Another former BBC employee writes...

[steevo]

Gerard Baker of the Times Online has just wrote a very interesting article, he spent almost a decade at the BBC. Here's some excerpts after he briefly gives his impression of London:

"But worst of all; much more, much more baleful than any of these irritations, is the political, cultural and intellectual hegemony exercised by the ultimate self-serving metropolitan monopoly, the BBC. Much worse because, unlike mayors and snobs, its domination of the rest of the country is so complete and so permanent."

"You really do have to leave the country to appreciate fully how pernicious the BBC’s grasp of the nation’s cultural and political soul has become. The groupthink and assumptions implicit in almost everything broadcast by BBC News, and even less explicitly by much else of the corporation’s output, lie like a suffocating blanket over the national consciousness.

This is the mindset that sees the effortless superiority, at every turn, of benign collectivism over selfish individualism, exploited worker over unscrupulous capitalist, enlightened European over brutish American, thoughtful atheist over dumb believer, persecuted Arab over callous Israeli; and that believes the West is the perpetrator of just about every ill that has ever befallen the world — from colonialism to global warming."

"Fortunately, in the US this week, I was struck by an article on the oped pages of The New York Times, the very citadel of leftish political correctness. Written by an apparently completely sane professor at a prestigious US university and entitled “Biased Broadcasting Corporation”, it assailed the BBC’s Middle Eastern services for their consistently antiWestern tone and content.

When the editorial pages of The New York Times accuse the BBC of anti-Western bias it is worth taking notice. It is a little like Osama bin Laden accusing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of being a bit harsh on the Jews. It suggests that in other, even pretty unlikely, parts of the world, people are waking up to the menace to our values represented by the BBC. The British sadly, seem curiously content to remain in thrall to it."

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article1522471.ece

[Teddy Bear]

Great find Steevo, and an excellent article with many good points. On the same webpage I noticed a link to another interesting article: Is it wrong to accuse the BBC of Middle East bias?

[steevo]

Yes it is an interesting article. I can't help to wonder tho if he's being almost completely facetious here:

"What might work better? To say that Jeremy Bowen is letting down the BBC with his rare memo. That most employees of the BBC strive hard to be fair and that Bowen is departing from the norm.

Just a thought."

But the point is worth a thought, at least a small one... isn't it? I'm even inclined to think Gerard Baker laid it on too heavy

[Teddy Bear]

I don't know if it's possible to 'lay it on too heavy' as far as describing BBC bias of the kind that Baker here is.
Interestingly, while searching for a particular article today I came across the fact that back in December last year, the Israeli cable company 'YES' has pulled the plug on the BBC and instead uses Al-Jazeera for their English broadcasts. Says it all really. I'll be posting the link for this on a separate topic.

Also here is a video link of the main features of a Sky debate recently questioning the Iraq War, between Daniel Finkelstein of The Times, whose article appears above, and George Galloway, treating the debate and his oppnent with his usual 'Respect', that he named his insidious party after.