Posted on 09/24/2005 5:28:30 PM PDT by NZerFromHK
(My apologies, it appears I can't post anything here - just the link. Read the article through the link)
In particular, these quotes are worth repeating:
"But occasionally, I have heard BBC reporting on my local public radio station that sounds odd -- even at variance with the tone of NPR."
...
"I am sure that the BBC is not inventing these interviews. But the effect is that it sounds less like reporting than like caricature. Public radio listeners likely understand what is going on -- that BBC cultural assumptions about the United States remain mired in a reflex European opposition to American foreign policy. But what comes through the radio sounds mean-spirited and not particularly helpful; it probably evokes knowing glances and smirks among editors and producers back in London.
There is more right than wrong in the BBC's coverage. But when it comes to portraying certain American cultural expressions, the BBC seems to have a tin ear.
Listeners, I suspect, may be left wondering how to reconcile the differences between NPR and the BBC that they hear from their public radio stations. "
Why not just call it what it is: propaganda? The BBC serves the same function in Britain that Joseph Goebels did in Nazi Germany.
Ping!
The local NPR station in Columbus, OH broadcasts BBC every night, all night.
"Why not just call it what it is: propaganda? The BBC serves the same function in Britain that Joseph Goebels did in Nazi Germany."
Because Germany at least had the smarts to pay for broadcast reports that supported the government.
By contrast, the BBC has been hostile to Blair as well as the previous Tory governments. It's the typical "our government is evil" deal, much like our libs do here against the American gov't.
But I must say, I was rather disappointed by the lack of sympathetic posts from our friends across the pond. Maybe I just missed them in the first few days.
It seems to me the members of this forum expressed a great deal of concern, interest and charity in the London bombings, The Tsunami, etc. but nary a hint of such things come to us in the wake of our most devastating natural disaster.
NPR.org, September 13, 2005 ·
Listeners are still writing to say that much of NPR's reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is excellent and compelling.
Julie Leavitt writes:
I have been moved to tears by the various heartbreaking stories and predictions. I am so angry at your revelations about our administration's bumbling I cannot speak of it in civilized tones. And your stories that show the extraordinary heroism in everyday people allow me to hope we will survive this crisis.
While mainstream media have been sensationalizing, over-simplifying, trivializing and sometimes obfuscating the hellish reality of a once-great city, NPR, in its quiet, calm and authoritative tones, has delivered the Truth.
Never, never, never let anyone say "NPR is for elitists." Without NPR... the rest of the country would be startlingly ignorant. God bless you all, and the vital work you do.
I thought the timeline reporting on All Things Considered on Friday, Sept. 9 was especially impressive. For more than 20 minutes, NPR's Danny Zwerdling and Laura Sullivan jointly reported on the sequence of terrible events. Zwerdling and Sullivan showed how heroism was overwhelmed by a combination of incompetence and bad luck to produce the disaster that is now covered by news outlets everywhere.
Fewer Kudos and More Complaints
Ombudsmen don't receive only kudos, of course. People are naturally more motivated to complain than to praise. So there has been no shortage of suggestions about how to improve NPR's coverage.
Many of the complaints are directed at NPR's reports on government responsiveness (or lack thereof) to the catastrophe. Some listeners insist that it is NPR's job to assign specific blame for what happened.
Giving a Pass to Local Authorities?
Listener Valerie Mock writes:
I'm listening to you do the Katrina timeline at 4 p.m. Friday, and its amazing how you shift all the blame to the federal government, and gave Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin, who didn't follow his own Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan for evacuation, a complete pass. Incredible! You are amazingly proficient at leaving out critical information so people hear the story how you want to be told and what supports your agenda.
The head of the Red Cross did a television interview stating they were ready to come in Monday before the flooding, but were denied permission by the State of LA Homeland Security Office. Where was this stated in the timeline?
Daniel Zwerdling responds:
I don't recall our shifting the blame to anybody... we told as much as we could learn and just put it out there for listeners to ponder, without judgment. As for the line about Mayor Nagin... this listener seems to have missed the part in the story about 100,000 people not evacuating, partly because the city's evacuation buses didn't show up...
'Crony Incompetents'
Listener Perrin Lam sees it from another perspective:
How many other crony incompetents are damaging Health and Human Services, Department of the Interior, CIA, FBI, and the Environmental Protection Agency, just for starters? There has been an outcry over the gutting of competency by Bush for five years now...
Democracy demands of its participants a passionate participation. So does journalism, even if NPR loses access to infuriated Republicans who can't bear the light of transparency. As we watch an administration more destructive than Sept. 11 and Katrina combined, what are we to do but to demand accountability and responsibility from our elected officials?
I think that NPR has been right to concentrate on the hurricane story. It is, as NPR reminds us, the worst natural disaster in American history and we will all live the social, economic and political consequences for years to come.
NPR listeners are, in my experience, insatiable for more news about everything. But the size of this story is unprecedented, and NPR has thrown its considerable journalistic resources into it. Reporters and producers have been moved from their usual locations and beats to cover this story in ways that have stretched the news department never before imagined. NPR.org has also provided enormous amounts of information about the story, its aftermath and how listeners can donate to the recovery.
The BBC on U.S. Public Radio
But even NPR, with its recently enhanced capacity to cover the news, has its limits. Consider the massive ability of the BBC in America, however.
Public radio stations rely primarily on NPR to be the backbone of their information offerings. But NPR isn't the only news service that listeners hear on their local stations. Many public radio stations choose to air news programs provided by the BBC World Service from London.
For the most part, BBC reporting has been, as is usually is, eminently clear, comprehensive and thorough. It adds a unique and useful voice to public radio in America. The BBC also has a journalistic overview of seeing the "big story" that fits in well alongside NPR's more detailed reportage from an American perspective.
For the most part, I am glad the BBC and other foreign media are reporting this story.
But occasionally, I have heard BBC reporting on my local public radio station that sounds odd -- even at variance with the tone of NPR.
A Very British View of Katrina
Specifically, the BBC appears to be focusing on the oddities of American culture and politics. There have been numerous interviews with spokespersons that seem to represent a view of America straight out of movies like Deliverance or In The Heat of the Night. They don't sound like anything that would be heard on NPR.
The BBC also seems to portray aspects of Southern culture in a less than flattering light, especially in its interviews with local religious leaders who see Katrina as divine retribution for New Orleans' "sinfulness."
Knowing Glances and Smirks?
I am sure that the BBC is not inventing these interviews. But the effect is that it sounds less like reporting than like caricature. Public radio listeners likely understand what is going on -- that BBC cultural assumptions about the United States remain mired in a reflex European opposition to American foreign policy. But what comes through the radio sounds mean-spirited and not particularly helpful; it probably evokes knowing glances and smirks among editors and producers back in London.
There is more right than wrong in the BBC's coverage. But when it comes to portraying certain American cultural expressions, the BBC seems to have a tin ear.
Listeners, I suspect, may be left wondering how to reconcile the differences between NPR and the BBC that they hear from their public radio stations.
"By contrast, the BBC has been hostile to Blair as well as the previous Tory governments. It's the typical "our government is evil" deal, much like our libs do here against the American gov't."
I agree with your statement. To further the parallel, NPR
also follows the liberal agenda in its stories and fulfills the same propaganda role here in the USA as does the BBC in the UK.
I was in Scotland last summer and a bar tender asked me jokingly if I thought President Bush was stupid. He believed all the propaganda of the BBC. I asked this tapman if he had really thought about it. I said, "How could a stupid man lead the Republican Party to two victories over the Democrats , with all of the mass media lined up against him, and savage attacks on him personally, if he was stupid? The last thing Bush is, is stupid." I then asked him to think about the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920s and 30s, and drew a parallel to the attempts of the Islamofascists to
establish an Axis between Indonesia and Turkey, including
Iran, Pakistan,Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Palestine,
and Turkey. I said, "if you think George Bush is stupid for having our lads fighting over there, then think what might happen if these Turban Winder Fascists get the Nuclear Bomb and control over the worlds oil supplies?"
I fininshed my Guiness, popped the tapman a tip and said as I left, in good humor," If George Bush was stupid the liberals of Downing Street would have you doing stretches to BBC exercise music , so you could practise kissing your ass goodbye!"
This all happened at the Strathmore Pub on Maryhill Road in Glasgow on August the 14th, 2005.
Yeah, the BBC does a great job f__king the common man. I def___ked one. And a good man he was too!And NPR does the same job in the USA.
"And NPR does the same job in the USA."
When the NPR bashes the BBC you know something big is coming. I was so surprised by the original news.
Hatred of the United States comes from both the Left and Right in Britain. In fact the issue is less to do with socialism vs conservatism (with small c) but a fundamental question of America's national identity and 1776 and the fact that the United States came out independent due to a war and a treaty and not due to a series of historical volution and parliamentary acts like much of the "old" Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand). The root causes of British anti-Americanism can be traced all the way back to what George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin and Co had done and accomplished.
In fact we don't even need to venture out of this board to taste some of them. Just pick on any British FRers (click on their profiles page and note who has got the Union flag as their mark). Apart from Ivan (MadIvan) almost all others have been infected with some degree of the ADS (American Derangement Syndrome) - some acute, some chronic, but al, in the same condition.
A very interesting phenomenon - a country that hates its own former colony so much. I don't see that much British hatred towards Australia, despite the Aussies trouncing the Poms regularly on all aspects of sports (even including soccer!) and cultural life.
The libs here are all for government. Just not the current one.
"I don't see that much British hatred towards Australia, despite the Aussies trouncing the Poms regularly on all aspects of sports (even including soccer!) and cultural life."
Hey! Get up to date with the recent cricket Ashes series, and the last Rugby Union world cup. And trouncing us regularly at soccer indeed! Not sure what you mean by 'culteral life' unless the drinking of chilled fizzy urine-like lager is considered culture now ;)
Hmmm. Interesting observation. We were a bunch of traitorous b*stards. I guess we didn't pay proper deference. But then, when you could be hanged for making a metal shovel how much did you have to lose?
You have reminded me a while ago Jimmy Carter actually said 1776 was after all a mistaken act and he claimed the United States could wait and become independent by gradual evolution of self-governance just like what it would happen to the later "Dominions" of Britain like Canada, Australia, NZ, and South Africa. He would be a good Canadian monarchist or a British Tory by this point alone.
Well you know, Jimmy became toxic from eating all those peanuts and the long-term effects are only now being recognized. :)
Well, he is probably setting his sights now at being the First Earl of Savannah. ;-)
What a funny sight...I can literally see his big mouth saying "God save the Queen!". Too bad Jimmy, wrong country.
LOL!
Excellent analysis.
GVgirl, you can be assured that almost no-one in England wants Americans to die like that: especially not the British members of this forum. I didn't feel the need to express public sympathy at the time though I prayed privately.
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