B-BBC US Election special:

Hannah Bayman, a BBC journalist, well known to longstanding BBBC readers, has her own blog at bayman.blogspot.com. Hannah’s posts are usually quite banal, but yesterday’s post, reproduced here in full, offers an interesting glimpse into the thoughts and objectivity of a doubtless up and coming BBC journalist: Only hours to go before the Land of the Free starts to vote and I already have butterflies in my stomach. My mother … Continue reading

I have just picked up a little of the BBC1 coverage of the US election.

Seems OK. As so often when the BBC is concentrating it is pretty good, it’s the off-the-cuff remarks that let it down. I haven’t seen enough to make any better assessment than that. More interesting by far than the TV was this real-time vote counting thingy that clocked up the votes as Bush took Florida. This similar doodad for Ohio says that Bush is likely to take that state, too … Continue reading

Noblesse fails to oblige.

Blithering Bunny points out some politically parochial comments by Peter Jay, former Economics Editor of the BBC. Can he really think that “…there are for all practical purposes no conservative ‘have-nots.’”? Or that “Conservatism is not and can never be a philosophy”? Given Jay’s eminence I would have thought better of him. The title of his review, which I stole for this post, would apply to its writer. I’m trying … Continue reading

Sunday evening’s BBC Ten O’Clock News had lengthy coverage of the US election,

starting with the usual preamble about Bush and Kerry being “neck and neck” and the election being “too close to call”. This may be true, but most of the polls I’ve seen have Bush leading consistently by a point or two or three. Whilst this is certainly within the margin of error, I can’t help thinking that were the position reversed the BBC would be reminding us at each Bulletin … Continue reading

BBC Bias part 391

is a most amusing BBC related post on Laban Tall’s blog just now – do read it. In passing, Laban also links to another excellent Guardian bashorama by Scott Burgess on his excellent Daily Ablution blog. Bashing the Guardian might be like shooting fish in a barrel – but Scott pulls off a seemingly endless variety of witty fish skewering trick shots time after time. Meanwhile, back at the ever … Continue reading


Dyke:
Trash your race and live

. Ok, he was describing the BBC as ‘hideously white’, which is intended to be unflattering to a corporation I hate seeing flattered, but somehow I think Gregory and I have different universes in mind when we criticise the BBC. (thanks to Max for the link) Try rolling round your mouth that commonly heard phrase, ‘hideously black’, or ‘hideously brown’, and you’ll get an idea of the kind of man … Continue reading

Sambrook: Be more like us!

Trash your country and live. Now I get it…the BBC is only trying to survive. NEW YORK — BBC World Service and Global News director Richard Sambrook on Tuesday took the U.S. news nets to task on their own turf for “wrapping themselves in the flag” and not asking the tough questions about the Bush administration’s reasons for going to war in Iraq. Sambrook, speaking at Columbia U.’s Graduate School … Continue reading

World class “documentarian” Michael Moore

will provide election commentary for BBC World with a special Question Time. What a shock. (via OpinionJournal) UPDATE: The panel will have (from left to right by my reckoning) Michael Moore, Sidney Blumenthal, Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, David Frum, Richard Littlejohn. As an ACLU official in one of the most disputed pieces of elctoral real estate in Florida, Rodriguez-Taseff can probably be trusted to keep to the ‘Bush-stole-the-election’ script. UPDATE post-Question Time: … Continue reading

Now we can’t even call them insurgents.

The EU Serf writes: As an overseas Brit, I watch BBC World from time to time. On Sunday I was watching the programme Dateline London, which invites journalists, usually foreigners, to give their views on events in the news. The line up for Sunday was as follows Lauren Booth, Mail on Sunday Patrick Tyler, New York Times Jean Pierre Langellier, Le Monde Tererai Karimakwenda, SW Radio Africa With the exception … Continue reading