democrats “in every level of government” but conceded that wasn’t a good enough excuse for ignoring the fact. A local paper thinks it’s wrong not to mention that these were Democrats, but for some reason the BBC – with its worldwide audience unaware of the local political scene – thinks differently.

Would the Beeb have neglected to point out Republican Party membership in similar circumstances? Of course not – it would have been the main thrust of the story. But with Democrats involved we have to adopt Pravda-reading strategies to figure out the full picture.

And I haven’t seen anything about this on the BBC yet either:

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. directed a major political fund-raiser to offer former Gov. Rod Blagojevich millions of dollars in campaign cash in return for an appointment to the U.S. Senate, sources said the fund-raiser has told federal authorities.

Nothing to see here, move along, might deal with it after the midterms.

I think the BBC needs a bigger gene pool. Better yet, a disinfectant.

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THE KKK TOOK MR BYRD AWAY…

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Interesting obituary being carried by the BBC on the death of Democrat Senator Robert Byrd.

We learn he was 92…that he was the longest serving Senator in Congress….that he was  suffering from bad health. Oh – and nine paragraphs later that he was a senior member of the Klu Klux Klan …although this was a youthful indiscretion….could have happened to anyone…..

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Setting The Tone (pt 2)

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Further to an earlier post comparing the opening paragraphs of BBC articles about the Tea Party and Purple People movements, here are two more examples of tone-setting openers. Both come from recent pieces by the BBC’s Madeleine Morris, one on the Tea Party convention in Nashville last month and the other on the first meetings of the new Coffee Party movement at the weekend.

For the Tea Party it’s a Don LaFontaine horror movie trailer:

They came from as far away as Hawaii, Maine, and Texas – an overwhelmingly white, middle-aged army of angry conservatives, furious with government spending and influence, and ready to do whatever they can to stop it.

The Coffee Party, on the other hand, gets a welcoming, jaunty little local radio ad:

Looking for a little bit of civil political discussion with your decaf latte? Well the newly formed Coffee Party movement may be for you.

I note also from the two articles that the Coffee Party’s grassroots cred is taken at face value (“A grassroots US political grouping”) but that of the Tea Party is not (“The Tea Party movement describes itself as a grassroots movement of conservatives.”) Those conservatives, they like to call themselves grassroots but can we really trust their claims?

David Preiser has commented on this in the open thread and, as it now seems impossible to link directly to comments, I’m reproducing his post here (with one small quibble – I don’t think it’s entirely fair to say the Coffee Parties are “all white”, but they’re certainly no more diverse than the Tea Parties, so David’s point about BBC double standards still stands):

As everyone here knows, the BBC refused to report on the Tea Party movement as it grew and grew until the reality of tens of thousands of people gathering across the US on April 15 forced them to acknowledge it. Then, Kevin Connolly grossly misrepresented and cast aspersions on the participants, hinting at dark forces and racist overtones behind the movement. He also insulted the participants with a sexual innuendo used for them only by the Left. Nearly every time Mark Mardell has deigned to mention the Tea Partiers, he makes sure to paint the participants as being exclusively white and middle class, as if that’s an automatic disqualifier. It wasn’t until Katty Kay’s quite reasonable report in December that the BBC even bothered to really talk to the participants in depth. And even there the title of the piece and overall message is one of “boiling anger”.

Now, there has been a new opposition movement starting up calling themselves the Coffee Party. It’s hardly anything more than the Tea Party movement was in its first weeks, even before people really started calling them Tea Parties. Yet, the BBC not only reports it, but goes to meet them and get their thoughts.

Coffee Party brews up rival for Tea Party

The only similarity between this and the BBC’s reporting on the Tea Parties is the gross misrepresentation of the participants. They promote the lies of the Left here too, only this time they claim that the participants are a real grass roots movement. Which is a lie. This thing is being run by Democrat Party hacks. Annabel Park, whom the BBC presents as part of a “silent majority” campaigned for The Obamessiah, and her own website is owned by a campaign group for Democrat Senator Jim Webb.

They’re also all white and middle class. But the BBC strangely fails to offer any such description of the participants.

In contrast to any BBC report on Tea Parties, this one takes the claims of motivation by the participants at face value. No suggestion that they’re extremist or angry or potentially violent, as Mardell likes to do with the Tea Partiers. Instead, the Coffee Party astroturf is portrayed as being lovely and wanting nothing more than for government to help people and for politicians to join hands in peace and harmony everlasting.

Don’t trust the BBC On US issues.

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What if they were Republicans?

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From The Washington Examiner:

Democrats have suffered from a string of scandals reminiscent of the corruption that plagued the GOP before the party lost the majority in Congress four years ago…
Charlie Rangel… is under investigation by the House ethics committee for five separate matters…
Eric Massa…stands accused of sexually harassing a male staffer…
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating whether (Governor David) Paterson improperly interfered in a domestic abuse case involving one of his aides.

Of those stories, only Paterson’s has been covered briefly by the BBC and – surprise surprise – the article fails to mention which party he belongs to. Google News searches on Rangel and Massa reveal a total lack of interest, even after fresh revelations about the latter’s bizarre predatory sexual behaviour.

It is completely inconceivable that the BBC would have dealt with these stories in the same manner if Republican politicians had been involved. The word “Republican” would be blazing from headlines and highlighted in the opening sentences of numerous articles. The “Republican sleaze” narrative would be unstoppable.

But these are Democrat scandals, and Democrat scandals simply don’t get BBC journalistic juices flowing. Move along now, nothing to see here. Come back when a Republican does something wrong.

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