An Aunt With an Attitude: Britain's Bernie Goldberg exposes bias at the BBC.

The Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal ^ | June 4, 2005 | Scott Norvell

[quidnunc]

Robin Aitken has nailed it.

Those of us who pay the British Broadcast Corp.'s annual $220 license fee but grit our teeth every time we watch one of its news programs have floundered for some time in search of a term to describe what ails the corporation. Mr. Aitken, a 25-year veteran reporter now retired, has put his finger on it: institutionalized leftism.

The phrase is a play on one — "institutional racism" — currently in vogue among the professionally aggrieved. It's frequently lobbed when the forces of multicultural goodness can't point to specific proof of racism in an organization but just know deep down that something is amiss.

Mr. Aitken told London's Daily Telegraph (and subsequently confirmed in a telephone conversation) that Britain's taxpayer-funded behemoth, arguably the most powerful media brand in the world, sports a worldview remarkably at odds with a good percentage of the population to whom it purportedly answers.

The BBC's world is one in which America is always wrong, George W. Bush is a knuckle-dragging simpleton, people of faith are frightening ignoramuses, and capitalism is a rot on the fabric of social justice. Through this prism, the United Nations is the world's supreme moral authority, multiculturalism is always a force for good, war is never warranted, and U.S. Republicans sprinkle Third World children over their Cheerios for breakfast.

-snip-

[SevenofNine]

Got ping Brit Freepers on this

[Echo Talon]

hmm seem like this sort of thing is like the plague, and it has already infected the globe... institutional leftism...

[Texas Eagle]

The BBC's world is one in which America is always wrong, George W. Bush is a knuckle-dragging simpleton, people of faith are frightening ignoramuses, and capitalism is a rot on the fabric of social justice.

It really is a small world after all.

[struwwelpeter]

Last year BBC's Russian language service, looked at various Russian newspapers and examined the 'americaphobia' that was growing out of the Iraq war. One nailed it:

"What did the propagandistic CNN and BBC make out of the eve of the war? They converted the Anglo-Saxons into a giant and evil Goliath, and Iraq was given the role of a the frail little shepherd boy David. Right or wrong - that's another question. And when they refer (to the subjects in this manner), then it is understandable why the sympathies of the majority of television viewers has proven to be on the side of Iraq." (Wrote Yuri Bogomolov of Izvestiya)

[Glyndwr4Cymru]

"Britain's taxpayer-funded behemoth, arguably the most powerful media brand in the world, sports a worldview remarkably at odds with a good percentage of the population to whom it purportedly answers."

Precisely.

[driftless]

American tv is just as bad as the Beeb and sometimes worse. Many times American tv does not even bother to try to disguise its leftism. And it permeates even things like true-crime shows like "City Confidential". I was watching an episode a while back and at the start of the show, the narrator, Paul Winfield, was describing the city involved, which I forget, and some local characters. The time was 1982. The writers of the show apparently felt that only liberals watch true-crime shows because in his opening narration, Winfield mentioned the nation being in the grip of Reagan's "voodoo economics". I wanted to throw a brick threw the tv screen. Incredible bias, but like the lefties at the Beeb, they most likely believed that everybody thought Reagan's economic plans, which rescued the country from Carter's stupidity, was a joke. This leftist worldview permeates a great deal of American tv.

I was watching a show on the military channel the other day, "Fields of Armor", that focused on Vietnam. That episode could have been written by Noam Chomsky. The South Vietnamese leaders were depicted as cruel autocrats, while the NV commies and Ho Chi Minh were characterized as democratic patriots who kicked out all the evil invaders namely the U.S. and the French. The Military Channel, for crying out loud, would be the last place one would think would be one place where lefties would not be in control. I was wrong.

There's also that show "Military Blunders (?)". One episode had kicking the Cubans out of Grenada shown as a huge blunder. Of course Reagan was the president at the time. The lefties are not just in the mainstream news or entertainment. They've even wormed themselves into shows about our military. They're like a bacteria that is everywhere.

[driftless]

My wife had her sister and a number of her English cousins over for her daughter's wedding two weeks ago. I ascertained that my English in-laws are not all too keen about the French in general and joining the EU not necessarily in that order.

One in-law kept trying to draw me into a conversation concerning global warming. He obviously believed it to be a huge problem. I answered some of his questions and offered my own opinions. My thoughts about gw (if it actually exists) were not the same as his, but it was a friendly debate.

I thought it somwhat odd because last year another visiting English in-law brought up the subject of gw. I had to conclude by these separate anecdotal instances that many Brits feel gw is a huge problem. I have no idea where they could have got these ideas from (ha,ha).

[sphinx]

I met a couple of NPR staffers recently, my first encounter with the breed. (I don't move in media circles.) They truly see themselves as middle of the road. They're so deep inside their little bubble that they have no clue. I imagine the BBC staff is much the same.

[NZerFromHK]

I can say with confidence that in that country, if you dare to suggest in public the theory behind global warming is suspect, the Poms will treat you as if you have drunk koolaid. That even includes their conservatives.

The difference is (wink, wink) - people there are still not used to the idea that science has become politicized and media stories related to science is likewise stocked with political motives behind, something that (a relatively more significant proportion of) Americans have long learned.

[AnAmericanMother]

many Brits feel gw is a huge problem

Given the climate in many parts of Britain, you'd think they'd be pleased . . .

[NZerFromHK]

Have a look at my post 10. :) They really will think you are nutty if you remain sceptical to global warming.

[FreedomPoster]

"institutionalized leftism"

Nice.

I'm going to use that, frequently, from now on. It well-describes the L/MSM and academe, just for starters.

I encourage others to do the same.

[AnAmericanMother]

Won't be the first time!

My English friends think I'm insane bec. of my stand on 2nd Amendment rights. They are so ignorant of their own history that it's painful.

[NZerFromHK]

The Poms like to think of themselves at the centre of political spectrum, with perhaps a streak of conservatism interwoven into their moderation. From the surveys, news, and responses by British FRers on this site, I think their centre has been drifting to the left for quite some time and they still stank they themselves are "centre-right".

Perhaps there is a joke on British political persuasion that says:

1. a leftist stands for what a kook believed a generation ago;
2. a centrist stands for what a leftist believed a generation ago;
3. a conservative stands for what a centrist believed a generation ago;
4. a kook stands for what a conservative believed a generation ago.

[AnAmericanMother]

I guess it's inevitably, given the steady leftward drift of British politics since WWII. (What would they think of Oswald Mosley today, I wonder?)

[NZerFromHK]

Oswald Mosley? He is currently out of fashion, but from the rate of revisionism in the British Left is going he will be once again fashionable in Britain in 8 years' time. This time the Left will hail him as a progressive understanding the pain of Depression-era Britain, and a visionary on "the nature of Zionism".

I believe there is a steady stream of revisionism concerning him over the years. Books published in the 1980s still paint him as deeply unfashionable.

[driftless]

My wife grew up in England. She wishes that the climate where we currently live, Wisconsin, was like the climate where she'd like to live, Arizona. Which is why many Brits have vacation homes or villas in France and Spain ...and not off the Hebrides or Spitzbergen.

[driftless]

Thanks, I'll have to remember that one. And test it on my wife. To be sure I found all my Brit in-laws to be charming, amusing people. But without a doubt their political slant if further left than most Dems I know in America. However since I've been engaged to my wife, I've barraged her with conservative propaganda. She's still not a real conservative, but I did convince her to vote for Bush last November. I consider that one of the main accomplishments of my life...uh, behind marrying my wife of course (heh,heh).

[NZerFromHK]

I watch British TV news reports and programmes day and night so I understand what they are fed with. Add to it the fact that the British version of Reader's Digest is not as widely read and not as explicitly conservative as its American counterparts, they may think themselves as conservatives but are only moderates or centre-left by US standards. This defect is due to how they view government-run "public service" media and how they get informed.

Thanks to the Asian editions of Reader's Digest (which editorially are closer to the US version than British, Australian, NZ, and European editions are) and their articles about experts-driven political agendas and media spinning back in the 1980s, I never fall into their traps.