Am I alone in thinking the BBC is turning into an Establishment mouthpiece?

[perlmonger]

Post-Hutton, the BBC's news reporting seems to be biased toward US and world capitalist interests in far more blatant a way than before. Maybe I'm being over sensitive, but I'm seeing a real shift in emphasis.

I mentioned a lack of questioning of Republican spin in a Today report on the US presidential campaign a few posts ago; today's impetus to post comes from the BBC1 10 o'clock news, and a piece on the forthcoming Venezuelan referendum.

I read a report in the Guardian earlier today. Granted, that report is clearly partial too, but putting it next to the BBC report, it's hard to believe they're about the same country. There was no mention whatsoever of any possibility of ouside interference in Venezuelan politics by the BBC, or questioning of the motives of those campaigning against the current administration. It was clearly a case of the reasonable and acceptable civilised portion of the population facing those nasty, ignorant, poor peasants who have been OMGWTF!!! bought off by FREE FOOD from the government.

I'm afraid that when the interests of the US government and your choice of multinational corporations with a turnover exceeding that of all of South America coincides with a "peoples' campaign" against a government, the name that immediately comes to my mind is Salvador Allende...

Comments

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I'm surprised that the UK gets as much American news as it does. It's nice for me, since I'm more caught up on current events at home (and at home, if you see what I mean) than I ever was before I saw the light of Radio 4, and I think the BBC does an excellent job of reporting news from all over the world. However, there does seem to be a higher percentage of American news than European news - this could simply be that the rush of news over European elections / constitutions has passed, or that I naturally pick up on American news stories more. Do you think the amount of news relayed from another continent is higher than it should be?

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

Belatedly (just got home from the CIXen barbie), I think the amount of out-freyn news we get in the UK is too low. People in general are far too parochial in their viewpoint; news selection doesn't have to and, IMO, shouldn't reinforce that.

My concern is that the BBC should be "fair and balanced" in exactly the way that Fox News is not; in these two cases, the BBC presented a very partial viewpoint as straight news. I've no problem with partisan points of view being aired, just that it should be made clear that they are partisan...