"Impartiality 'Guidelines'
Impartiality lies at the heart of the BBC's commitment to its audiences.
Reality Bites
This is why all our political coverage is impartially anti-Tory, anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti-English.
Impartiality 'Guidelines'
Our journalists and presenters may not express personal opinions on matters of controversy. Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC programmes or other BBC output the personal views of our journalists and presenters on such matters.
Reality Bites
Such as crying over dead terrorists, sucking up to Labour ministers, or slagging off US Republican presidents, all of which we've admitted to but done nothing to rectify."
There are more on the aforementioned page and I am sure we can come up with even more...
4 comments:
Do you think? It always irritates me how enormously pro-American the BBC seems to be. Although perhaps we're talking about different things. There just seems to be no foreign news on the BBC at all now, or at least not on the television, other than American news. A good example is when there were those huge power cuts a few years ago. New York (one state) lost its power and it was all over the news; Italy (the whole country) lost its power and it appeared low down some news broadcasts on the day and disappeared before the earlier New York one did.
There is an enormous amount of reporting from America, not just of news but also "cultural" stuff - how do they do things in America? What's it like to live in Texas? and so on. When do we ever see something like this to do with France, Germany and so on except in the context of those moving-house programmes?
I sometimes wonder if it's part of some plan to make us think we are the 51st state before it happens, or something.
Check out this clip of McShane being monstered/madamed on Newsnight.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8318629.stm
Losing it big time by the end.
Donny B
Jon of Kent: I think there is a difference between bias and obsession. The BBC obsession with all things American does indeed overshadow Europe and the rest of the world but then where would you rather be stationed New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Berlin? The anti-American attitude at the BBC reached a peak during the George W. Bush presidency when the man who "stole" to 2000 election and invaded for oil became their hate figure. The election of Barack Obama leaves the BBC conflicted: America is a bully but the new President can do no wrong.
Perhaps you're right, although as to your question in the middle, I'd far sooner be in Berlin than any of those other cities - prettier, more historic, more cosmopolitan and better-connected to foreign countries. Perhaps that's why I find the American skew so incomprehensible! I can't think of even one reason why I'd rather be in any of those American cities rather than any of the European capitals I've been to, with the possible exception of London.
Perhaps about George W you're right, but I don't see very much conflict in American reporting, it just almost all seems rather fawning to me.
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