Britannia Radio

Biased BBC

Saturday, November 08, 2008 ed thomas # It's the double standards that get you. Obama's set-piece press conference debut contained three nice little nuggets- Obama referred to former First Lady Nancy Reagan as being into a "seances thing". He referred to himself as a "mulatto", and he said that people were more interested in his new dog than in his policies. All this was there, accompanied by the anxious looks from the assembled Obama team members, yet the BBC headlined their story "impressive debut" and excerpted for video the deliberate joke that Obama planted about the "serious news" of the family's planned dog. Have you noticed how quite a few of Obama's joke moments don't seem intentional? Just saying. If George Bush had said that his dogs were more interesting than his policies... But actually the double standards I had in mind wasn't a comparison with the coverage that has been habitually afforded to GWB's "gaffes". It was with the treatment of Sarah Palin whose brisk on the fly conference with the press in Alaska was reduced by the Beeb to comments about the "jerks" who were criticising her. You can get much more video here than the BBC offers. In fact the comments were contextualised in a fairly substantial response to a precise question about anonymous allegations against her. These were not criticsms but allegations which she refuted. The Beeb's treatment made her look intemperate and peremptory where actually she was thorough and open in her response. But by cut, cut, cutting away at that response, and tacking on another, the BBC shaped and ran with the story about Sarah hitting back at "'jerk' critics". Update: you might like to check out this audio interview with Palin giving her point of view most completely. Comments: 5 (unread) - Biased BBC Home David Vance # DARE TO DREAM? Here's a gem of Obamania from the BBC's Kevin Connolly. If you can bear to wade through it you will come across this classic lines.. "He is a complex figure, a child of a white mother and a black father who in his very essence draws together two of the longest threads in America's national tapestry and has used his own life story to persuade Americans that hope is audacious rather than foolish. " How about the BBC does us all a favour and insists that its journalists stop rapping for The One and start just reporting the facts? For example, Kevin finishes his ringing endorsement of Obama by declaring that he"has to protect the constitution". Regarding constitutional liberty, I wonder how Kevin will equate this with the fact that Obama has twice taken an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same." He does, as the Patriot Post points out, not honor that oath because he subscribes to the errant notion of a "Living Constitution" which, in his own words, "breaks free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution." Maybe Kevin could "date to dream" about being a journalist rather than a pathetic echo-chamber for The One? Comments: 28 (unread) - Biased BBC Home David Vance # CITIZENS OF THE WORLD UNITE! Did anyone else have the misfortune to tune into the rancid"Today" on BBC Radio 4 Obama this morning? God it was hard to take. Now that we are all black, the lead item was from race-hustler Trevor Philips suggesting that there is institutional racism throughout the British political system and that Obama could never have gotten himself elected here because of it. It's my view that the BBC has been a key propagandist for the left wing drivel that every part of the British establishment is "institutionally racist" and so it never misses a chance to further advance this illusion. I guess it also helps keep useless but well paid quangos like the Equality Commission in gainful employment. Later on Today ran an item on how "citizens of the world" were reacting to the election of The One and, as you might expect, the only reaction broadcast was one of sheer elation, of unrequited adoration. "He's like the guy you want to watch on Youtube" exclaims one excited German, in an example of the inanity broadcast without any critical counter-comment. Now I would expect little else from the socialist-loving appeasement-minded internationalist class but the BBC has a duty to provide balance and I was wondering if all Israeli citizens are jumping up and down with joy, for instance? They trotted on sir David Manning, former British ambassador to Washington and historian Alastair Horne, who then engaged in a further masturbatory O-Love in. Horne's voice washoarse from cheering for Obama, he declared! The item finished with the amazing suggestion by Horne being made that the US needs to be"friendlier to Russia"(Where Putin is wildly popular, Horne adds) and one way to do this would be for the US to unilaterally announce the removal of US Missile defence stations. Hey, we're going back to the 70's and The One isn't even President yet. Is Horne a communist? Talking of the going back in time, on a superficially innocent sounding item looking back at the 1980's "Dallas" TV show, the BBC managed to get the dig in that perhaps the success of this show had given Texas Oil-barons a better media image than they deserved and so this might have accidentally ..gasp ...helped George Bush. Liberal Larry Hagman was quick to dismiss the very thought of it. WHEN the Biased BBC book does come together, it needs to unite all these threads into a coherent narrative that exposes the dangers that the continued existence of the BBC presents to British democracy. It's a serious business folks, especially in a country where we have no Fox News and where "fair and balanced" have no meaning any longer. Here endeth the lesson, but good to be back with you all! Comments: 47 (unread) - Biased BBC Home Hugh #