Comment on

The BBC's cultural Marxism will trigger an American-style backlash

by Paul Dacre

Guardian 24 Jan 2007

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1997235,00.html

HarryFlashman

January 24, 2007 05:38 AM

Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail says the BBC is institutionally biased towards the Left and immediately Guradian readers jump to defend the BBC, er, kinda proves that ol' Dacre has a point otherwise why are so many "progressives" so damned keen to defend the Beeb?

Someone asks to prove actual instances of this phenomenon but of course no BBC journalist is going to start his report "Hey you know what? Vote Labour" but the whole general tone of the BBC is so skewed in favour of the soft left that it seeps into everything. As the Daily Telegraph once reasonably put it, imagine one of those BBC police drama series, there is a feisty lesbian and a distant toffy nosed duke, which one dya think's gonna be the vilain eh? Even to pose the question shows the sheer outright political conditioning that we just take for granted from the BBC.

People ask, so should the BBC give airtime to David Irving? No of course not but a little less of Robert Fisk and his ilk would be a treat. How come Mark Steyn is never invited on to Newsnight to give his take on American politics, funny how it's always some liberal hack from Harvard or Democratic Party think tank. Ann Coulter was asked on to Newsnight to explain how she could possibly claim there was institutional bias against conservatives in the mainstream media, preceding her was a five minute sneer from Paxman who sounded like a something nasty was stuck to his shoe. Coulter skewered him by saying "Gee what a warm welcome, no you're right no evidence of a liberal bias here then", old Paxo gulped heavily and floundered after that.

A couple of examples of bias completely off the top of my head, Dateline London last weekend a group of foreign journalists discussed the Big Brother brouhaha. Twice the term "White Trash" was bandied about, now does anyone seriously believe the term "Black Scum" or "Yellow Coolies" would ever be permitted to be used about poorly educated blacks or Asians on the BBC?

Barbara Plett admitted crying at the death of Yasser Arafat, can anyone in their wildest dreams imagine a BBC correspondent crying about the death of Ariel Sharon or Pope John Paul?

Last week the US attacked an Al Queda base in Somalia, immediately the BBC referred to it as a part of "America's so-called war on terror", and the correspondent on the ground spent most of the report telling us about Mogadishu and Black Hawk Down as he predicted the US was getting into another quagmire (I'm sure I saw him lick his lips at that idea). Stick to the facts Beeb, just the facts we can analyse them ourselves perfectly well thank you.

The Cronulla "riots" in Sydney last year (more like a drunken punch up) were reported as an example of white racists rampaging against innocent muslims, interspersing the report with footage of the actual murderous rampage by Lebanese gang members later without even mentioning that the latter rampage even occurred. Compare that with the in depth coverage and sympathetic reporting of the rioting by "youths" in France, no "context" was provided for the Sydneysiders, no acknowledgement that they might have grievances. No mention of allegations of police brutality either which seems compulsory with every report on anti-globalisation riots.

Well that's just a few examples off the top of my head, anyone who doesn't honestly admit that the BBC has an inherently soft-left worldview is either a fool or a liar.

Of course the Daily Mail is right wing but I'm not forced by law to fund the Daily Mail.