Miaow! But that little slice of "best eaten cold" payback obviously predated yesterday's exclusion of various outlets from a WH press briefing, which represents a severe escalation of hostilities. Bret Baier, one of Fox News's heavy guns, was quick to denounce the move - after all, it sets a horrible precedent for, say, Michelle Obama to follow were she to become president (God forbid!) - and there can't many proper journalists (as opposed to commentators without a journalistic background) who think it's a good idea. But, then, the left-wing newspapers and broadcasting organisations who were cold-shouldered by the White House aren't being prevented from continuing to print or broadcast liberal propaganda masquerading as news: this isn't censorship.
As it is, I don't condone what happened yesterday - but I don't think it's that unreasonable. Reporting a democratically-elected government's mistakes and revealing embarrassing, pertinent facts about members of that government which you've managed to uncover is not only legitimate - it's part of what a free press should be doing. But by setting yourself up as the unofficial and unelected opposition to a government, by using all the slimy, underhand tricks that opposition parties routinely employ( i.e. deliberately misrepresenting and ferociously attacking every single thing the government announces or does; relentlessly and malignly smearing every senior member of that government; and indulging in wild fantasies about, for instance, the President being assassinated, as CNN recently did - just because the party you favour is in disarray - well, that means you've forsaken journalism for political activism.
After America's humongously self-important liberal journalist/activists recover from their current mass conniption fit, maybe - just maybe - some of them will look at themselves in the mirror and wonder if they might have at least partly brought this horror on themselves by allowing their political convictions to interfere with their journalistic principles. Mind you, it's more likely they'll just keep on screaming "Fascist!" and "Hitler!" and pretending that "probity" is their middle name, and refusing to countenance the possibility that by calling every other Republican politician in recent memory a lying, power-crazed Nazi, by refusing to do their damned job by also holding Democrat politicians to account, by only speaking truth to power when the "wrong side" holds power, and by treating the concerns of flyover America with unconcealed contempt, they might actually have paved the way for someone like Donald Trump to win the presidency.
I have no idea why the Daily Mail was excluded from the briefing - but I know exactly why the BBC was. For many years now, much of my old employer's reporting on domestic politics has struck me as so blatantly partisan, so blithely dismissive of the views of at least 40% of its license fee-payers (and, on issues like immigration, the welfare system, law and order, political correctness and multiculturalism, well over half), that I now tend to avoid the corporation's news output. But of all the topics on which I find myself on the opposite side of the fence from the BBC, American politics is the one which has found me shouting at the screen and switching over more than any other (unless it's Mark Easton on Home Affairs - I've yet to last through to the end of any of this man's poisonous little party political broadcasts).
When it crosses the Atlantic, the very thin patina of "balance" which can occasionally be discerned sticking to parts of the BBC's domestic political coverage is dispensed with altogether. Long after the American Left had given up characterising Ronald Reagan - one of their greatest presidents - as a moronic, fascistic, warmongering cowboy, the BBC refused to admit they'd got him entirely wrong; Bill Clinton had his flaws, true, but he was basically doing a great job despite a Republican Congress; George Bush was a moronic, fascistic, warmongering cowboy; Barack Obama is possibly the greatest human being who ever lived and was a fantastic president - despite every single piece of evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion.
Consequently, I don't feel in the least bit sorry for the BBC in this instance - especially as it's North America Editor, Jon Sopel, will probably consider his exclusion by the hated Trump a badge of honour. After all, it's not as if he faces the risk of being treated as a pariah by liberals in Washington DC, New York or Los Angeles, or of being carpeted by his angry bosses back here in London - just the opposite, because it's not whether your reports are unbiased that matters, rather than whether they're biased in the right way. If Sopel were to even hint that he rather admired Donald Trump or that some of the new president's policies might not be a total disaster, he'd probably find himself reassigned to the role of BBC Radio Auchtermuchty Agricultural Correspondent.
Maybe the Daily Mail was excluded for it's relentless coverage of the Stephen Lawrence case-the tragedy of a young black man murdered by white thugs-while the murders of young white men by black thugs are studiously ignored.
ReplyDeleteYou're forgetting, southern man, that anti-white violence can't be racist, because only white people can be racist. You obviously haven't been paying attention.
DeleteI rather suspect the Mail was banned on account of the vile behaviour of its Sunday edition, which seems to exist only to make Daily Mail readers wonder if they have bought the wrong newspaper, by mistake. Its treatment of President Trump has been all but indistinguishable from the BBC's and its stance on the referendum was, and is, despicable. I can't imagine what the owner is playing at, having two such different editorial policies sharing the same platform.
ReplyDeleteAs for the White House briefings issue, I applaud Trump. He was never going to get a fair hearing from CNN, the BBC and the rest. There was nothing he could have done that would have satisfied them, so why even try?
I'm saving my popcorn for what comes next. The 'autistic screeching' of the MSM can't go on indefinitely, so what will it do once it has got over its little hissy fit?
And now Trump has declined the opportunity to be humiliated at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner! You get the popcorn, I'll supply the Kia-Ora.
DeleteI was embarrassed by the rudeness of both Kuenssberg and Sopel in the same way that I am offended by the interviewing technique of Mardell. All three exhibit both a poor manner and bad manners at the same time [there is a difference]. I know the decline in deference is all very fashionable in Britain [except for in various free-loading contexts], but this type of behaviour is only a degree away from these unbearable reporters who shout out inane questions at ministers going in and out of Downing Street.
ReplyDeleteThe same embargo was forced on the BBC by this country's most successful football manager who tired of their head-line seeking impertinences.
There's a nasty odour of sanctity surrounding BBC correspondents. And like many ambitious women Kuenssberg always seems to be trying too hard at the expense of her femininity. And as for that Evan Davis or whatever the f[ That's enough. Ed. Thank You].
I was once sent to do the shouting at ministers thing outside Downing Street. It is one of the most inane, annoying, pointless and antisocial things broadcast journalists do (up there with "How did you feel when you heard that your son/daughter/husband/wife was dead?": I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself afterwards and avoided ever having to do it again. Any politician who has the courage to shout back "Shut up and mind your own damned business!" will have earned my undying admiration.
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