"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 11 Oct 2005 08:28:32 -0400, DSK wrote:

Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
While I'm sure there are lefties lurking the sacred halls of the BBC,
I pretty sure that most of them aren't lefties.

And, on average, they do tend to be fairly balanced when reporting on,
well things like potato futures, subsidies and the like. Their
politics serves Labour more than the Tories, but that's to be expected
from a state subsidized organization.

And how does this pertain to being "biased" in a way that relates to
American politics?

The problem that the BBC faces, much like Reuters New Service, is that
they, more so than AP or UPI, have become obsolete in the era of
instant video from remote places in the world.

???

Considering that they have one of the biggest and most accessible news
web sites, and have all their major articles translated into all major
languages, this is hard to fathom.

In fact, I call bull****. You are just plain wrong here... about 180 off.

No - you just want to argue. It's the truth. The last time I was in
South Africa, it was CNN and the other cable outlets on in the
consulates - not World Service.

... Folks rely on cable
news like CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and FOX for instant news from around the
world - the BBC and Reuters aren't relevant anymore.

Why sit down at a specific time to watch a cable news show, which is
generally more slanted to entertainment than to giving information, when
you can get the news straight off the web, as it comes in from any
location around the world?

Ah - so if it's on the web, it must be true then?

This will come back to haunt you.

It used to be that analysts in the CIA and NSC would actually have
their radios tuned to the BBC World Service to keep abreast of cables
and reportage from around the world. Even the majors (ABC, NBC, CBS)
used the BBC as a reliable news source from the remotest parts of the
world. They were the CNN of their time.

Unfortunately, time passed them by and they are now nothing more than
a small news service serving a small nation-state in a very large
world with very real competition for hard news from the edges of the
world.

The net result is that they tend to lean towards that which they feel
is their target audience - namely, the left wing which believes in
public funding for things like the BBC (or NPR for that matter, but I
digress). It's only natural for them to do so.

Oh, I see... they're pandering to the NPR ('Communist Mouthpiece Radio')
That means they *must* be left-leaning pinko fag-loving libby-rull
traitors!!

I'll use a Bassy trick here - prove to me that I said anything like
what you said I said.

I guess 'Car Talk' is libby-rull biased too?

Ever met the Dynamic Duo, Click and Clack? I have - they couldn't be
more left wing in their politics.

So take this screed for what you will

Yeah, the rantings of a bigot who cannot face the fact of his own
ignorance & prejudices.

Oh please - don't play the bigot routine with me - I'm probably the
most unbiased person here.

... - it's unbiased commentary

Hardly. Your comments, when not directed towards boats, are heavily
biased.

You make comments on science based on your religious leanings, and try
to pretend that you know the science. You try to make even-handed
political comments, but it's clear than any criticism of President
Bush... no matter how delicately phrased or how well deserved... makes
you angry. You've lashed out at me many times because of this. It's
transparent.

Now who's lashing out? Really Doug, you just want to argue - I'm not
exactly sure why - must be some kind of inadequate social training in
elementary school or something.

I've watched the world scene as long as you and I know what I'm
talking about. You can't refute any point without getting personal
and insulting. Which means that you don't know what you are talking
about and can't base anything in fact.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m...3/09/09/do0901
..xml
On the whole, the BBC is careful to fulfil its obligations to balance
air-time for different parties. Indeed, if it were only a party dispute,
there would be little reason why we, the general public, should worry
ourselves too much about it.

No, BBC bias is not a piece of partisan trickery - it is a state of mind. So
strong is the state of mind that a great many of the acts of bias, perhaps
the majority of them, are quite unconscious. It is time to delve into that
unconscious. Hence our Beebwatch, which starts on the opinion pages today.

The BBC's mental assumptions are those of the fairly soft Left. They are
that American power is a bad thing, whereas the UN is good, that the
Palestinians are in the right and Israel isn't, that the war in Iraq was
wrong, that the European Union is a good thing and that people who criticise
it are "xenophobic", that racism is the worst of all sins, that abortion is
good and capital punishment is bad, that too many people are in prison, that
a preference for heterosexual marriage over other arrangements is
"judgmental", that environmentalists are public-spirited and "big business"
is not, that Gerry Adams is better than Ian Paisley, that government should
spend more on social programmes, that the Pope is out of touch except when
he criticises the West, that gun control is the answer to gun crime, that...
well, you can add hundreds more articles to the creed without my help.

Now, none of the above beliefs is indefensible. The problem is that all of
them are open to challenge and that that challenge never comes from the BBC.
Fine, for example, to make a documentary about the sufferings of people on
death row in the United States, but why is there never a documentary made by
someone who believes that the death penalty cuts crime?

If the BBC puts on a play about GM foods, you just know that it will be
against them (the recent offering in question was by Ronan Bennett, a
supporter of Sinn Fein/IRA, and Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the
Guardian).

During the first Countryside March, the Archers managed not to mention it at
all, but mentioned the Gay Pride March instead. It is a question of who is
being put on the spot, of where the BBC stands in relation to its chosen
subject.

Turn on at any time and you'll see what I mean, particularly where foreign
affairs are concerned. Yesterday, just after Yasser Arafat had torn up the
road map by ousting his prime minister, I heard James Naughtie asking an
Israeli spokesman why his country wouldn't give the Palestinians more
concessions.

On the same programme (the famed Today), I heard an interviewer asking an
Islamist, virtually unchallenged, to expound his belief that the men who
killed thousands in the World Trade Centre were doing the will of Allah.
Imagine such respectful treatment for some white fascist who thinks God
wants black people dead.



As to being a bigot, I honestly don't know what to say about that. I'm
sure that my children wouldn't enjoy your viewpoint about my supposed
bigotry. In fact, if you said that in front of my oldest daughter,
you'd find yourself sucking wind out the wrong side of your face she'd
slap you that hard.

The fact that you don't agree and demonstrate that with personal
insults and feigned hyperbolic indignation over something trivial only
shows that you have issues beyond normal and civil discourse.

Let's stick to boats shall we - apparently we can't even agree to
disagree.