This was the main headline on the BBC home page this morning. It was only when...
...I clicked through to the story on the news site that I discovered that the origin of the charge was Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate - and he would say that, wouldn't he. The fact that Harry Reid is a spectacularly ghastly old left-wing shit is neither here nor there, but the fact that the quote about "breaking the law" was from a leading Democratic Party politician certainly is. It would be like the BBC running the headline "Brexit means UK economy on 'brink of collapse'" as its main story and making readers click through to discover that the quote came from some deranged Remoaner like Nick Clegg. Or Mark Carney.
In case you imagine this is an isolated example, here are some more BBC headlines from the last few days:
Honestly, you could substitute "Liberal Media" for "Clinton" in all four headlines.
When it comes to its news coverage of domestic politics, the BBC (believe it or not) exercises some restraint - not a lot, but some. But, when it comes to covering US politics, inhibitions are cast aside, the rule book is torn up, and the gloves come off. This is unsurprising, as the organisation has a penchant for appointing its own left-wing Westminster political correspondents - e.g. Mark Mardell and Jon Sopel - to the North America editor job. Even when they've helicoptered in foreign correspondents to cover the Washington beat, they've ended up with lefties like Matt Frei (or "Arbeit", as one of his producers nicknamed him).
Appointing left-wingers to cover American politics is annoying when there's a Republican president, but the coverage becomes pretty unbearable when there's a Democrat in the White House. When, as he has been for the last eight years, that Democrat is a black cultural Marxist with a distinctly African-sounding name, the reportorial tone becomes so oleaginously adulatory you half expect the traditional BBC reporter sign-off to be replaced with the standard American "Stand by Your Ad" campaign endorsement line , "I am Barack Obama, and I approve this message". Okay, that's bad enough, but during presidential election campaigns, the Beeb tends to go full Guardian; they might as well stick a Republicans are Tories - Vote Democrat strap across the bottom of the screen and have done with it.
Meanwhile, it would be appreciated - by licence fee-payers of a conservative disposition who take an interest in US politics (admittedly, a tiny minority of the audience) - if the BBC could stop making it sound as if Hillary Clinton is the wronged party here. She really isn't. After the US elections, it would be appreciated if the BBC could sluice out the leftist Augean stable that is their US office. And - of course - they should cancel Newnight:
No comments:
Post a Comment